Washington: The Obama administration walked a fine line in response to Israel's lethal raid on a flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza, calling on Israel to let more aid into the beleaguered territory but stopping short of condemning the US ally for using deadly force.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton supported a UN Security Council statement that condemned the "acts" that cost the lives of nine pro-Palestinian activists off the Gaza coast. But US officials did not say whether they blamed Israel or the activists for the bloodshed.
The UN statement also called for a prompt and credible investigation of the events Monday, in which Israel seized a number of vessels and took hundreds of activists, many of them Turkish, off the ships to Israel.
Deputy US ambassador to the United Nations, Alejandro Wolff, suggested to reporters in New York that some of the activists may have sought to provoke the Israelis into a harsh response.
"This sort of incident when you have statements coming from some of the participants in the flotilla, suggesting that maybe it was not solely to provide humanitarian assistance, but it may have been intended to provoke, not that everyone on that flotilla had that intention, give pause," Wolff said.
In a jab at Israel, Clinton said the situation in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas and under an Israeli blockade, is "unsustainable and unacceptable."
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