Ship ‘partially refloated,’ but still stuck in Suez Canal

This picture taken on March 28, 2021 shows a distant view of the Panama-flagged MV 'Ever Given' container ship. (File/AFP)
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Updated 29 March 2021
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Ship ‘partially refloated,’ but still stuck in Suez Canal

SUEZ: Engineers on Monday “partially refloated” the colossal container ship that continues to block traffic through the Suez Canal, authorities said, without providing further details about when the vessel would be set free.
Satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed that the ship’s bulbous bow, once lodged deep in the canal’s eastern bank, had been partly wrested from the shore — although it remained stuck at the canal’s edge. The ship’s stern had swung around and was now in the middle of the waterway, tracking data showed.

Although the development marked the vessel’s most significant movement since getting stuck last week, the salvage crew urged caution as obstacles loomed.
“Don’t cheer too soon,” Peter Berdowski, CEO of Boskalis, the salvage firm hired to extract the Ever Given, told Dutch NPO Radio 1.
Last Tuesday, the skyscraper-sized Ever Given got stuck sideways in the crucial waterway, creating a massive traffic jam. The obstruction has held up $9 billion each day in global trade and strained supply chains already burdened by the coronavirus pandemic. At least 367 vessels, carrying everything from crude oil to cattle, were still waiting to pass through the canal, while dozens were taking the alternate route around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip — a detour that adds some two weeks to journeys and costs ships hundreds of thousands of dollars in fuel and other costs.
With canal transits stopped, Egypt already has lost over $95 million in revenue, according to the data firm Refinitiv. If the ship is freed in the next few days, clearing the backlog of ships already waiting to pass through the canal would take at least 10 days, Refinitiv added.
The partial freeing of the vessel came after intensive efforts to push and pull the vessel with 10 tugboats when the full moon brought spring tide, canal services firm Leth Agencies said, raising the canal’s water level and hopes for a breakthrough. Videos shared widely on social media showed tugboats in the canal sounding their horns in celebration of the Ever Given being partly wrenched from the shore.
However, the rescue team said the ship’s bow remained stuck in the sandy clay at the canal’s edge.
“The good news is that the stern is free but we saw that as the simplest part of the job,” said Berdowski, noting that the toughest challenge remained at the front of the ship, where workers would struggle to haul the fully laden 220,000-ton vessel over the clay of the canal bank.
An official at Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the company that owns the Ever Given, confirmed the vessel’s bow had moved slightly, but warned the bottom of the ship was still touching the seafloor. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
On Monday morning, an Associated Press journalist could see that the ship’s position had distinctly changed — where previously only the ship’s stern was visible, the ship’s side could now be seen.
Lt. Gen. Osama Rabei, the head of the Suez Canal Authority, said the vessel had responded well to “pull-and-push maneuvers” early Monday. He said that workers had straightened the vessel’s position by 80% and that the stern had moved 102 meters (334 feet) from the canal bank.
The price of international benchmark Brent crude dropped some 2% to just over $63 on the news.
When high tide returns at 11:30 a.m. local time on Monday, salvage crews will resume their attempts to tow the ship into the middle of the waterway and toward the Great Bitter Lake, a wide stretch of water halfway between the north and south end of the canal, where it will undergo technical examination, Rabei said.
Overnight, several dredgers had toiled to vacuum up 27,000 cubic meters of sand and mud around the ship. Another powerful tugboat, the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, arrived at the scene to join the work Monday, and the flotilla would now focus its efforts on the front of the ship, said Berdowski.
Although the vessel is vulnerable to damage in its current position, the vessel’s owner dismissed concerns on Monday, saying that the ship’s engine was functional and it would head north when freed. It wasn’t decided whether the Panama-flagged, Japanese-owned ship, hauling goods from Asia to Europe, would continue to its original destination of Rotterdam or if it will need to enter another port for repairs, the Shoei official said.
Ship operators did not offer a timeline for the reopening of the crucial canal, which carries over 10% of global trade, including 7% of the world’s oil. Over 19,000 ships passed through last year, according to canal authorities. Millions of barrels of oil and liquified natural gas flow through the artery from the Arabian Gulf to Europe and North America. Goods made in China — furniture, clothes, supermarket basics — bound for Europe also must go through the canal, or else take the detour around Africa.
The unprecedented shutdown has threatened to disrupt oil and gas shipments to Europe from the Middle East and raised fears of extended delays, good shortages and rising costs for consumers.
Canal authorities have desperately tried to free the vessel by relying on tugs and dredgers alone, even as analysts warned that 400-meter-long ship may be too heavy for such an operation. As a window for a breakthrough narrows with high tide receding this week, fears have grown that authorities would be forced to lighten the vessel by removing the ship’s 20,000 containers — a complex operation, requiring specialized equipment not found in Egypt, that could take days or weeks.
The salvage team’s next step is dredging beneath the vessel’s bow with high pressure water jets to wrench the ship from the clay, said Berdowski.
“If that doesn’t work, then in the end you will have to remove weight and that can only happen by removing containers from the front,” he added. “But that is a process that will take time.”


