DEFENCE OF GAZA SPARKS DIPLOMATIC CRISIS

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Israeli marines stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza on Monday and 10 pro-Palestinian activists were killed, triggering a profound diplomatic crisis.
Israel’s allies voiced shock and outrage at the bloody end to a bid by international campaigners to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Its Navy stopped six ships ferrying 700 people and 10,000 tonnes of supplies toward the Islamist-run Palestinian Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Canada and expressed full support for the Navy operation, cut short a visit to North America that was to have ended on Tuesday with a meeting at the White House with US President Barack Obama.
That meeting had seemed intended to soothe US-Israel ties, which have been strained by differences over recently revived peace talks with the Palestinians. But Obama must also balance relations with Israel, which is popular with American voters, and those with an outraged Turkey and other Muslim allies.
As the captured foreign vessels were escorted into Israel’s port of Ashdod, accounts remained sketchy of the pre-dawn interception out in the Mediterranean, in which marines stormed aboard from dinghies and rappelled down from helicopters.
Senior Israeli defence officials said 10 activists died on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish cruise ship carrying 581 people, after commandos came under fire, including with weapons that the activists had snatched from the boarding party. Seven of the troops and 20 protesters were injured, the military said.
Israel imposed a communications blackout on those aboard the convoy and other accounts of events were not available. Consular officials were at Ashdod seeking access to detained foreigners. Some Israeli media cited death tolls as high as 19, but an Army spokesman later said he was certain of only nine deaths. It was unclear who the casualties were. A senior Israeli naval officer said most of the dead were Turks. But the convoy also featured Americans, Israelis, Palestinians and many Europeans.
Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, blamed the activists for the violence and branded them allies of Israel’s Islamist enemies Hamas and Al Qaeda. Had they got through, he said, they would have opened an arms smuggling route to Gaza.
There was no question of easing the blockade, he said. Video from the convoy apparently showed a commando shinning down a rope and clashing with a man wielding a stick. The man later appeared to try to stab the marine.
Israel told its tourists in Turkey to stay in their hotels. A minister admitted that plans to maintain its blockade on Hamas, the Islamist group that rules Gaza, while avoiding an international incident had backfired in spectacular fashion: “It’s going to be a big scandal, no doubt about it,” trade minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said.