Seven crew missing after ship capsizes off Lebanon

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Five crew were rescued from a cargo ship that capsized some 80 km (50 miles) off the Lebanese coast, but seven more were still missing, the Israeli army and the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon said on Saturday.

Spokesman Neeraj Singh of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said in a statement the force received a distress call from the Sala II late on Friday night but U.N. vessels that rushed to the scene found the ship had already sunk.

Singh identified the ship as a Togolese-flagged cargo vessel carrying 12 sailors. An Israeli military source said the ship was Turkish and bound for Israel.

Five crew members were found alive in international waters some 80 km (50 miles) off the Lebanese coast and were taken to a hospital in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.

She added that Israeli navy vessels and helicopters were taking part in the search operation, which is being hampered by stormy weather.

UNIFIL has a naval task force that monitors Lebanese waters to prevent weapons from reaching the country's Hezbollah guerrilla force, which fought a war with Israel in 2006.

The Israeli navy in October seized an Antigua-flagged ship carrying hundreds of tones of Iranian-supplied weapons to Hezbollah.

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr in Jerusalem and Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Writing by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Jon Hemming)