Sol Phryne

Voyage

The 6,151-ton Sol Phryne was purchased in some secrecy by the Palestine Liberation Organization and renamed Al Awda ("the Return"). The PLO planned to symbolically ferry 135 Palestinian deportees and, if they accepted the short notice invitation, hundreds of journalists and other observers, to the Israeli port city of Haifa for a "journey of return", echoing the 1947 journey of .

Israeli Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin stated that Israel would oppose the voyage "in whatever ways we find," while Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir labeled the journey "a declaration of war".

A different, chartered ship had been scheduled to sail from Piraeus on 9 February, but the departure was postponed several times because Greek ship owners feared commercial retaliations from Israel if their vessel was used. With this difficulty chartering a ship, on 13 February 1988 the PLO purchased the Sol Phryne in Limassol, Cyprus at auction for $600,000. By the time of the sinking the crew of the ship had not been informed of the new owners.

On 15 February, three high-ranking military officials of the PLO were assassinated in Limassol by a remote-controlled bomb planted on their car.

18 hours later, on the night of 15 February, a limpet mine Melman, Yossi and Raviv, Dan (1989). The imperfect spies: the history of Israeli intelligence. Sidgwick & Jackson, p. 24. attached to the hull exploded and holed a fuel tank of the Sol Phryne, flooding it and causing the ship to list. No casualties were reported but this ended the attempt. Yassar Arafat alleged that this was done by Israeli frogmen but did not provide any evidence to support his claim, The Sol Phryne was raised and transferred to Bijela, in Yugoslavia. As Time reported, "Israel officially denied complicity in the car bombing but hardly bothered to conceal its role in disabling the ferry" and suspicions of Israeli involvement were further reinforced when Israeli Transport Minister Chaim Corfu threatened that, if a further attempt was made by the PLO, "its fate will be the same". Fuad al-Bitar, Athens representative of the PLO told an Athens news conference that "it is clear that the only one interested" in the sabotage was Israel. In July 2008, Haaretz referred to this attack, without admitting Israeli responsibility, in the context of the scheduled and ultimately successful Free Gaza Movement voyage which broke Israel's siege of Gaza.

Three claims of responsibility were made, two of them being:

• an anonymous caller, claiming to be from the Palestine Salvation Front because "rejected many times Yasir Arafat's idea to arrange this propaganda trip" - denied by Abdul Hadi al-Nahhad for the Damascus-based group and by the PLO.
• a telephone call received by the Associated Press claimed the attack for the Jewish Defence League

Israel's responsibility

In 2011 the Journalists Dan Margalit, Ronen Bergman published a book, in which they claimed that Israel's Shayetet 13 unit, was responsible for the bombing of the Sol Phryne. And that Israel's Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant was the commander of the operation.

References

References

1. [https://www.faktaomfartyg.se/sol_phryne_1948_b_1.htm Photograph]
2. Doerner, William R.. (29 February 1988). "Middle East Land for Peace?".
3. Cowell, Alan. (16 February 1988). "Blast Disables P.L.O.'s 'Exodus' Ferry in Port". New York Times.
4. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE1DA1031F93BA25751C0A96E948260 P.L.O. "Scuttles ship plans"], ''New York Times'', 18 February 1988
5. [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DC103FF934A25751C0A96E948260&sec=&spon= P.L.O. 'Exodus' Ferry Faces a Sea of Trouble] ''New York Times'' 17 February 1988. Verified 28 August 2008.
6. [https://fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/ASAM-1988.htm PORT OF LIMASSOL, CYPRUS (34-40N 33-03E) 15 FEBRUARY 1988.] ''1988 Anti-Shipping Activity Messages''. Verified 28 August 2008.
7. [http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/1988_523261/day-of-rage-ends-in-relative-calm-as-palestinians.html `Day of rage' ends in relative calm as Palestinians strike] {{Webarchive. link. (19 October 2012 by Michael Ross and Charles P. Wallace. ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', 17 February 1988)
8. [https://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1012171.html Israel may use force to halt boat trying to break Gaza siege] {{Webarchive. link. (28 August 2008 ''Haaretz'' 17 August 2008. Verified 28 August 2008.)
9. [https://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1006667.html U.S. leftists confirm plans to sail to Gaza to break siege], ''Haaretz'' 29 July 2008. Verified 28 August 2008.
10. (2011). "Ha-Bor". Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir.