Turkey has led international calls to isolate Israel after its army commandos shot dead as least 10 activists during a raid on a flotilla trying to deliver aid to the Gaza strip
By Richard Spencer, Adrian Blomfield and Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem
Government ministers defended the actions of its troops fiercely after the pre-dawn raid, alleging they had come under attack from violent forces allied to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda.
But as Israeli ambassadors were called into foreign ministries across Asia and Europe, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was forced to scrap a meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington, heading back home to deal with the crisis.
The deaths are likely to bring indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, only restarted earlier this month, to a crashing halt.
Israel's relations with Turkey, once its only friend in the Muslim world, were described as irreparably damaged. At least six of the dead were Turkish citizens.
The UN security council held an emergency session and were expected to pass an draft agreement calling for an international inquiry into the incident.
