General Eiland, a former national security adviser, said in his briefing that more ships might try to breach Israel’s Gaza blockade and so lessons from what happened on the Turkish flotilla were important.

In fact, a Libyan vessel arrived in the area of Crete on Monday, with its crew saying it was scheduled to reach Gaza on Wednesday. Israeli officials have vowed to prevent it from getting through.

Israel created a blockade against Gaza, both by land and sea, three years ago, after Hamas, which had won elections the previous year, took full control of the Palestinian coastal strip. The goal of the blockade was to put pressure on Hamas, which rejects Israel’s existence and was firing crude rockets at its southern communities. Hamas has held an Israeli soldier captive in Gaza for four years. Israel has thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails and also set Hamas leaders and militants as targets.

The blockade, joined by Egypt, has suffocated the Gazan economy and barred people from coming and going except in medical emergencies, although food has always been let in. Following the takeover of the flotilla and the deaths on board, international pressure forced Israel to ease the land blockade.

Now the blockade is largely limited to the sea and to materials, like steel, that Israel fears could be turned into weapons by Hamas. There remains, however, intense international opprobrium because of the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the sense that the policy has done little to weaken Hamas.

General Eiland’s report finds that there was at least one gun on board because an Israeli soldier took a bullet in the knee that was not from an Israeli weapon. It also contends that Israeli soldiers most likely fired only after having been fired upon first.

“All the shooting was either when the soldiers were in immediate danger of their lives or when they had to rescue fellow soldiers,” said a senior official involved in the investigation, speaking under military rules of anonymity. He added that there were between four and six events in which Israeli soldiers were fired upon with live fire by those on board.

Passengers aboard the flotilla have mostly told a very different story, with some witnesses accusing the commandos of shooting randomly as they came aboard.