WarSclerotic

News Analysis: Captured Gaza-bound weapon ship just one of many: analysts.

by Adam Gonn

JERUSALEM, March 15 (Xinhua) — Israeli navy commando forces on Tuesday morning intercepted a Gaza-bound ship and found huge quantities of weapons on board.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that “we are currently collecting information and the one thing that is certain is that the weapons are from Iran with a relay station in Syria.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday commented that ” today, the IDF and its fighters thwarted the smuggling of weaponry, which was due to have been used against the residents of Israel, to the Gaza Strip. The goal of the smuggling was to harm the security of Israel.”

The ship Victoria started out at Latakia Port in Syria, and then traveled to the Port of Mersin in Turkey before setting out to its final destination Alexandria Port in Egypt.

Analysts said that ships smuggling weapons to Palestinian groups in Gaza is not a new phenomena. However, they said, using Syria as a transit could be the sign of a new trend in arms struggle.

MORE BOLD SYRIA

Barak Seener, a research fellow at Royal United Services Institute in London, told Xinhua that what we are seeing now is the effect of a more bold Syria backed by Iran which is constantly trying to expand its influence in the region.

“A couple of weeks ago, we had an Iranian ship going through the Suez Canal and it was testing the international community, especially Israel,” Seener said.

The aim of the passage was to see what the response might be, Seener said, Israel “was mistaken” not to have a response and just letting the ships pass by, the two naval vessels sail on international water outside of Israel’s sea border.

Israel’s failure to respond resulted in a precedence that would make Syria and its backer Iran become more bold in their actions, according to Seener. This will result in a contained flow of ships from Iran via Syria to Gaza, he added.

“The problem is that it’s inadequate merely to intercept the ship,” Seener said, “there has to be a precedent set so that these ships won’t continue sailing.”

One of the ways that Iran determines the limits of its foreign policy and regional reach, Seener argued, is by constantly pushing boundaries and seeing what it can get away with.

NEW ROUTE

Amir Rapaport, a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a former military correspondent of Israel newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, said that the smuggling of weapons to Gaza has been going on for some time and isn’t connected to regional upheaval.

“If you look at the whole picture, it’s just one of many,” Rapaport said, “they (Iran, Syria and Hamas) are trying to do a transport every few weeks.”

According to Rapaport, one previous route is through East and North Africa, but after an attack two years ago on a weapons convoy, which was reportedly carried out by Israel, the route is no longer in use.

He added that in addition to Israel’s intelligence gathering efforts, there is international coordination with other countries, notably the U.S. and some Arab countries.

CONSISTENT LINE

While the Victoria was the latest ship to be captured by Israel, it was by no means the first. According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson, there has been at least five similar incidents over the past 10 years. The most famous ship was the Karin-A which was carrying 50 tons of weaponry destined to Gaza when it was intercepted.

One major difference between the Karin-A and other ships was that the smuggling attempts was organized by a group closely associated to then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Israeli navy has also intercepted ships that have been carrying weapons to the Lebanese group Hezbollah. In 2009, the vessel Francop was stopped on its way to Syria after loading its cargo in Egypt.

Francop’s cargo included 36 containers with 500 tons of arms, 9, 000 mortar bombs, 3,000 rockets, 3,000 gun shells, 20,000 grenades and half of a million rounds of small ammunition, according to the Israeli army.

Palestinians: Two killed in Israel air strike on Gaza – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Palestinian medical officials say Israel fired two missiles at a security compound in the Hamas-ruled Strip, striking what used to be the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in Gaza.

By Avi Issacharoff and News Agencies

Israeli warplanes fired two missiles at a security compound in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing two Palestinians and wounding four, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment, but said shortly beforehand that a rocket had been fired from Gaza at Israel, apparently causing no casualties.

Hamas officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said that the air strike targeted a Hamas security facility south of Gaza City. The missiles apparently struck what used to be the Israeli settlement of Netzarim in Gaza, before Israel disengaged from the territory and withdrew all settlements in 2005.

The identities of the two men who were killed were not immediately known.

The air strike comes one day after the Israeli navy intercepted a massive arms shipment reportedly destined for Gaza militants.

Tensions between Israel and Gaza ran high last month, after Grad rockets were fired at the Negev city of Be’er Sheva.

This was the first time that Be’er Sheva had been hit by rockets from Gaza since Operation Cast Lead in 2009, when two residents of the city were seriously wounded.

Analysis: Israel’s shadow war against Iran.

Israel waged war against Iran on Tuesday. No Iranians were present and not a single shot was fired, but make no mistake – the seizure of the Victoria cargo ship is part of Israel’s battle against Iran, one that is fought in the shadows and sometimes in the most unlikely places.

When the commandos from the navy’s Flotilla 13 approached the ship under cover of darkness late Monday night, they still did not know what to expect. Only as they made their final approach toward the ship, some 320 km. west of Israel, did Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu give his final approval to board the vessel.

In such cases, the risk is huge, and for this reason the Foreign Ministry was on standby with officials ready to contact Germany and Liberia. A German company owns the ship, and it was flying a Liberian flag.

