ISRAEL BLOWS GUN-RUNNERS OUT OF THE WATER
By URI DAN
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israelinsider.com
May 12, 2002 -- EXCLUSIVE
JERUSALEM - Israel sank a ship off the Gaza Strip that was carrying arms to the Palestinians, The Post has learned.
The ship was ferrying arms from the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon.
It was sunk by the Israelis just days ago before it could reach the shores of Gaza.
The Palestinians, unaware of the ship's fate, are still looking for it.
Israeli defense officials said they knew nothing about the ship or its sinking, and the size of the arms cache it was carrying was not known.
In January, Israeli frogmen seized the Karine A, a ship laden with 80 tons of mortars, rockets, missiles and explosives from Iran.
Israeli officials said the weapons, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were in dozens of watertight capsules.
The Karine A's weapons capsules were to be off-loaded to smaller ships and then dropped into the sea off Gaza. The Palestinian naval police was then supposed to retrieve the arms.
The Karine A captain, Omar Akawi, said at the time that he acted under the orders of a senior Palestinian official.
"I want to be proud that I took part in the battle for Palestine," he said.
Akawi, 44, said he received instructions from Adel Awadalah, an official Palestinian representative in Greece, and was also in contact with Fathi Razen, a commander of Arafat's naval police.
Israeli officials said the venture followed several attempts to smuggle arms from Lebanon into Gaza by sea.
One occurred in May last year when Israeli forces intercepted the Santorini, a fishing vessel carrying weapons bound for Palestinian extremists. Israeli officials said there were three bungled attempts before that, including one by the Santorini. |
