Source Rejects Israeli Reports on Iranian Missile Cargo for Gaza

Iranian military sources on Wednesday categorically rejected the western and Israeli media reports alleging that Israel has intercepted a ship carrying Iranian mid-range missiles for the Palestinians.
On Wednesday, some western and Israeli media outlets claimed that Israel’s naval forces have intercepted an Iranian arms vessel carrying medium-range missiles in the Red Sea. They further claimed that the shipment was headed for the Gaza Strip via Sudan.

Speaking to FNA on Wednesday, an informed source in the Iranian Armed Forces rejected the news reports about the shipment of Iran-made weapons as sheer lie.

The spokesperson of Hamas’ Interior Ministry said Wednesday that the seizure of the arms shipment by Israel is a pretext to justify the Gaza blockade. He said Hamas knows that Gaza’s maritime zone is under Israeli surveillance and that any ship that attempts to pass through would be stopped and that Gaza resistance forces are not so naïve as to send a large arms shipment via the sea.

The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah did not issue an official response to the takeover of the ship, but the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Palestinian officials as saying that the operation raises questions regarding the timing of the operation.

“The ship has been sailing for weeks and it is seized exactly when Netanyahu is in Washington,” the official said according to the Israeli paper, and added, “The entire operation and the reports raise many questions regarding the timing and whether the event was real or fabricated.”

Israel is unhappy with Iran’s nuclear deal with the world powers and has sought hard to ruin the agreement through meetings with senior western officials and also through its powerful lobby groups in Washington.

To the same end Tel Aviv has tried to include the issue of Iran’s ballistic missile technology in the agenda of the talks between Iran and the world powers, an issue which has been strongly opposed by Iran.

After the latest round of successful talks between Iran and the Group 5+1 powers in Vienna late last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the media that Tehran and the sextet have promised not to surprise each other by raising new agendas in their future talks.