Israel to accept UN flotilla report "with reservations"

A senior Israeli official said his country would accept "with specific reservations" the United Nations report on Israel's response last year to a flotilla of boats carrying aid for the Gaza strip, which left nine dead.

Reuters

The document was leaked and published in Thursday's New York Times, but has not yet been officially released.

The unnamed Israeli official stressed that the report had declared legal Israel's naval blockade of the Palestinian territory, according to the leaked text.

The report follows a UN-mandated enquiry.

It concludes that Israel used "excessive" violence when, on 31 May 2010, its special forces killed nine in the attack on the Turkish boat, the "Mavi Marmara", which led the flotilla.

But it also said the flotilla organisers had been reckless and that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas movement, is legal.