Turkey will sever diplomatic ties with Israel unless it apologises over the commando raid on an aid convoy to Gaza in which nine Turks died, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying earlier on Monday.
Turkey has until now called for an international probe into the raid but in a break with that position, Davutoglu did not reject the creation of Israel's own commission to investigate the raid.
Israel will never say sorry for defending itself, a senior government official said on Monday after Turkey demanded an apology for a deadly commando raid on an aid convoy to Gaza.
"When you want an apology, you don't use threats or ultimatums," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP.
However Israel's reaction has not been popular. A Baird Maritime poll has found that 79 percent of respondents do not think Israel had the right to attack the Turkish dominated flotilla.
The UN had proposed an international commission headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister and maritime law expert Geoffrey Palmer to investigate the assault.
However, Mr Netanyahu has said the objective of the six-ship aid flotilla that Israel forcibly diverted to its port of Ashdod was not to bring humanitarian assistance, but to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Source: AFP
