The Israeli Navy Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Rani Ben-Yehuda, reviewed on Wednesday the "Four Species" operation in which a special forces squadron captured a suspicious ship flying the Antiguan flag near Cyprus. He said that in the operation, containers with hundreds of tons of rockets, missiles and ammunition destined for the Hizbullah were captured.

According to Ben Yehuda, "We are confident that the crew did not know what it was transporting. The amount of weapons seized is ten times more than the amount carried by the ship Karine A.” On January 3, 2002, IDF navy and air force units captured a PA-owned freighter, called Karine A, loaded with 50 tons of weapons.