The stopover at the port of Tanger Med of a new landing craft of the Israeli navy, the INS Komemiyut to refuel while it was sailing between the United States and Israel was denounced in pro-Palestinian Moroccan activist circles
A new landing craft for the Israeli Navy, The INS Community made a stopover at the port of Tanger Med during its journey from Pascagoula, Mississippi in the United States and the Haifa naval base, reported the press of the Hebrew state, based on navigation data from sites specializing in monitoring of maritime traffic and other concordant sources.
According to site data Vessel Finderthe position of theins komeyyut weighing 2,500 tonnes and measuring 95 meters long and 20 meters wide, it was docked at Tanger Med upon its arrival on June 6 for departure on June 7. At this point in the voyage, the ship had turned off its geolocation transponder.
The ship, second of its kind after theINS Nahshon to have been ordered five years ago in the United States and purchased from a shipyard with funds from the US military aid of 3.3 billion dollars to Israel, is designed for the rapid unloading of armed forces ashore and their amphibious vehicles. It is part of strengthening Israel’s naval arsenal in its quest “adapting to a multi-arena war that could be even more severe than the current war in Gaza, requiring the logistical transport of equipment and the transport of combat soldiers to destinations like Lebanon or other countries”, can we read information provided by the Tel Aviv press citing various IDF sources.
The ship’s stopover in Morocco served to replenish its fuel and food reserves necessary for its crew of dozens of naval combat soldiers for the remainder of the journey to Israel. This was also the case last September for l’INS Nachshon who had also cast off at Tangier-Med.
“State silence”
In reaction to this information, the “Moroccan Front in Support of Palestine and Against Normalization”, a composite NGO, deplored in a press release published on June 22, “the silence of the State” and the fact that the authorities did not follow the Spanish example by prohibiting the Israeli warship from entering Moroccan territorial waters. On May 19, Madrid refused the cargo Marian Danicaflying the Danish flag, docked at the port of Cartagena, on the grounds, according to the Iberian press, that it was transporting 27 tonnes of explosives loaded in India bound for Israel.
Anti-Israeli demonstrations are regularly organized in Moroccan cities expressing “the solidarity of the Moroccan people with the Palestinian people and the Palestinian question” and calling for “the immediate end of normalization with the genocidal Israeli regime”.
If in recent years, Moroccan-Israeli relations had intensified following the Abraham Accords and the trilateral agreement between the kingdom, the Jewish State and the United States, particularly in terms of military cooperation, the position of Rabat, although it has not denounced the normalization process initiated since the end of 2020, has experienced a certain inflection since the outbreak of the murderous war waged by Israel against the civilian populations in Gaza.
Moroccan diplomacy, which denounces the continuation of Israeli attacks against civilians in the Gaza Strip, the repeated incursions on the esplanade of the Al Quds mosques and reiterates the principle of a two-state solution, welcomed the plan proposed by US President Joe Biden, as well as the recent adoption by the Security Council of a resolution on the ceasefire. Morocco also participates in the airdrop of humanitarian aid.