Prospect of Lebanon ceasefire leaves Gazans feeling abandoned

Updated 7 sec ago
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Prospect of Lebanon ceasefire leaves Gazans feeling abandoned

CAIRO: The prospect of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah without a similar deal with Hamas in Gaza has left Palestinians feeling abandoned and fearful that Israel will focus squarely on its onslaught in the enclave.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing missiles at Israel in solidarity with Hamas after the Palestinian militant group attacked Israel in October of 2023, triggering the Gaza war.
Hostilities in Lebanon have drastically escalated in the last two months, with Israel stepping up airstrikes and sending in ground forces to Lebanon’s south and Hezbollah sustaining rocket fire on Israel.
Now Israel looks set to approve a US plan for a ceasefire with Hezbollah when its security cabinet meets on Tuesday, while Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib expressed hope that a ceasefire would be reached by Tuesday night.
While diplomacy focuses on Lebanon, Palestinians feel let down by the world after 14 months of conflict which has devastated the Gaza Strip and killed more than 44,000 people. “It showed Gaza is an orphan, with no support and no mercy from the unjust world,” said Abdel-Ghani, a father of five who only gave a first name.
“I am angry against the world that has failed to bring one solution to the two regions,” Abdel-Ghani. “Maybe, there will be another deal for Gaza, maybe.”
An Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire without a deal for Gaza would be a blow to Hamas, whose leaders had hoped the expansion of the war into Lebanon would pressure Israel to reach a comprehensive ceasefire. Hezbollah had insisted that it would not agree to a ceasefire until the war in Gaza ends, but it dropped that condition.
“We had high hopes that Hezbollah would remain steadfast until the end but it seems they couldn’t,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman, who like most Gazans has been displaced from his home. “We are afraid the Israeli army will now have a free hand in Gaza.”
While a Lebanon deal could leave some Hezbollah commanders in place after Israel killed the heavily armed group’s veteran leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and his successor, Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas completely.
“We hoped the expansion of the war meant one solution for all, but we were left alone in the face of the monstrous (Israeli) occupation,” said Zakeya Rezik, 56, a mother of six.
“Enough is enough, we are exhausted. How many more had to die before they stopped the war? Gaza war must stop, the people are being wiped out, starved, and bombed every day.”

Three bodies recovered from capsized tourist boat off Egypt’s Red Sea coast, 13 missing

Updated 26 November 2024
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Three bodies recovered from capsized tourist boat off Egypt’s Red Sea coast, 13 missing

CAIRO: Three bodies have been recovered from a capsized tourist boat that sank off Egypt’s Red Sea coast on Monday, and 13 people were still reported missing, Red Sea Governor Amr Hanafi told Reuters on Tuesday.