After contacting the captain of the ship by radio, the commandos climbed aboard and, encountering no resistance, began a brief search of the cargo. They went to the “suspicious” containers, the ones that were loaded at the Syrian port of Latakia and were slated to be unloaded at the Egyptian port of Alexandria, according to the cargo manifest.

The commandos found the containers fitted with heavy locks, unusual for shipments of lentils and cotton. Behind a row of sacks, they found what they were looking for: crates of mortar shells, and then the real prize – the C-704 anti-ship missiles.

The seizure of the Victoria was not impressive for the quantity of arms found – the Francop cargo ship captured by Israel in late 2009 was carrying 10 times more weaponry – but for the quality.

The C-704 is an anti-ship missile made in China and used by Iran, which calls it the Nasr. Like surface-to-air missiles, the C-704 is the type of weapon that Israel fears could shift the balance of power in the region and undermine its operational freedom.

But while the discovery is impressive and was the result of major intelligence and operational efforts, it is just another chapter in the larger covert war that Israel is waging against Iran and its terror proxies throughout the Middle East, and joins a long list of similar special operations that have taken place in recent years.

The battle against Iranian arms shipments to Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas is extremely complicated and involves unprecedented coordination between Israel and its allies, primarily the United States.

Israel boards dozens of ships annually, and hundreds more are questioned by radio at sea. In the case of the Victoria, Israel had intelligence that the ship might be carrying weaponry, but there is never certainty until the ship is boarded and the weapons are found. One senior official described the mood in the navy command center as being so tense that a knife could have cut through the air.

For Iran and Hamas, the seizure of the Victoria is a major blow. But it will not stop Iran from trying other ways to get advanced weaponry to its proxies, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. In many cases, Iran has succeeded.

In 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, Hamas did not have rockets that could hit Tel Aviv. Today it does.

The route that the Victoria took was of particular interest for the navy. In the past, a number of ships were tracked as they sailed through the Red Sea and unloaded weaponry in Sudan or Eritrea, which made its way by land up to the Egyptian-Gaza border. In this case, the ship was loaded in Syria, then sailed north to Turkey and then back south again to Egypt.

This route led intelligence officials in Israel to believe that the stopover at the Turkish port of Mersin was a ploy to draw attention away from the ship.

The decision to transfer the weaponry directly to Egypt could mean that Iran is encountering difficulty in the traditional land route through Egypt. This could have to do with Israeli efforts to stop the shipments, but the Egyptians are also believed to be making a greater effort to stop arms convoys from crossing into the country from its southern border with Sudan. A few days ago, the Egyptian military attacked such a convoy with artillery shells, preventing it from entering the country.

Navy dep. commander: ‘Victoria’ carried anti-ship missiles.

“We suspected that it was carrying the beginning of a system that could impair our operational freedom along the Gaza coast,” Barak told reporters.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said that he gave the order on Monday night to board and take over the freight ship based on firm intelligence information that was it was carrying arms from Iran to Gaza.

During a tour of the security fence being constructed on the border with Egypt, he said the ship had stopped over in Syria and Israel had the “obligation and right to stop ships smuggling arms.”

Netanyahu said that more information about the ship and what it was carrying would be released Wednesday.

“The seizure was made at sea according to international laws. We updated all the relevant countries and the international community,” he added.

Terror’s alternate route – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Iran, Syria change usual smuggling route due to close surveillance by Israel, US

Ron Ben-Yishai

The arms ship Victoria, intercepted by Shayetet 13 combatants off the country’s Mediterranean coast early Tuesday morning, left the Mersin shipping port in Turkey heading for Alexandria, Egypt, according to official records. However the vessel actually originated from the Syrian town of Latakia.

The Port of Latakia is the main route for military and terrorist activities executed by the government in Damascus.

It can be assumed that the ‘Victoria’, a German-owned merchant ship, was initially chartered by Syria or Iran. The two countries probably worked together to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip. Their cooperation is a result of the growing difficulties Iran has encountered lately in its attempts to transfer arms directly to Gaza via its usual smuggling route.

This usual route began at Bandar Abbas in Iran and passed through Yemen. From there the ships would pass through the Red Sea to Sudan, all the way to the Sinai Peninsula. The final stop would then be the Gaza Strip.

However, Iran began to take notice that this route was exposed to Israeli and American surveillance, seeing as how most of its attempts to smuggle weapons via this route were prevented, according to foreign reports. Apparently this is why Iran decided to change its shipping course, with the help of Syria. The civilian vessel cover-up was an attempt to camouflage the weapon containers loaded on board in Syria, together with the pit-stop in Turkey – where the ship arrived already carrying the arms. The amount of weapon containers caught on board was proportionately small, probably because the arms found were relativity light. The pit-stop in Turkey was designed to conceal the vessel’s true destination and primary mission. Ankara obviously had no idea what was on board the ship.After stopping in Mersin, the vessel sailed on to Egypt, towards Alexandria, via a relatively distant route from the Israeli coast.

Reminiscent of Francop vessel

The weapons were then supposed to reach the Gaza Strip though the Sinai Peninsula. It is unclear whether the shipment was expected to reach the Sinai Peninsula on board a ship or through tunnels connecting Egypt to Sinai.

