Police struggled to hold back an angry crowd of hundreds outside the Israeli consulate in Turkey’s biggest city of Istanbul.

Israel’s army said more than 10 people died when its forces stormed the flotilla of aid-carrying ships, while a Turkish charity involved with the fleet put the death toll at least 15 dead, many of them Turks.

In Europe, condemnation was equally swift. The European Union demanded Israel mount a “full inquiry” into the killing of at least 10 people in the raid.

France said that “nothing can justify” the violence of Israel’s Gaza ship raid, while German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was “deeply concerned” about the deaths. The bloody ending to the high-profile mission to deliver supplies to Gaza came on the eve of a meeting in the US between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The ships, carrying more than 700 passengers, were on the last leg of an aid mission to deliver some 10,000 tonnes of supplies to Gaza, which has been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007.