Israel releases arms ship said meant for Hezbollah

[azurnoir]

Israeli security forces late Wednesday released on its originally planned route a ship believed to have been carrying tons of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah, which it seized earlier this week in Mediterranean waters.

The ship was set to continue to Turkey and then to Egypt.Israel completed unloading the cargo on Thursday morning and decided that the crew of the vessel had no connection to the weapons found on board.

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group on Thursday denied any connection to the 500 tons of weapons seized by Israeli commandos during a raid on the ship.
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"Hezbollah denies any link to the weapons that the Zionist enemy claims it removed from the vessel Francop," the group said in a statement. "At the same time it condemns Israeli piracy in international waters."

The Hezbollah response came after Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said reports of the seizure were fabricated.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1125990.html

[bemildred]

1. It's going to be interesting to see what the crew says,

But they may not know much.

[Scurrilous]

2. Israel views arms shipment as card against Iran

<snip>

"Israel's capture of a weapons-laden ship allegedly sent from Iran and bound for Hezbollah will underscore its case against Tehran in the international community, observers said on Thursday.

"Officials in Jerusalem had not dared even to dream of better timing for the capture of the vessel carrying so much arms and ammunition bound for Hezbollah," an editorial in Israel's Maariv newspaper said.

"The capture of the ship was, for Israel, like a gift from heaven."

The Israeli navy on Wednesday seized a ship carrying what it described as "hundreds of tonnes" of weapons, including rockets, grenades and ammunition, that it said was sent from Iran to the Lebanese Hezbollah militia.

A UN Security Council resolution which brought an end to the devastating 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel demanded the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon and imposed a ban on all arms exports to them.

Iran and Hezbollah have both denied any link to the ship."

<snip>

"Israel has invited foreign ambassadors and military attaches to view the weapons and Netanyahu, Defence Minister Ehud Barak and military officials were to give a briefing to reporters later on Thursday.

"We are going to expose everything we find on the ship," foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP."

<snip>

"The seized arms may help Israel to ramp up pressure on Iran to accept a deal brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) whereby it would send stocks of low-enriched uranium abroad for conversion into nuclear fuel.

"Now the Iranians have been caught red-handed -- an Iranian company involved in the exporting of arms to Hezbollah as Western suspicions of Iran peak after Tehran's murky response to the compromise proposal on uranium enrichment," Israel's Haaretz newspaper said.

The capture also came on the same day the UN General Assembly began discussing a controversial report on the Gaza war by the respected former war crimes prosecutor Richard Goldstone that accused Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes during the 22-day conflict that ended January 18.

The widely circulated footage of crates of rockets and ammunition on the deck of the ship could help Israel make the case that it was justified in launching the Gaza war, which was aimed at halting Palestinian rocket attacks.

"As the discussion about whether to pass the Goldstone report to the Security Council is being held in the UN General Assembly, Israel is placing on its table not just any smoking gun, but a hot gun that was taken straight from the crime scene," the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot said.

"Maybe this is what will dispel the clouds of the Goldstone report and show the world which one is David and which one is Goliath."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091105/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictisraeliranweaponslead

[Scurrilous]

3. Netanyahu: Iran's shipment of arms to Hezbollah - a war crime

<snip>

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that the ship carrying hundreds of tons of weapons believed to have originated in Iran and meant for Hezbollah, which Israel intercepted early Wednesday, constituted a war crime that should be reviewed by United Nations bodies.

"This was a ship carrying a massive amount of weapons which the Iranian regime tried to ship to Syria, and from there to Hezbollah," the prime minister said during a press conference he convened at the Tel Aviv defense headquarters. "The bulk of the shipment included rockets whose aim is to hurt our citizens and kill as many civilians as possible. This constitutes a war crime."

"The UN General Assembly should have investigated and condemned this crime and the UN Security Council should have convened a special session to debate this incident," Netanyahu continued.

"This is a war crime which Iran intends to commit again in the future. The international community should be focusing on this, but instead, the world condemns Israel and the Israel Defense Forces and undermines our right to self defense," he said, referring to Wednesday's UN General Assembly debate over the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza last winter."

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