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“Israel expresses sorrow for those killed in the takeover,” the Israeli Cabinet said in a statement, according to one Hebrew-language website.

Israeli television, citing foreign media reports, said the death toll could be as high as 16.

“The images are certainly not pleasant. I can only voice regret at all the fatalities,” Trade and Industry Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Israel’s Army Radio.

The Israeli military said its soldiers were attacked with knives, clubs and other objects when they boarded one of the vessels. A military spokesman said protesters grabbed a commando’s weapon and soldiers came under fire. But protest organizers insisted they were unarmed.

Protest organizers described a chaotic early-morning takeover in international waters.

A flotilla spokeswoman, Greta Berlin, told Israel Radio that the confrontation was broadcast live from a Turkish boat participating in the flotilla. The footage, she said, clearly showed Israeli soldiers landing on the deck and opening fire on civilians.

“The minute their feet hit the deck, they started to shoot,” Berlin said.

She added, “Something happened to your country to make it think it is all right” to shoot civilians.

Israel Defense Force sources told Ynet, a popular Hebrew-language website, that the “organizers were not innocent — they demonstrated violence against the soldiers. They were prepared for their arrival.”

Israeli radio military analyst Yoav Limor blamed the military for underestimating the resistance it would encounter. “There was serious violence” that forced the soldiers to open fire, he said.

Video images released by the protesters appeared to show passengers beating commandos with clubs as the soldiers rappelled onto the vessel’s deck. A live video feed, which showed bloodstains and injured people, was abruptly cut.

The Turkish government issued a statement that “strongly protested” Israel’s military action, according to Associated Press. The interception on the convoy is “unacceptable…. Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behavior,” the statement read.

Turkish media reported angry protesters shouting “Damn Israel!” outside the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul.

Israel put its security forces on alert in case of demonstrations by the nation’s Arab minority.

Flotilla organizers say they were carrying first-aid supplies and medical professionals in the event of casualties, but Adam Shapiro, the husband of one flotilla leader, said that “we thought that the possibility that Israeli soldiers would shoot” was remote.

Flotilla organizers said they carried no weapons.

Before they consider that option, they might want to watch this video of Dr. Gregory Ryskin, Professor of Chemical Engineering at Northwestern University. In the video, Dr. Ryskin explains how a prehistoric methane gas explosion could explain the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, a mysterious period in Earth history where 95% of all species went extinct.

Euro zone trade unions are preparing for possible confrontations in the coming week if governments impose austerity measures or labor reforms unilaterally.

But ministers made clear they were ready to take unpopular steps to prevent the Greek debt crisis spreading to their economies, although doubts are growing about whether the Spanish government in particular has enough support to get its way.

Budget Minister Francois Baroin indicated on Sunday that France should not take for granted its AAA rating, which allows Paris to borrow relatively cheaply on international markets and finance its big budget deficit.

“The objective of keeping the AAA rating is an objective that is a stretch, and it is an objective that, in fact, partly informs the economic policies we want to have,” Baroin said.

“We must maintain our AAA rating, reduce our debt to avoid being too dependent on the markets, and we must do this for the long term,” he told Canal+ TV in an interview.

Baroin later clarified that the target was “a demanding (objective) which we’re committed to.”

France has forecast its deficit will hit 8 percent of gross domestic product this year, but aims to bring it down to within the European Union’s 3 percent limit by 2013.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), a London-based consultancy, has warned Greek ministers they will be unable to escape their debt trap without devaluing their own currency to boost exports. The only way this can happen is if Greece returns to its own currency.

Greek politicians have played down the prospect of abandoning the euro, which could lead to the break-up of the single currency.

Speaking from Athens yesterday, Doug McWilliams, chief executive of the CEBR, said: “Leaving the euro would mean the new currency will fall by a minimum of 15%. But as the national debt is valued in euros, this would raise the debt from its current level of 120% of GDP to 140% overnight.

“So part of the package of leaving the euro must be to convert the debt into the new domestic currency unilaterally.”

Greece’s departure from the euro would prove disastrous for German and French banks, to which it owes billions of euros.

McWilliams called the move “virtually inevitable” and said other members may follow.

“The only question is the timing,” he said. “The other issue is the extent of contagion. Spain would probably be forced to follow suit, and probably Portugal and Italy, though the Italian debt position is less serious.

The options he suggests – boycotting BP products, charging for the cleanup, even nationalizing the company – are less than satisfying.

Here’s another possibility: How about barring BP from the federal trough?

According to USASpending.gov, BP has received more than $9 billion in defense contracts since 2000. Contracts with Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Commerce and other federal agencies total additional millions.

Pro Publica reports that the Environmental Protection Agency is considering a ban on BP getting government contracts:

Over the past 10 years, BP has paid tens of millions of dollars in fines and been implicated in four separate instances of criminal misconduct that could have prompted this far more serious action. Until now, the company’s executives and their lawyers have fended off such a penalty by promising that BP would change its ways. That strategy may no longer work.

The EPA issued a statement saying it could issue a ban after reviewing “the frequency and pattern of the incidents, corporate attitude both before and after the incidents, changes in policies, procedures, and practices.”

A total ban would not only cancel company contracts, but would prevent BP from drilling on federal land, including offshore sites.

The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.

The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.