The Israeli Navy intercepted a suspicious fishing boat on Sunday night, discovering that it was laden with an arsenal of weapons, apparently on its way to be delivered to Palestinian forces in the Gaza Strip.

Weapons discovered on the boat, called the Santorini, included Katyusha rockets, SA-7 Strella anti-aircraft missiles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, anti-tank grenades, mines, Kalashnikov assault rifles and other forms of ammunition.

The weapons, carefully wrapped in waterproof packaging,

"This was not the first shipment, nor will it be the last" - PFLP leader Ahmed Jibril

had been stored in large barrels. The aim was apparently to drop the barrels into the sea at a designated point off the Gaza coast, where the Palestinians would retrieve them. At a press conference held Monday night announcing the boat's interception, television cameras lingered over the large quantities of captured weaponry on display at a Haifa naval base.

The cargo of the Santorini was reportedly commissioned by Ahmed Jibril's Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP). It is not clear if the weapons were bound for the Palestinian Authority or for other Palestinian military organizations.

Ahmed Jibril confirmed that the weapons were indeed connected to his organization. "This was not the first shipment, nor will it be the last," Jibril said in an Israeli Army Radio report.

Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer praised the crew of the Navy gunships for intercepting the boat. Ben Eliezer was also extremely critical of the role in the Palestinian leadership in escalating the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. "It makes a mockery of all the agreements and promises and everything they made commitments about. We keep calling for a return to the negotiating table and in contrast they are preparing for war," Ben-Eliezer told reporters in Haifa Monday night.

Weapons could have changed balance of power
Israeli Navy commander, Admiral Yedidiya Ya'ari, said that the weapons cache found on board the boat was of a quantity that would have changed the balance of power in the war with the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Tuesday that the Santorini smugglers had already delivered three similar weapons shipments to the Palestinians. The Prime Minister reportedly informed the U.S. administration of the captured ship, terming it "an extremely grave violation of all the agreements that [PA Chairman Yasser] Arafat signed with Israel."

According to Israel Radio, Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo denied that the Palestinian Authority had any connection to the boat. "For sure we have nothing to do with the shipment," said Nabil Abu Rudaineh, a senior adviser and spokesman for Arafat.

In a commentary published Tuesday in Ha'aretz, Ze'ev Schiff warned that "this capture clearly will not end the smuggling; the Palestinians will try to develop new routes." Most of the Palestinian arms smuggling is presumably done via underground tunnels between Gaza and Egypt.

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