UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) ? A long-awaited U.N. report on an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound ship that killed nine Turks declares that Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal but that the Jewish state used unreasonable force.
The report, made public on Thursday, said Israeli commandos faced "organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers" in the incident last year.
But in criticism of Israel, it said the amount of force used by the Israelis on board the Mavi Marmara, the largest in a flotilla of six ships that the crew said were delivering aid to Palestinians in Gaza, was "excessive and unreasonable."
Israel calls its Gaza blockade a precaution against arms reaching Hamas and other Palestinian guerrillas by sea. Palestinians and their supporters say the blockade is illegal collective punishment, a view some U.N. officials have echoed.
The report, prepared by a four-man U.N. panel headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer, was due to be released on Friday but the New York Times obtained a copy and posted it on its website.
The release of the so-called Palmer report was delayed repeatedly to allow for rapprochement talks between Israel and Turkey, whose relations were badly affected by the incident on May 31 last year.
The United States has been concerned about the rift between two countries that had been strategic partners in an increasingly stormy Middle East.
The report was originally expected to be completed in February. But Turkey and Israel, who both had representatives on the panel, were never able to reach an agreement on what happened and what the conclusions of the report should be, diplomats and U.N. officials said. As a result, one U.N. official said, the report is not a "consensus document."
RIGHT TO SEARCH
Israel, however, expressed some satisfaction.
"The bottom line is that the Israeli actions were legal," a senior Israeli official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "It (the report) says the naval blockade was legal under international law."
It is also significant that the report confirmed Israel's right to search ships in international waters, the official said. He said he hoped Israel and Turkey could put the flotilla incident behind them and rebuild their once-strong ties.
"I hope that we (Israel and Turkey) can ... go forward in our relationship," he said. Israel had no official reaction and foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said it would only comment once the report was officially released.
Turkey's U.N. mission had no immediate reaction either.
Ankara has demanded that Israel apologize for the raid, but the Israeli government has made clear it will not issue a formal apology.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced regret over the killings. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a centrist in the conservative coalition government, has stirred debate inside the cabinet by proposing Israel offer a diluted apology in hope of restoring ties with Turkey, once an important Muslim ally.
Barak had also thought such a step would help indemnify Israel's navy personnel against lawsuits abroad.
(Additional reporting by Mayaan Lubell in Jerusalem; Writing by Patrick Worsnip; Editing by Will Dunham)
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