Report: Iran to challenge Israeli blockade

JERUSALEM, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Iran is sending several ships carrying arms to waters near the Gaza Strip to break Israel's blockade, an Israeli military intelligence Web site said Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni agreed at a special meeting that the Iranian ships must be stopped, even at the cost of a maritime clash with Iran, DEBKAfile reported.

The ships, which are expected to enter the Gulf of Suez and waters opposite Gaza this weekend, will try to drop their weapons cargoes offshore, DEBKAfile said citing military sources.

"The Iranians calculate that while not all the ships may get through the Israeli naval blockade, one would suffice," the Israeli Web site said.

Some ships are already on their way and Israeli warships and spy planes are tracking them, the report said.

Tehran is "encouraged by the failure of the U.S., Egyptian and Israeli navies to confiscate" illegal arms allegedly aboard a Cypriot-flagged ship currently docked off Limassol, Cyprus's second-largest city, the site said.

Israeli charged that ship was carrying illegal arms for Hamas.

Barak said later Thursday that the ship was being unloaded because the United Nations had determined it had violated U.N. Security Council sanctions that ban Iranian arms exports.

The Russian-owned ship -- originally called Monchegorsk and renamed Iran Hedayt -- was carrying 10 containers of Iranian rockets and other weapons, DEBKAfile said.