Gaza flotilla death-toll 'higher than nine'

• An unidentified British activist celebrates being freed by Israel. Picture: Getty

The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, confirmed all 34 Britons held after the raid had been accounted for.

Activist Sarah Colbourne, from Hackney, east London, who was on the flotilla, disputed Israel's tally of nine dead and said she feared the death toll would rise as people remained missing.

Speaking at a news conference at the TUC headquarters in London, and still dressed in her prison uniform, Ms Colbourne said she hoped the "horrific deaths" would act as a "wake-up call internationally".

Ms Colbourne, campaign and operations director for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, recalled how one man was fatally shot in the head and said she later saw four bodies laid out in the saloon after commandos intercepted the ships.

She said she saw "bullets flying all over the place" and heard the whirr of helicopter blades as soldiers dropped down on to the roof.

Earlier, she said: "I couldn't even count the amount of ships that were in the water. It was literally bristling with ships, helicopters and gunfire. It was horrific, absolutely horrific."

Activist Hasan Nowarah, from Glasgow, was one of four Scots on the flotilla, and the first to be sent home because he injured his leg during the raid. He said: "The minute they landed into our vessels, they were shooting and killing innocent people."

Mr Nowarah, who runs the Glasgow-based Justice for Palestine, said a soldier hit him on his back and leg with his gun.

Meanwhile, Theresa McDermott, a postal worker from Edinburgh, is due to arrive in the UK this evening on a flight paid for by the Turkish authorities.

Ms McDermott and fellow activists Ali El-Awaisi, 21, from Dundee, and Hassan Ghani, from Glasgow, yesterday joined more than 10,000 attending the funerals in Istanbul of eight of the nine activists killed during Monday's pre-dawn raid by Israeli commandos on six aid ships.

Dr Khalid El-Awaisi, Ali El-Awaisi's older brother, said his brother told him during a phone call yesterday he had been tortured and interrogated for 12 hours by Israeli soldiers aboard ship.

"He told me the soldiers hit and punched him and pushed him from one to the other. He said he had his hands tied and was interrogated about why he had visited Syria and they asked him if he was working for the Syrians," Dr El-Awaisi said.

He said their parents lived in Syria where his father was a faculty dean at Kalmoon University, and that his brother had visited for a family wedding.

Last night, First Minister Alex Salmond said Israel's actions were "insupportable, unacceptable and should stop forthwith".

He told MSPs that he had written to the Israeli ambassador "in the strongest possible terms."