"The EU condemns the use of violence that has produced a high number of victims among the members of the flotilla and demands an immediate, full and impartial inquiry into the events and the circumstances surrounding them," EU High Foreign Policy Representative Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

She spoke after an emergency meeting of member states' envoys to Brussels to discuss the incident, in which at least 10 people were killed after six ships tried to break Israel's blockade of the Islamist-controlled Palestinian territory.

"The EU does not accept the continued policy of closure. It is unacceptable and politically counterproductive. We need to urgently achieve a durable solution to the situation in Gaza," Ashton said.

The EU has a 300 million euro ($367 million) aid budget for the Palestinians.

Israel's military said its troops came under gunfire and knife attack while boarding the aid ships. The convoy of aid and foreign activists had set off in international waters off Cyprus on Sunday in defiance of the Israeli-led blockade of Gaza and warnings that it would be intercepted.

Israel says food, medicine and medical equipment are allowed into Gaza regularly. It says an embargo is needed to stop weapons and materials that can be used to produce them from reaching Hamas Islamists.
 

In Paris, hundreds of people clashed Monday afternoon with police near the Israeli Embassy after blocking traffic to protest the Gaza atrocity.

Police were responding by firing tear gas. Protesters, some covering their faces in black-and-white Palestinian scarves, were seen charging toward the Israeli Embassy near the Champs-Elysees.

The clashes were part of swelling demonstrations that began earlier when riot police forcibly drove back scores of protesters demonstrating outside the embassy.

Monday's protests came amid an international outcry over the raid by Israeli forces on ships taking humanitarian aid from Turkey to Gaza.