JERUSALEM — Facing a deepening crisis in Israel’s relations with Turkey, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday emphatically ruled out an apology for a deadly raid on a Turkish ship leading an aid flotilla to Gaza last year but said he hoped the dispute between the two countries could somehow be resolved.
In his first public remarks since Turkey announced Friday that it was expelling Israel’s ambassador, Netanyahu expressed “regret for the loss of life” in the naval raid and asserted that Israel did not want to worsen relations, but he gave no ground on the Turkish demand for an apology.
Turkey’s downgrading of relations with Israel followed the leak of a U.N. report on the May 2010 flotilla incident. It concluded that Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal but that its troops used excessive force in the raid on the ship, in which nine Turks were killed.
