Lebanon aid trip to Gaza delayed

A Lebanese aid ship for Gaza was postponed yesterday to await a green light from a third country as a transit point for the mission to the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory.
The Mariam, a Bolivian-flagged cargo ship, was to have left from Tripoli in north Lebanon later the same day for Cyprus on the first leg of a crossing to Gaza despite an Israeli warning it could use force to keep the blockade intact.
"The trip has not been cancelled but delayed," one of the organisers, Samar al-Hajj, told a news conference in Tripoli, as efforts continued to secure authorisation from another state in the region to dock before heading for Gaza.
Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war and have no diplomatic ties or maritime links, barring the Mariam's direct departure from a Lebanese port for Israeli-controlled waters.
The Mariam, renamed in honour of the Virgin Mary, plans to carry aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel's four-year siege of Gaza with more than 50 Lebanese and foreign women activists on board.
Cyprus has denied the Mariam permission to dock or use its waters and the ship has been trying to negotiate with Greece, Yasser Kashlak, another of the organisers, told reporters.
"Contacts are under way with Athens to receive the ship but so far we have not received a reply," he said.
Kashlak said he would give Greece until Friday to reply after which the mission would go ahead whatever the outcome. "We will then have one plan left, to fly the United Nations flag and leave for Palestine," he said.
But Lebanon has said it will not allow the Mariam, which has a male crew and would also carry journalists, to head for any port with which it does not have maritime links.
Israel has been putting pressure on Cyprus and Greece not to cooperate with the Mariam, according to Kashlak. "I hope that Greece will not bow to the pressure like Cyprus did," he said.
Kashlak was referring to an aid flotilla caught up in a deadly Israeli naval commando raid on May 31 with which Cypriot authorities refused to cooperate.
On Saturday, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said Lebanese authorities will not authorise the Mariam to leave for the Gaza Strip "unless the legal conditions are met."
Rima Farah, the aid mission's spokeswoman, told AFP on Saturday that contacts were also under way with Turkey.
Israel came under international censure over its seizure of a six-ship aid fleet bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Israeli commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists in a clash on the lead boat.
Israel has warned it could use force again to stop the new aid boat to Gaza.