The Israeli military have stormed international ships carrying humanitarian aid to the occupied Gaza Strip, with 10 people reported killed, the mission organizers said on Monday.

"Israeli commandos dropped from helicopter onto deck of Turkish ship, immediately opened fire on unarmed civilians," the Free Gaza Movement reported on the Twitter microblogging site.

"Don't know fate of other boats," it said, adding that Israeli TV reported that 10 people had been killed.

Palestinian media earlier quoted Turkish and Arab TV channels as reporting that Israeli soldiers had boarded at least one ship about 150 km (90 miles) off Gaza's coast, with two people killed and 50 injured.

The Israeli military have not commented on the reports.

The six-ship Freedom Flotilla carrying some 10,000 tons of aid to Gaza and 600 human rights activists left international waters off Cyprus's coast on Sunday.

Israel, which has enforced a blockade against Gaza almost uninterrupted since the radical Islamic group Hamas took control of the enclave in the summer of 2007, has called the mission a "provocation" and threatened to intercept the ships and deport those aboard.

Many of the 1.5 million people living in Gaza lack sufficient supplies of clean water and other vital items.

GAZA, May 31 (RIA Novosti)