Concerns were raised on Thursday over a ship which is due to dock in Cyprus on Friday, with it having been reported that the vessel is transporting explosives and artillery systems to Israel, to be used by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).

The ship, a United States-flagged cargo vessel named the Ocean Grand, set sail from the military ocean terminal at Sunny Point in the US state of North Carolina on July 2. Its last known location was between Malta and Sicily on Wednesday morning.

It was reported that after arriving in Limassol, the ship will continue to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

Left-wing Irish investigative news website The Ditch reported that the ship is “carrying a massive shipment of key munitions for Israeli forces”, and that among that shipment are four Roem 155-millimetre mobile howitzer artillery systems.

The Roem is, in short, a large gun which sits on the back of a wheeled vehicle.

Its manufacturer is Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems, which builds the Roem at its factory near the city of Charleston, in the US state of South Carolina – a 185-mile drive from the terminal at Sunny Point.

Israeli newspaper the Jerusalem Post had described it as “a new type of futuristic artillery that is supposed to help transform the IDF into a superior fighting machine”, while it quoted the IDF as having dubbed the weapon, “the first cannon in the world capable of automatic firing”.

In addition to the Roems, The Ditch claimed that 10.4 tonnes of nitrocellulose, an explosive used as a propellant for firearms, is also on board the ship.

It added that the nitrocellulose is set to be delivered to Israeli weapons manufacturer IMI Systems, though it must be noted that IMI Systems no longer exists as an entity after having been bought in its entirety Elbit Systems.

The Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement also commented on the ship’s presence, criticising the fact that it had switched off its automatic identification system (AIS).

The AIS is a tracking beacon which allows a ship to be located on global shipping maps, and with the Ocean Grand having not been trackable since Wednesday morning, it appears that the ship’s AIS has been switched off.