Gaza City/Tel Aviv - Israel forced a Libyan ship with
humanitarian aid heading for the Gaza Strip to turn around Monday.
A spokesman for the Israel Foreign Ministry told Deutsche Presse-
Agentur dpa 'the Navy had made radio contact with the ship and
ordered it to turn around, which it did.'
Since August, three other vessels with humanitarian activists and
aid have reached Gaza's shores after the Israel Navy avoided a
confrontation and let them through despite initial threats to block
their way. Israel at the time said it did not want to grant the
organizers, the Free Gaza movement, undue attention by creating a
confrontation.
Israeli media said Israel acted differently with the Libyan ship
because it belonged to an 'enemy state.' The Libyan ship was also
decidedly bigger that the three Free Gaza vessels.
Israel Navy gunboats intercepted the ship several kilometres off
Gaza's shores shortly after dawn Monday, forcing it to change
direction to the nearby Egyptian coast city of al-Arish.
Jamal al-Khodary, the head of Gaza's Popular Committee Against the
Siege said the ship, which is carrying 3,000 tons of food and medical
supplies, is likely to make another attempt at entering the strip's
coastal waters.
He said his action group was holding contacts with Libya's health
minister, Arab-Israeli lawmakers and the ship's crew. 'The ship is
likely to return as a result of these ongoing contacts,' he told
reporters in Gaza.
Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the radical Islamic Hamas movement,
meanwhile said the ship had both the 'legal, Arab, moral and
humanitarian authorization' to enter Gaza. He also urged Egypt to
open its own border with the Gaza Strip.
The voyage was the first attempt to break the Israeli blockade
against Gaza by an Arab state.
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