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 Gaza
bound Libyan ship given ultimatum till midnight to change course:
Israeli authorities have given a Gaza-bound Libyan aid ship an
ultimatum .....
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A Libyan aid ship originally bound for
the Gaza Strip has been diverted to a port in Egypt after the
Israeli navy warned the vessel against trying to break an Israeli
blockade on the Palestinian coastal territory.
Israeli warships were shadowing the Moldovan-flagged Al Amal,
carrying 2,000 tonnes of food and medicine, to its diverted
destination of El-Arish port on the Egyptian Sinai coast.
"Eight Israeli warships are surrounding the Libyan aid ship for Gaza
and preventing the continuation of its journey," Yousseuf Sawani,
the executive director of the Gaddafi Foundation which charteredthe
vessel, said early on Wednesday.
Sawani said earlier that the Israeli warships were "threatening" the
cargo ship which he said was still headed for Gaza. But he made it
clear that those on board would not 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," he told Al
Jazeera.
Communications jammed
Sawani said that communications with the boat had been jammed and
the vessel was moving at a slow pace because of the Israeli warships
that were trailing it.
An Egyptian official confirmed that the ship sought and received
permissionto sail to El-Arish, where authorities would unload its
humanitarian aid cargo and transfer it by land to Gaza.
But he said that there was "no co-ordination at the moment with the
ship and we do not know where its final destination is".
An Israeli official hinted at possible disputes between the
chartered crew and passengers over the destination.
"It's far from clear that there is agreement about where the ship is
headed," said the official, who had been briefed on the navy's radio
exchanges with the Amalthea [Al Amal] since contact was made with it
some 160km from Gaza Strip's shores.
Just before midnight, the ship's crew said they were stuck because
of engine trouble.
In a recording played on Israel radio, a crew member said he did not
know how long it would take to repair the main engine and resume the
journey.
Al Amal was still around 90km from land but is not expected to dock
for another day. It is carrying 12 crew members and at least nine
passengers, including six Libyans and one each from Algeria, Morocco
and Nigeria.
Overland convoy
A separate attempt to deliver aid relief and medical supplies to
Gaza is also currently under way.
A convoy of 150 people, including "unionists, journalists and
academics", is travelling overland in 25 vehicles from Jordan to the
Egyptian Rafah crossing.
These challenges to the blockade come a day after Israel's military
admitted mistakes in the May 31 attack on a flotilla of aid vessels
trying to breach the blockade.
Nine pro-Palestinian activists, eight Turks and a dual US-Turkish
citizen, were killed after Israeli soldiers boarded the lead ship.
Following an international outcry over the raid, Israel recently
eased restrictions on the Gaza Strip, allowing some previously
banned items into the territory.
But construction materials remain heavily restricted, Gazans have
very limited freedom of movement, and Israel still enforces a naval
blockade of the territory.
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