Iran Sending Ships To Run Israel's Blockade

You can bet dollars to donuts that Iran is hoping to cause yet another major international incident when its ships attempt to run Israel's lawful blockade of Gaza.

A senior Iranian official said earlier Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards were ready to provide a military escort to aid ships heading to Gaza if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei so commands. [ID:nLDE65509B]

But the Guards' deputy head, Hossein Salami, said there were no plans to do so. "Such a thing is not on our agenda," he was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency on Monday.

Any such military mobilisation would risk a major confrontation with Israel, which fears Iran's nuclear enrichment programme is aimed at developing atomic bombs.

The Jewish state regards Iran's nuclear ambitions as a mortal threat. Iran says its nuclear programme is meant solely to yield electricity or isotopes for medicine and agriculture.

Iran backs Hamas as its proxy army against Israel's existence, and they are hoping to undermine Israel's lawful blockade that prevents the terror group from obtaining weapons and equipment vital to Hamas' war against Israel.

Expect the Iranian ships to put up resistance at any Israeli attempts to board the ships to force the ship to put in to Israel's ports so that the cargo and crew can be properly and thoroughly searched for contraband.

If the cargo does get put in to Israel's ports, it will get transferred to Gaza after the search, just as other shipments that have not been blocked by Hamas. Hamas had blocked some such shipments including from the offloaded cargo from the May 31 flotilla because the terror group uses these situations to claim a crisis (when it is actually creating the circumstances of the humanitarian crisis by its actual existence).

Iran and pro-Hamas groups are not about providing humanitarian aid for Gaza, but to bust the blockade to restore their shipping lanes for the ongoing jihad against Israel.

Meanwhile, the EU is demanding an end to the blockade, even as it ignores that the blockade has reduced Hamas' ability to carry out attacks against Israel. Humanitarian aid is unaffected by the blockade and such aid can get in through Israel or Egypt.