A Libyan ship with aid for Gaza has docked in an Egyptian port after Israel’s navy stopped it from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The director of the port of el-Arish, Gamal Abdel Maqsoud, says the ship would unload its cargo yesterday and hand it over to the Red Crescent for delivery to Gaza by land.
Israeli missile ships stopped the aid vessel from reaching Gaza, which has been blockaded for three years. An al-Jazeera reporter on board the aid boat said Israeli ships were arrayed in a “wall” meant to prevent the Amalthea from continuing toward the Palestinian territory
The Gadhafi foundation, headed by the son of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, said the ship, the Amalthea, left Greece on Saturday carrying food and medical supplies.
PERMISSION TO DOCK
Maqsoud, said the Libyan boat radioed on Wednesday evening asking permission to dock in el-Arish.
Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, told reporters that Cairo had agreed to let the Amalthea through, and that as soon as the boat docked, its cargo would be unloaded and handed over to the Red Crescent.
In recent days, with the Amalthea’s organizers insisting it would go to Hamas-ruled Gaza and Israel saying it would not allow that to happen, the stage appeared set for a showdown on the high seas.
Framing the faceoff was Israel’s botched attempt to block a similar Gaza-bound aid ship in May, an incident that ended with the deaths of nine pro-Palestinian activists — eight Turks and a Turkish-American on one of them — in a violent confrontation on board.
Despite the Israeli insistence that it would not allow the ship through the blockade, Hamas officials in Gaza had been urging the Amalthea to press on. Speaking at a ceremony naming a street after those killed in the May 31 confrontation, Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the territory’s Hamas government, called the Libyan ship “our moving hope in the Mediterranean Sea.”
“Beware not to fall into the trap and stop in a port other than Gaza,” he said as the street was named “The Martyrs of the Freedom Flotilla.”
Conflicting messages on Tuesday created confusion over whether the Amalthea intended to try to run the blockade or not.
A spokesman for the Libyan mission, Youssef Sawani, insisted the ship would try to reach the Palestinian territory, but said those aboard would not violently resist any efforts to stop them.
He later said in Tripoli that after mediation from the EU, the organizers agreed to enter el-Arish port and send the goods by yesterday to Gaza.
“Our aim is not provocation or political propaganda,” he told reporters in Tripoli.
The deaths of the nine activists in the May 31 raid focused international attention on Israel’s blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamic militant and anti-Israel Hamas violently overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007.
CRITICISM
The international criticism forced Israel to ease its land blockade of the territory but it has maintained the naval embargo, insisting it is vital to keep weapons out of Hamas’ hands.
Restrictions remain on materials like cement and steel that Israel says could be used for military purposes, and Gaza’s 1.5 million people, confined to the territory, have been plagued by other problems, including a chronic cash shortage.
George Saba, who manages a branch of the Cairo Amman Bank in the territory, said on Wednesday that because of cash shortages the bank could not pay this month’s salary to government officials.
Palestinian officials in the West Bank were trying to arrange a transfer of Israeli cash into Gaza to alleviate the shortage.
Also on Wednesday, a Gaza health official said a 42-year-old Palestinian woman was killed and four other Gazans were wounded late on Tuesday by an Israeli tank shell.
The military said it opened fire after spotting people near the security fence and suspected they might be planting explosive devices.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The