Sunday April 26, 2009 23:46 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

According to a report in the Egyptian newspaper El-Aosboa on Sunday, a recent attack on an Iranian ship off the coast of Sudan was carried out by the Israeli navy, with possible U.S. involvement.

After January's Israeli invasion of Gaza, there have been several incidents of Israeli attacks on what they claimed were arms shipments from Iran bound for Gaza. No Palestinian group has ever claimed a connection with Iran, and the homemade shells fired by Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza are mainly made of homemade materials, lacking any sophistication that would imply Iranian involvement.

In January, an aerial bombardment of a convoy of trucks in Sudan was claimed to be an Israeli airforce attack on an Iranian arms shipment, but neither side confirmed this claim.

In February, the government of Cyprus detained a ship that they claimed was headed for Gaza with anti-tank and anti-mortar weapons.

Neither the U.S. Nor Israel have issued any statement regarding Sunday's attack. However, Israeli politicians in the new administration have stepped up rhetoric against Iran, at the same time that the new administration in Washinton has called for direct talks.

Whether or not Iran has been trying to get weapons into Gaza is a matter of much speculation among political analysts in the region. What is clear on the ground, however, is that if Iran has smuggled weapons to Gaza, the Palestinian resistance has not used them, as the sporadic homemade shelling that they engage in continues to use the crude, homemade weaponry that lacks any aiming capability or consistency.