The Israeli navy intercepted and boarded a freighter trying to break the blockade of Gaza yesterday and ordered it to make for Israel’s nearest Mediterranean port, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said.
“The navy boarded the vessel, stopped it and it is now bringing it to Ashdod,” Barak said in broadcast remarks.
Al-Jazeera television quoted a correspondent aboard the vessel as saying the Israeli navy had fired shots. An Israeli army spokesman said no gunfire was used in taking control of the vessel.
The freighter left Lebanon and docked in Cyprus before sailing for Gaza. The captain was told repeatedly that he would not be allowed to take it into Gaza waters, the army spokesman said.
Confronted on Wednesday by Israeli navy vessels, the ship’s captain said he was changing course for the Egyptian port of El Arish 45km west of the Gaza-Egypt border.
But early yesterday, the ship turned and started heading back toward Gaza, Israel said.
“It entered Gaza territorial waters in a suspicious way,” the army spokesman said. “They were not acting in accordance with regular naval procedures, which raised suspicion they may be smuggling something or endangering Israeli security.”
Al-Jazeera said the ship was carrying humanitarian aid from Lebanese and Arab charities destined for those made homeless by Israel’s devastating offensive.
Meanwhile UN humanitarian chief John Holmes on Wednesday slammed the confiscation of UN aid supplies by Hamas personnel in the Gaza Strip and demanded that the aid be returned immediately.
“The United Nations cannot accept under any circumstances the diversion of aid by a party to a conflict,” Holmes said in a statement.
He warned that such actions could jeopardize delivery of aid to meet the basic humanitarian needs of Gaza’s 1.5 million people.
Earlier on Wednesday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said Hamas had seized hundreds of food parcels and thousands of blankets destined for Gaza civilians.
The Hamas government’s social affairs minister Ahmed al-Kurd implicitly confirmed the aid was seized, arguing that it should be distributed to a wider section of the Gaza population.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
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