The interception occurred about 200 miles off Israel’s Mediterranean coast, in international waters. However, because the vessel carried weapons intended for the use of terror organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, according to assessments, Israel has the legal right to intercept it and examine its cargo.

The operation is reminiscent of the November 2009 Israeli takeover of the Iranian Francop vessel off the coast of Cyprus. Israel captured hundreds of tons of rockets, missiles, mortars, grenades and anti-tank weapons which were intended for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

It seems as though this is another Iranian or Syrian attempt to smuggle arms into the Gaza Strip.

It is likely that these two countries tried to exploit the current situation in Egypt so as to reinforce Hamas’s power. The situation in Egypt also created a governmental vacuum in Sinai, making it easier to smuggle weapons and illegal merchandise into the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister on the seizure of the Victoria, “The origin of the weapons was Iran”. Israel Defense Forces (Press Release)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explains that weapons being smuggled on board the Victoria were part of Iran’s efforts to arm the Gaza Strip. Defense Minister Ehud Barak accuses radical elements of trying to undermine regional stability

IDF Website

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday (Mar. 15) referred to the IDF’s success in thwarting the smuggling of weapons on board the Victoria cargo vessel.

“We had reasonable grounds to believe that there were weapons on board which were intended to be used to harm Israeli citizens,” Netanyahu said.

“The origin of the weapons was Iran, which is trying to arm the Gaza Strip,” the prime minister continued. “The seizure was made at sea according to international laws and the ship is being led to Ashdod.” Netanyahu further added that Israel has updated all the countries involved in the situation.

Earlier, Defense Minister Ehud Barak praised the Shayetet 13 and navy soldiers who were involved in the seizure of the ship, which was on its way from Turkey to Egypt loaded with weaponry intended to be used by terror organizations operating in the Gaza Strip. Along with IDF intelligence and operations officers, Barak had been monitoring the movement of the vessel over recent days.

“The IDF and naval soldiers today prevented the smuggling of weapons to the Gaza Strip, which were supposed to be used to against Israeli citizens,” Barak said. “The purpose of the smuggling was to harm Israel’s security and IDF soldiers acted in order to defend the security of the state.”

Barak emphasized that “the attempt to smuggle weapons into Gaza shows that radical elements are continuing attempts to attack Israel and continuing to act to undermine stability in the area. I congratulate Chief of Staff Lt. Gen Benny Gantz, Navy Commander Maj. Gen. Eliezer Marom and the soldiers of the navy for this successful operation. The IDF and defense establishment will continue to act with determination everywhere in order to defend the state.”

On Tuesday morning, Lt. Gen. Gantz referred ambiguously to the IDF’s activities to prevent weapons smuggling by sea, saying that “in recent months, great efforts have been made to prevent this phenomenon.”

Shayetet 13 soldiers seized the Victoria cargo vessel 200 miles off the coast of Israel on Tuesday morning, encountering no opposition from the ship’s crew. The ship is currently being led to Israel.

Barak: ‘Victoria’ may have smuggled anti-ship missiles.

As a veteran of the IDF Navy, these pictures give me pride…

Joseph Wouk
Vodpod videos no longer available.

As a veteran of the IDF Navy, this video gives me pride.

עם ישראל חי !

Joseph Wouk

Vodpod videos no longer available.

IDF seizes boat carrying weapons from Turkey to Gaza – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Ship left Turkey destined for Egypt; IDF says ship, which was seized with no struggle, was carrying ‘tons’ of concealed weapons destined for terror organizations operating in Gaza.

By Anshel Pfeffer and Amos Harel

The Israeli navy seized a ship on Tuesday that was apparently smuggling weapons destined for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Unit said that the ship “Victoria” originated from the Lattakia port in Syria and sailed to Mersin, Turkey. It was seized while on its way from Turkey destined for the El-Arish port in Egypt.

	Weapons on the ‘Francop’ ship, which the IDF siezed in 2009.
	Photo by: IDF Spokesman Unit

Elite troops from the Shayetet 13 naval commando unit took control of the ship without a struggle when it was around 200 nautical miles off Israel’s coast and towed it to the port in Ashdod. According to the IDF Spokesman Unit, the ship was carrying “tons” of concealed weapons destined for “the use of terror organizations operating in the Gaza Strip.”

The IDF said that once the ship is anchored in Ashdod, its contents will be thoroughly examined and its crew will be taken in for questioning. Although the ship had set sail from Turkey, it bore a Liberian flag.

Turkey is not responsible for the seized ship “in any aspect,” the IDF said.

A joint statement from the IDF and Foreign Ministry said that German officials have been alerted of the ship’s seizure, as the ship belonged to a German company. Liberian officials have also been alerted due to the Liberian flag on the ship. The operating company of the ship was from France, and thus French officials were also made aware of the situation.

This is not the first time that Israel has seized a ship carrying concealed weapons. The most famous incident was in 2003, when the Israeli military seized the Karine A, a vessel with 50 tons of missiles, mortars, rifles and ammunition headed for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.