According to the reports, there are growing indications that Israel's military or its intelligence service sabotaged three of the foreign ships involved in the ill-fated effort to get humanitarian supplies to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces had taken covert action to disable two of the ships that were supposed to have participated in the blockade-busting operation on Monday, Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defense minister, hinted during an interview on Israel Radio.

Vilnai, when asked whether there had been an alternative to landing naval commandos on the leading ship, the Turkish-registered Mavi Marmara, before dawn Monday to prevent the flotilla reaching Gaza, said: "All possibilities had been considered. The fact is that there were less than the 10 ships that were due to participate in the flotilla."

It has also been reported that his remarks appeared to dovetail with the sudden breakdown of two of the aid ships, Challenger I and Challenger II, with mechanical problems at the same time as the flotilla gathered Friday evening off Cyprus.

They had sailed together from the Greek port of Heraklion on Crete. Both vessels experienced mechanical problems around 3:30 p. m. Friday as they approached Cyprus after a 30-hour voyage.

Challenger I started taking on water after its bilge pump broke down, said Greta Berlin, founder and spokeswoman of the Free Gaza Movement, which organized the flotilla of ships that sailed from ports around the Mediterranean for the rendezvous off Cyprus. (With Inputs from Agencies)