Israel Matzav

Wow! Israel may have sent another nuclear sub through the Suez

I don't know why anyone would believe otherwise, but Haaretz felt the need to publish an article by three reporters indicating that the passage of two Israeli Sa'ar 5 gunboats (a Sa'ar 5 is pictured) through the Suez Canal on Tuesday had to have been coordinated with Egypt. Unless there was something else underwater....

Let's go to the videotape for a brief report (sorry, way too much advertising in this one) and then we'll return to the story. Video removed because it turned on automatically and slowed down loading for the whole page.

According to news agency reports, the ships that passed through the Suez Canal Tuesday were two Sa'ar 5 gunboats, the Hanit and the Eilat.

This follows a similar incident in late June, when an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine passed through the canal, later returning the same way. Subsequent media reports, including one on an Egyptian Internet news site, said the submarine had been accompanied by two gunships.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, when asked Tuesday about the boats' passage through Suez, confirmed the report and said that Egypt's agreements with Israel permit Israeli military ships to transit the canal. He declined to speculate on whether the voyage was meant as a warning to Iran or anyone else.

But while Israeli naval ships have gone through Suez before, the last such occurrence was at least a year ago.

It therefore seems unlikely that Israel would have embarked on such a public maneuver now - the ships were easily visible from the shore - on a day when diplomats from the Nonaligned Movement were holding a conference in Egypt's Red Sea resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh, in the Sinai Peninsula - without prior coordination with Cairo.

...

The Sa'ar 5 gunboats are the most advanced in the Israel Navy, capable of attacking several targets on land, at sea and undersea simultaneously, even from fairly long distances. While small naval patrol boats regularly patrol the Gulf of Eilat, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, submarines and Sa'ar 5 gunboats both usually stay in the Mediterranean Sea. The presence of either in the Red Sea is very rare.

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman said that "as a rule, for obvious reasons, the IDF does not usually comment on reports of this nature."

But was there another submarine beneath the gunboats? No one is saying. Hmmm.

Let's go back for a minute to an article from ten days ago when we were told that a submarine passed through the Suez. At the time, Egypt denied it.

"Egypt does not allow Israeli warships to enter our territory," Army Radio quoted the official as saying.

So much for that. If a gunboat isn't a warship, I don't know what is.

Note that this time, Egypt isn't denying that the gunboats passed through.

And recall that the Dolphins may be nuclear-armed.

Read the whole thing.

Mahmoud?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:38 PM