...The Israel Navy on Sunday intercepted a Palestinian boat carrying a large amount of explosives near the Gaza Strip in an attempted smuggling operation, the army said.

The boat contained about 450 kilograms (992 pounds) of TNT and parts of mines, and additional bags of explosives had been thrown overboard as the naval boat approached, Col. Yoram Lachs told Channel 2 TV. The military said it was an attempt to smuggle weapons-grade explosives into the Gaza Strip, the second such attempt this month.

The Palestinian boat was sailing along the coast of the southern Gaza Strip, had entered Egyptian waters and was returning to Gaza when the naval ship ordered it to stop and fired warning shots, the army said. When the boat did not stop, the soldiers fired toward it, Lachs said. No injuries were reported.

The Palestinian crew of the boat were detained for questioning, the army said.

On May 3, the navy thwarted a similar shipment of TNT on a Palestinian boat in Gaza waters. Naval divers uncovered 13 bags of 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of TNT that had been dumped overboard when the boat was captured...

Defense Minister Amir Peretz has praised as "a very important achievement in the war on terror" an operation in which troops Sunday killed the senior Islamic Jihad commander in the Jenin area, Elias al-Ashkar, mastermind of several suicide bombings, along with six other Palestinians, all but one of them armed.

Al-Ashkar was behind suicide attacks that killed nearly 30 people. IDF Menashe Brigade Commander Colonel Hertzi Halevi said Monday that the decision to launch the operation was taken after security forces received information on his hiding place, and because he was planning a terror attack in the coming days.

"There was a focused alert over his intention to send out a terror attacker," Halevi told Army Radio...