Israel’s navy seized a fishing boat loaded with arms being smuggled by Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas off northern Israel and towed it to the port of Haifa, security sources said on Thursday. An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that a vessel had been captured near Haifa, about 21 miles south of the border with Lebanon, and linked it to “recent terrorist activity.” He did not mention that there were any arms on board. There was no immediate word on the vessel’s point of origin or destination, but the sources said the boat, intercepted on Wednesday, had a weapons cache only a fraction the size of the 50 tonnes seized on a freighter in the Red Sea in January 2002. The Dubai-based satellite television station al-Arabiya reported that the weapons were bound for Palestinians. It said Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz would give details of the incident later on Thursday. If the arms were bound for Palestinian areas, as was last year’s shipment, it would deal another blow to a new U.S.-backed peace plan already battered by violence. Palestinians launched an uprising for independence in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000. Full Story
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