evidence: Lows: Netanyahu was criticized abroad for supporting a proposed loyalty oath that would compel newly naturalized citizens to pledge allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish" state. Netanyahu also received a lot of flak after Israeli troops intercepted a flotilla of aid ships carrying relief supplies to Gaza on May 31; nine activists aboard the ships died after resisting the Israeli soldiers boarding their vessels. But his biggest domestic challenge came in the beginning of December, when a fire raging in the Carmel forest killed 43 people, forced the evacuation of 17,000, and led to condemnation of the country's emergency forces as well as calls for Netanyahu's resignation. Police eventually identified a 14-year-old boy who tossed coals from his hookah into the woods as the instigator of the deadly blaze.