UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon today urged Israel to lift its Gaza blockade, saying that if the country had heeded international calls to do so the raid on a Gaza aid ship flotilla would not have happened.
Israel earlier deported hundreds of activists who were on Turkish-backed aid ships seized by Israeli commandos en route to Gaza. The siege resulted in the deaths of at least nine people. The UN has asked that the incident be investigated in an impartial manner.
Mr Ban said another "most depressing" issue was the need for the release by Israel of the detainees and the delivery of the humanitarian aid to Gaza, stressing he was in talks about the issue with the Jewish state and
UN staff on the ground.
"Had the Israeli government heeded international calls and my own strong and urgent and persistent call to lift the blockade of Gaza, this would not have happened," he added.
While Israel's diplomats worked to calm international outrage, its navy said it was ready to intercept another aid vessel that organisers of the flotilla planned to dispatch to the Gaza Strip next week.
Activists were held incommunicado by Israel but their accounts began to emerge after some were deported.
"We did not resist at all, we couldn't even if we had wanted to. What could we have done against the commandos who climbed aboard?" said Mihalis Grigoropoulos, who was aboard a vessel behind the Mavi Marmara, the cruise ship on which most of the violence occurred.
"The only thing some people tried was to delay them from getting to the bridge, forming a human shield. They were fired upon with plastic bullets and were stunned with electric devices," Mr Grigoropoulos told NET TV at Athens airport.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned from Canada after cancelling White House talks that had been planned for today, was to convene his cabinet to discuss the fallout from what Israeli newspapers termed a blundered operation.
US President Barack Obama, who has succeeded in reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations through US-mediated indirect talks, said he wanted the full facts soon and regretted the loss of life.
Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan urged Israel to lift what he called its "inhumane embargo" of Gaza as soon as possible. Once-close Muslim ally Turkey has described Israel's storming of the ships as "state terrorism".
After more than 10 hours of closed-door talks that gave rise to conflicting interpretations, the UN Security Council called for "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards". It also condemned "those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 civilians and many wounded".
Earlier Israeli reports had put the death toll at 10. The use of the word "acts" instead of "act" - the term preferred by Turkey - suggested that activists who attacked the Israeli boarding party also bore some responsibility.
Some 700 activists were processed in and around Israel's port of Ashdod, where the six ships of the blockade-running convoy had been escorted. Among those detained are seven Irish passport holders including members of the Free Gaza Movement’s Irish affiliate.
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign said its member, Shane Dillon, was being deported, while Dr Fintan Lane and Fiachra Ó Luain were contesting their deportation and will be brought to court within 72 hours.
Also detained in Israel were two naturalised Irish citizens originally from Libya and now resident in Ireland; an Australian journalist travelling on an Irish passport; and a Polish-Irish activist.
Eftaima Najjair, wife of Al Mahdi Alharati, one of the detained Irish passport holders, said she was "shocked" at the news. "We have no information so I'm afraid that he might be injured. We thought there would be no risk in taking part in the flotilla," she said.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has criticised Israel for denying Ireland's Ambassador consular access to those in Ashdod.
Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip today, letting Palestinians cross until further notice amid a storm of international criticism of Israel's blockade of the enclave. Egypt's Rafah crossing point is the only border post from Gaza that is not fully controlled by Israel. Cairo has opened it only sparingly since Hamas Islamists, who are allied to Egypt's opposition, seized control in Gaza three years ago.
The 24-line United Nations statement, read to the 15-nation council by its president, Ambassador Claude Heller of Mexico, said the body "deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza".
"The council, in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least 10 (sic) civilians and many wounded," it added. Council statements carry less weight than resolutions, but unlike them have to be unanimous.
Diplomats said that in tortuous negotiations between Turkey - which had brought the matter before an emergency session of the council along with Lebanon - and Israel's ally the United States, argument had raged over whether the word "act" should be singular or plural.
Referring to the UN call for "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards," diplomats said the word "independent" had been dropped from early drafts of the statement at US insistence because it suggested that the investigation should not be carried out by Israel itself.
But, speaking to journalists after the statement was adopted, Mr Heller said "impartial" meant the same as "independent" and that the United Nations should determine who would carry out the investigation.
US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff disagreed. "We . . . support an Israeli investigation . . . and have every confidence that Israel can conduct a credible and impartial, transparent, prompt investigation internally," he told reporters.
Reuters