Israeli military has taken over a French ship headed for Gaza, without resistance. Israel’s naval commandos seized control of the French ship that was trying to break the sea blockade of the Gaza Strip after which they towed the ship into port. No resistance was reported during this seizure in international waters.
This incident was one in a series of conflicts on the high seas between pro-Palestinian activists and the Israeli navy when the activists tried to get through the blockade. In the most belligerent incident so far, nine Turkish activists died during the clash last year with Israeli commandos.
Israel was criticized for this incident and as a result they were forced to ease Gaza’s land blockade but its naval embargo is still intact, with Israel’s navy madly training in order to modify tactics, hoping to avoid future bloodshed. Since that deadly raid, two blockade-breaking boats were intercepted, avoiding incident.
The standoff Tuesday was less intensive. The Dignity al-Karama was intercepted by the navy about 40 miles from the coast and naval officials came aboard the ship with no incident reported, after its’ crew ignored calls to the ship, demanding that they change course.
Apparently, according to Brigadier General Rani Ben-Yehudah who told reporters at the Israeli port of Ashdod:
“Nobody was hurt and the ship wasn’t damaged.”
A sole Canadian on the boat was an activist – Stephan Corriveau of Montreal, who was unable to be contacted after 3 am Tuesday – the last communication any one from the ship had with the outside world, the Canadian Press was told by Ehab Lotayef. He said:
“the vessel was at least 50 kilometres away from any Israeli organized territorial waters. The plan is to launch more boats to challenge the blockade of Gaza in a peaceful and non-violent manner, as the Dignity did.”
The military warned it would stop any one from trying to break the blockade of Gaza, imposed by Israel 4 years ago in a measure to stop smuggling of arms to Gaza’s Hamas militant group. The boat had not been carrying aid supplies.
Since the land blockade has been so eased, great quantities of consumer goods can now be brought into Gaza, but there are still restrictions on importation of construction materials which are so badly needed to fix the damages caused by the Israeli offensive of two years ago. Israel claims that items like cement, metal and glass could be diverted for the military and Israel has now given approval for individual construction projects to be coordinated with the international community.
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