Israeli navy halts French yacht trying to breach Gaza blockade

JERUSALEM - Israeli naval forces boarded a French yacht off the Gaza coast yesterday as the yacht tried to breach the Israeli maritime blockade of the Palestinian enclave. The forces met no resistance, Israeli military officials said, and steered the yacht toward the Israeli port of Ashdod.

The yacht is a remnant of an international flotilla that had planned to challenge the blockade last month but was mostly thwarted.

The flotilla organizers had wanted to mark a year since the last flotilla, an attempt to reach Gaza that ended in bloodshed, and to highlight the restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza. Israel says its blockade is essential to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, which is run by Hamas, the Islamic militant group. The naval blockade was formally imposed in early 2009 during Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

In May 2010, Israeli naval commandos met with resistance when they boarded a large Turkish passenger vessel trying to breach the blockade, and they fatally shot nine activists on the ship. The episode led to intense international pressure on Israel to ease its restrictions on Gaza.

The amount and variety of goods allowed into the enclave over land crossings have increased significantly, and Egypt reopened the Rafah passenger crossing on its border with Gaza. But the capacity of the crossing is limited; there are currently 23,000 Palestinians on a waiting list to leave Gaza by way of Rafah, said Gisha, an Israeli advocacy group that focuses on freedom of movement for Palestinians. The export of goods has also been severely limited to a small amount of agricultural produce.

The latest flotilla, which organizers had hoped would include up to 10 vessels and some 300 passengers, was beset by problems from the outset. Israel worked intensely at the diplomatic level to stymie the operation, and most of the vessels in the flotilla were prevented from leaving Greek ports by Greek authorities. Members of the flotilla also said two of the vessels were sabotaged.

The lone yacht that managed to set out for Gaza this week, the Dignite-Al Karama, left the French island of Corsica with 16 passengers and crew on board. Among them were an honorary member of the French Parliament, a crew from Al Jazeera, and an Israeli journalist.

The French-flagged yacht anchored in international waters before the last leg of its voyage Monday, according to organizers from the Free Gaza Movement.

The boat represented “the steadfastness and determination of the flotilla movement to sail until the blockade is broken,’’ the group said in a statement issued hours before the yacht was taken over.

Yesterday morning, the Israeli navy made contact with the yacht and requested that it change course, a call that the vessel ignored. The Israeli military released a recording of a radio exchange with someone on board, who said the vessel was a private cruiser boat, that it carried no cargo, and that its final destination was Gaza.

Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said that the captain had lied to Greek authorities during its voyage, telling them that the yacht’s destination was Egypt.

“After dialogue reached a dead end, naval commandos boarded the yacht and took control of it without facing resistance,’’ Mordechai said.

5 foreign journalists freed by Libya and Iran

The Libyan government released four foreign journalists on Wednesday and a fifth reached freedom in Qatar after disappearing while on assignment in Syria, the latest reporters to be freed after being swept up while covering unrest in the Middle East.

Americans Clare Morgana Gillis and James Foley, along with British freelance reporter Nigel Chandler and Spanish photographer Manuel Varela, appeared at a Tripoli hotel after being released from six weeks of detention in Libya.

Earlier, Iranian-born Dorothy Parvaz, who has U.S. and Canadian citizenship and works for Al-Jazeera television, arrived at her network's home base in Doha after being freed by Iran. All five were reported in good health.

"I've spoken to our son," Diane Foley of Rochester, N.H., told The Associated Press. "He's in good health, he's feeling very, very relieved. He's feeling very hopeful."

She said the first thing he said to her on the phone was " 'Hey, ma, it's me. It's Jim. I'm fine, we're at a hotel.' "

She said he told her that the four were to be taken early today to the border with Tunisia, where they would cross out of Libya.

Three of the journalists — Gillis, who freelances for The Atlantic magazine and USA Today; Foley, who writes for the Boston-based news agency GlobalPost; and Varela, who works under the name Manu Brabo, were detained on April 5 near the Libyan town of Brega.

Chandler was detained separately.

They were freed a day after the Libyan government said it had given them a one-year suspended sentence on charges of illegally entering the country.

The 39-year-old Parvaz, who previously worked as a reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, disappeared soon after arriving in Syria on April 29 to cover the anti-government protests there. The Damascus government disclosed on May 4 that she had been deported to Iran.

