Libyan group’s ship carrying aid for Gaza en route after stalling, destination now Egypt

Libya aid ship moving again, heading to Egypt

JERUSALEM — Flanked by Israeli missile boats, a Libyan charity’s aid ship was sailing in the direction of an Egyptian port on Wednesday after the mission’s organizers apparently decided not to defy Israel’s naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip and defused a potential confrontation at sea.

Egypt’s state news agency MENA cited an unidentified security official as saying that Egyptian authorities and the Red Crescent medical service were “making preparations” to receive the Moldovan-flagged Almathea at the Egyptian port of el-Arish. However, the port’s chief, Gamal Abdel Maqsoud, said there had been no communication so far with the ship.

An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the ship’s course, confirmed that the vessel was headed toward el-Arish. The ship was still crawling in international waters off Gaza by mid-afternoon Wednesday and could not be contacted for confirmation.

With the vessel’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 a deadly Israeli naval raid of another blockade-busting ship in May.

An Al-Jazeera reporter on board the Almathea said two Israeli missile boats were hewing close to its left side to prevent it from veering to Gaza. El-Arish was on the ship’s right.

Conflicting messages on Tuesday created confusion over whether the Amalthea intended to try to run the blockade or not.

Israeli military officials said the ship’s captain informed Israel he was heading for the Egyptian port, but a spokesman for the Libyan mission insisted the ship still intended to try to reach the Palestinian territory. He said, however, they wouldn’t violently resist any efforts to stop them.

“First and foremost, we want to arrive to Gaza. If this is impossible, we don’t want to subject anyone to danger,” Youssef Sawani, an official with the Gadhafi International Charity and Development Foundation who was in contact with the boat, told the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera TV.

The Ghadafi foundation, headed by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, said the Amalthea left Greece on Saturday carrying 2,000 tons of food and medical supplies. Israel invited the activists to sail to the Israeli port of Ashdod and unload the supplies there, after which Israel would screen the goods and send them into Gaza overland. The group refused.

The deaths of nine pro-Palestinian activists in the May 31 raid focused international attention on Israel’s blockade of Gaza, imposed after the Islamic militant and anti-Israel Hamas overran the Palestinian territory in June 2007. 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.

The raid forced Israel to lift many of the restrictions it had on goods moving into Gaza through Israeli land crossings. But restrictions remain on materials like cement and steel that Israel says could be used for military purposes.

Gaza’s 1.5 million people, confined to the small, impoverished 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 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.

In other news, a Gaza health official said a 42-year-old Palestinian woman was killed and four other Gazans were wounded late Tuesday by an Israeli tank shell. The military said it opened fire after spotting people near the security fence they suspected might be laying explosive devices.

A Gaza rights group, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, issued a statement Wednesday condemning unknown Palestinian assailants for throwing a grenade at the campus of Gaza’s YMCA, run by local Christians. No one was injured in the attack, which the group said took place early Tuesday.

Members of extremist Islamic groups in Gaza have been suspected in past attacks on internet cafes and Christian institutions.

Associated Press Writers Sarah El Deeb and Maggie Michael in Cairo, and Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City, contributed to this report.