TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AFP) - An all-women Lebanese aid ship for Gaza was postponed on Sunday to await a green light from a third country as a transit point for the mission to the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory.

The Mariam, a Bolivian-flagged cargo ship, was to have set off from Tripoli port in northern Lebanon later the same day headed for Cyprus on the first leg of a crossing to Gaza.
“The trip has not been cancelled but delayed,” one of the organizers, Samar al-Hajj, told a news conference in Tripoli, as efforts continued to secure authorization from another state in the region to dock before heading for Gaza.
Lebanon and Israel remain technically at war and have no diplomatic ties or maritime links, barring the Mariam's direct departure from a Lebanese port for Israeli-controlled waters.
Cyprus has denied the Mariam permission to dock or use its waters and the ship has been trying to negotiate with Greece, Yasser Kashlak, another of the organizers, told reporters.
“Contacts are underway with Athens to receive the ship but so far we have not received a reply,” he said.
On Saturday, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said Lebanese authorities will not authorize the Mariam to leave for the Gaza Strip “unless the legal conditions are met.”
Rima Farah, the aid mission's spokeswoman, told AFP on Saturday that contacts were also underway with Turkey.
Israel came under international censure over its May 31 seizure of a six-ship aid fleet bound for the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip when Israeli commandos shot dead nine Turkish activists in a clash on the lead boat.
Israel has warned it could use force again to stop the new aid boat to Gaza.
The Mariam, renamed in honor of the Virgin Mary, plans to carry aid to Gaza in a bid to break Israel's four-year siege of Gaza with more than 50 Lebanese and foreign women activists on board.
Another Lebanese boat, the Naji al-Ali, organized by journalists, has also announced plans to set sail for Gaza.
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