There was no word on the fate of another missing journalist, photographer Anton Hammerl, who disappeared in Libya about the same time as the four journalists released Wednesday. Gillis said she had not seen him.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Libya holds no other reporters. "At the moment, I think we have released all journalists, unless some have been captured in the past two days and I haven't heard about it," he said.

Battles rage for control of Libya (Video)

Anti-Gaddafi fighters continue to come under fire, unable to progress further in their fight to reclaim the town of Ajdabiya.

Finding themselves outgunned - and with no communication facilities and little structure to their forces - they have been left to run sporadic raids against troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, before coming under fire and returning to their orginal lines on the road from Benghazi.

Mohamed Hariri, a Libyan former special forces colonel, tells Al Jazeera the young volunteers, lacking experience and training, are brave "to the point of being suicidal".

"They are really heroes," he said. "Why else would these young people sacrifice themselves, so this country can have a better life?"

Airstrikes continue

Overnight, anti-aircraft fire erupted over the Libyan capital, Tripoli, after a day of heavy fighting between pro-democracy fighters and Gaddafi's troops.

Gunner crews began shooting at aerial targets shortly after nightfall in the capital on Tuesday, four nights after an international military coalition launched an operation to enforce a no-fly zone over the country.

"We've been hearing big noises. We've heard some explosions in the last 10 minutes," Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught, reporting from Tripoli, said.

"We haven't seen any smoke on the horizon. People are firing guns in defiance. We're in the loyalist heartland here where people are utterly defiant of the international effort to force Gaddafi to surrender, as they would see it.

"The anti-aircraft fire has not been as intense [as Monday night when two naval installations outside the city were hit]. Perhaps they feel in the immediate neighbourhood that most of the significant targets have already been hit."

The AFP news agency reported that at least two blasts were heard at a distance before the capital's air defences opened fire.

Several strong detonations followed, said the journalists who were unable to determine the site of the explosions.

They said anti-aircraft fire streaked into the night sky for around 10 minutes, especially in the area near Gaddafi's residence, not far from the hotel where the international press corps is housed.

In the previous night's operations, the coalition air campaign suffered its first loss with the crash of a US fighter jet in the rebel-held east.

Both crew ejected safely.

The no-fly zone is intended to protect civilians from attack by forces loyal to Gaddafi in their battles with opposition fighters. The United States announced on Tuesday that it is shifting its focus to widen the no-fly zone across the north African country.

Despite the strikes, Gaddafi has remained defiant. The Libyan leader made a public appearance at his Bab Al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli that was the target on Sunday of a coalition missile strike, Libyan state television reported.

In televised remarks, Gaddafi said Libya was "ready for battle, be it long or short".

"We will win this battle," footage showed him telling supporters at the compound. "The masses were the strongest anti-air defences."

"This assault ... is by a bunch of fascists who will end up in the dustbin of history."

Fighting rages

The developments came after a day of intense fighting in the three Libyan cities of Misurata, Ajdabiya and Zintan.

Forces loyal to Gaddafi have been shelling Misurata for days, pressing their siege of the embattled western city. Four children were killed in the shelling on Tuesday and at least 40 people were killed on Monday, a resident said.

There was also fierce fighting further east in Ajdabiya. Opposition fighters were seen retreating in the face of an attack by government forces.

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley, reporting from an area close to Ajdabiya, said there had been clashes outside the city.

"There's been heavy fighting and heavy shelling going on ... the rebels told me there have been heavy casualties and there are a number of corpses between here and the town [of Ajdabiya] that they have been unable to reach," he said.

Meanwhile, around 106km south of Tripoli, Libyan pro-democracy fighters forced government troops to withdraw from the outskirts of Zintan, breaking a siege of the town.

A resident of Zintan told the Reuters news agency that at least 10 people were killed in the bombardment by Gaddafi's forces.

"Gaddafi's forces bombarded Zintan this morning and killed 10 to 15 people," Abdulrahman said.

"After the bombardment they retreated from the eastern area of Zintan. But they have not withdrawn from the northern area. There is still a huge number of soldiers there, backed with 50 to 60 tanks and several vehicles."

Libyan rebels say Ras Lanuf under heavy bombardment

The rebel leadership said on Thursday that the oil port of Ras Lanuf in eastern Libya is under heavy bombardment.
Asked about a Libyan state television report that government forces had cleared Ras Lanuf of "armed gangs", Hafiz Ghoga, spokesman for the National Libyan Council, said: "No, this is not accurate."