Israel Mounts Investigation Into Flotilla Raid

Defying calls for an international inquiry into last week's Israeli raid on an aid ship headed for Gaza, the Israeli government announced that it will instead conduct an internal investigation of the deadly confrontation, alongside a separate military probe. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the investigation will attempt to determine whether the raid "met with the standards of international law," and that the soldiers involved will not be questioned, "neither in Hebrew nor in English." Barak did intimate, however, that Israel may re-examine its four-year blockade of the Gaza Strip and "the possibilities of different adjustments and perhaps additional ways to achieve the same goals of the blockade, by reducing as far as possible the potential for friction." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that two international observers, one of whom will be American, will sit on the investigative panel to keep the proceedings impartial.