By Jeffrey Heller
(Reuters) - Israel detained or deported on Tuesday hundreds of activists who were on Turkish-backed aid ships seized en route to Gaza, and the U.N. called for impartial investigation into the deaths of nine people in the takeover.
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, an enclave run by Hamas Islamists, next week.
Big questions were unanswered: how far Israel could continue to blockade 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after condemnation from allies, and how it misjudged the situation and dropped marines on Monday onto a Turkish ship where they felt they had to open fire to save their lives.
Activists were held incommunicado by Israel but their accounts began to emerge after some were deported.
