Israeli warships attack at least one of the six ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists and aid to the blocked Gaza Strip, killing ten and injuring an unknown number of people on board, an Arabic settlement news channel, and a Turkish television network reported early Monday.
A confidential Israeli television station said that Israeli forces captured flotilla early Monday and fired at least one of the vessels.
Turkey's NTV television sent photos of the ships of several persons who were said to be damaged.
Israel has warned it will not allow the flotilla to reach Gaza, which has been under a blockade by Israel and Egypt since 2007 when the militant Palestinian group Hamas took organizes of the area.
Three Israeli missile boats left their base in Haifa late Sunday to prevent ships from entering the 32-kilometer exclusion zone Israel enforces along Gaza's Mediterranean coast.
Aid ships carrying more than 600 pro-Palestinian activists and 10,000 tons of supplies, left the Gaza Strip Sunday, defying a radio warning from the Israeli Navy not to approach the area. An Israeli spokesman for the Navy told them they were approaching a blockaded area and asked them to go to the Israeli port of Ashdod or return.
Organisers from the Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish human rights group says the convoy, including three cargo ships and three passenger ships with medical provisions and cement and other building resources, which Israel has forbidden to enter Gaza because of security issues.
Activists say that the building supplies intended to help the residents of Gaza to rebuild homes destroyed during Israel's military offensive in the Islamist-controlled territory early last year.
UN officers and global aid workers say Israel's three-year blockade of Gaza has destroyed the local economy, and failed to weaken Hamas grip on power.
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