Qatar and Turkey have joined Libya in an intensified attempt to break Israel sovereignty over the Gaza Coast. The Israeli government blocked the Libyan ship from landing at Gaza this week but refused to comment on further actions.
However, Palestinian Authority legislator Jamal al-Khodary said that the boat, reportedly loaded with 3,000 tons of food and medicine, will try again. "We are holding pressing contacts with Ahmed al-Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, the Libyan health minister Mohammed Rashed and the ship's crew who are determined to go to Gaza," he told the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Further challenges to Israel have been launched by Qatar and Turkey, which also are sending ships in an attempt to continue in the tracks of the pro-Arab Free Gaza movement that landed at the Gaza Coast three times despite threats from Israel that they would be blocked and that the people onboard might be arrested.
The radical Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan said it is going through with its plan announced last week to send a ship to Gaza. The political arm of the Brotherhood staged has staged protests in Jordan against the closing of the Gaza crossings by Israel, which has been under constant attack from rocket mortar shelling in Gaza.
A ship from Qatar with one ton of supplies will leave on Friday for Gaza as a symbolic gesture "to our brothers in Gaza," said Abdallah al-Nimaa, vice president of the Qatar Charity Organization.
"We expect Israeli warships to bar the Qatari aid ship; however we are determined," he asserted.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yariv Ovadia said that no comment would be made on what action, if any, the IDF will take. He explained that the Free Gaza boats were allowed to dock at Gaza in order not to allow activists to exploit Israeli opposition and turn the event into a media circus.
As the Libyan boat approached Gaza, the Foreign Ministry said, "We will treat this boat differently than the earlier ones that were allowed into Gaza. Libya is a hostile state...and what guarantees do we have that the boat is not carrying weapons and explosives for Hamas?"
The Libyan boat is docked at El Arish, Egypt, and may time its next attempt to reach Gaza with the sailings from Qatar and Turkey. A conflicting report stated that officials are unloading the ship and will transport the supplies to Gaza by land through the Rafiah crossing, which is closed to regular commercial traffic.
Ovadia rejected Arab and pro-Arab activists' claims that the Navy blockade is illegal. "Israeli sovereignty over the coastal waters [and the air] was part of the agreement with the Palestinian Authority," he said. Israel agreed to surrender control if and when the PA could show it is stopping terror. Since the agreement, Hamas won control of the Gaza region in a militia war against the Fatah faction, headed by PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas.