JERUSALEM – Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip and its deadly raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for the coastal enclave last year conform with international law, an Israeli probe concluded on Sunday.
The May 2010 raid, in which nine Turkish activists were killed, soured relations between Ankara and Israel and earned the Jewish state widespread international censure. Israel set up its own commission of inquiry into the raid, headed by former judge Yaakov Tirkel, after rejecting criticism its troops had reacted with excessive force and outside of the international law.
“The naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip… was legal pursuant to the rules of international law,” the six-member Tirkel commission said in its report released Sunday. “The actions carried out by Israel on May 31, 2010, to enforce the naval blockade had the regrettable consequences of the loss of human life and physical injuries,” the report said.
“Nonetheless… the actions taken were found to be legal pursuant to the rules of international law.”
