Iranian lawmakers to join ship to Gaza

Teheran cancels Iranian ship, MP says he will join one in Lebanon

By JPOST.COM STAFF, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gaza Flotilla 311 (photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Gaza Flotilla 311
(photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Iranian parliamentarian Mahmoud Ahmadi Beighash announced Saturday that he and other Iranian lawmakers intend to join a ship headed for Gaza by way of Lebanon.
"A ship is going from Lebanon to Gaza in the course of the current week and the lawmakers will go to Gaza via this ship," Beighash said in comments to semi-official news agency ISNA cited by Reuters.
RELATED:IDF braces for Iran & Lebanon ships'Lebanon gov't may cancel flotillas'
The decision to head from Lebanon to Gaza and not Egypt was reached in a meeting with speaker of parliament Ali Larijani according to Beighash.
Earlier in the week an Iranian aid ship which had been due to set sail for the Gaza Strip in the coming days in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade canceled its trip due to Israeli warnings, Iranian officials said Thursday night.
The Iranian ship called Infants of Gaza had been expected to sail Sunday for Gaza carrying 1,100 tons of relief supplies and 10 pro-Palestinian activists but plans were canceled "due to restrictions imposed by the occupying Zionist regime," Beighash said.
IDF sources said that the navy would intercept an Iranian or Lebanese ships and would operate under the assumption that hostile elements could be aboard.
In Lebanon, organizers of the ship, Julia, said they plan to sail in the next few days but said they had nothing to do with Iran. A second ship will only be transporting women, while a third ship will include parliamentarians from the Middle East and Europe. It is not clear when that ship will sail.