Gaza-bound ship refuses Israeli order to change course

TEL AVIV/LARNACA - The Israeli Navy made contact early Saturday with a ship headed for the blockaded Gaza Strip but the vessel refused an order to divert to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

An Israeli military spokesman said the ship, the Rachel Corrie, identified itself in response to a navy request, but rejected two calls to make for the Israeli port, about 30 km north of the Strip.

The Free Gaza organisation posted a message on microblogging site Twitter saying the ship had not been boarded. An update said all contact with the vessel had been lost. The military also denied early morning reports of boarding.

A spokeswoman for the organisers said three Israeli vessels began shadowing the Rachel Corrie several kilometres offshore.

The activists on board have reportedly rejected a plan brokered by Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin to dock at Ashdod port - about 30 km north of the Gaza Strip - where the aid goods would be unloaded and inspected before being transferred to the salient.

They insisted on sailing only to Gaza.

Israel’s foreign ministry said Friday it would not allow the “Rachel Corrie to break its naval blockade of the coastal enclave run by the radical Islamist Hamas movement”.

“Gaza is still a war zone because of Hamas and there still is a blockade,” spokesman Yigal Palmor told DPA.

Six aid ships with more than 700 international activists en route to Gaza and were forcefully intercepted by Israel Monday morning.

Nine activists were shot dead and dozens of others were wounded, in addition to seven Israeli soldiers, when the pre-dawn interception turned violent.

Israel placed the Gaza Strip under siege in June 2006, after a Palestinian militia launched a cross-border raid and captured an Israeli soldier, who is still being held captive in the salient.

The siege was tightened a year later, when Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to exist, seized control of the Strip after routing security personnel loyal to the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party.