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IDF warships cross Suez Canal to Red Sea
07.14.2009.18:05
 Two Sa'ar-5 class Navy ships reportedly crossed through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea on Tuesday to beef up Israel's naval presence in the Red Sea.
The passage of the ships comes several weeks after a Dolphin-class Navy submarine passed through the waterway for the first time.
One of the ships, the Hanit, already crossed the canal both ways in June, in what an Egyptian source said was the first case of a large Israeli warship using the strategic waterway, AFP reported.
The other ship to cross on Tuesday, the Eilat, was named after a destroyer sunk by Egypt with the loss of 47 lives shortly after the 1967 Six Day War.
It is thought that Israeli navy vessels did not previously use the canal for intelligence reasons, as they might be equipped with nuclear warheads that could be visible to the Egyptian authorities.
The report Tuesday was based on Arab media outlets and was not confirmed by the military.
The Dolphin submarine's crossing several weeks ago, escorted by Egyptian navy vessels as first reported by The Jerusalem Post, was intended as a message to Iran.
Previously, Israeli submarines took weeks to go round the whole of Africa to get to the Red Sea.
jpost
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