Israel expected to approve ceasefire with Hezbollah: Israeli official

Updated 29 min 29 sec ago
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Israel expected to approve ceasefire with Hezbollah: Israeli official

  • EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday that Israel has no reason to refuse a ceasefire with Lebanon along the lines proposed by France and the United States
  • UN demands ‘permanent ceasefire’ in Lebanon, Gaza, Israel

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel looks set to approve a US plan for a ceasefire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Tuesday, a senior Israeli official said, clearing the way for an end to the conflict that has killed thousands of people since it was ignited by the Gaza war 14 months ago.
Israel’s security cabinet is expected to convene later on Tuesday to discuss and likely approve the text at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the official said.

EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday that Israel has no reason to refuse a ceasefire with Lebanon along the lines proposed by France and the United States. 
“There is not an excuse for not implementing a ceasefire... No more excuses. No more additional requests. Stop this fighting. Stop killing people,” Borrell said at a G7 foreign ministers meeting near Rome.
As truce talks intensified, Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli strikes killed at least 31 people on Monday, mostly in the south.
An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the security cabinet “will decide on Tuesday evening on the ceasefire deal.”
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the talks were progressing but not finalized.
“We believe we’ve reached this point where we’re close,” he said, adding “we’re not there yet.”

Meanwhile the UN rights chief is gravely concerned over the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon and wants a “permanent ceasefire” there and in war-ravaged Gaza, his spokesman said Tuesday.
“The only way to end the suffering of people on all sides is a permanent and immediate ceasefire on all fronts: in Lebanon, in Israel and in Gaza,” Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for Volker Turk, told reporters in Geneva.


While Israel presses its offensive on Palestinian militants Hamas in Gaza, the United States and France have led efforts to broker a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah on a second front.
France reported “significant progress” in ceasefire talks, and Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the G7 group of nations, expressed “optimism” over a truce in Lebanon.
US news outlet Axios reported the draft agreement includes a 60-day transition period.
Israeli forces would withdraw, the Lebanese army would redeploy near the border, and Hezbollah would move heavy weapons north of the Litani River, said Axios.
A US-led committee would oversee implementation, with provisions allowing Israel to act against imminent threats if Lebanese forces fail to intervene, it added.
News of the security cabinet meeting came as the Israeli military said it carried out a wave of strikes on Monday, including on Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold that Israel has repeatedly bombed since late September when it escalated its air campaign in Lebanon.
The latest strikes hit around two dozen Hezbollah targets across Lebanon in one hour, the military said. A statement said “command centers, and intelligence control and collection centers, where Hezbollah commanders and operatives were located,” were targeted.
The strikes followed intense Hezbollah fire over the weekend, including some attacks deep into Israel.


Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was likely to endorse the US ceasefire proposal.
Asked in New York about the possible truce agreement, Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said “we are moving forward on this front,” adding the cabinet would meet to discuss it.
The war in Lebanon followed nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah. The Lebanese group said it was acting in support of Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
Lebanon says at least 3,768 people have been killed in the country since October 2023, most of them in the past few weeks.
On the Israeli side, the Lebanon hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.


The initial exchanges of fire forced tens of thousands of Israelis to flee their homes, and Israeli officials have said they are fighting so the residents can return safely.
Some northern residents expressed fears as to whether that was possible under a ceasefire.
“In my opinion, it would be a serious mistake to sign an agreement as long as Hezbollah has not been completely eliminated,” said Maryam Younnes, 29, a student from Maalot-Tarshiha.
“It would be a mistake to sign an agreement as long as Hezbollah still has weapons.”
Dorit Sison, a 51-year-old teacher displaced from Shlomi, said: “I don’t want a ceasefire, because if they do it along the lines that they’ve announced, we’ll be in the same place in five years.”
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir warned on X that reaching a Lebanon ceasefire deal would be a “historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah.”
Ben Gvir has repeatedly threatened to bring down the government if it agrees to a truce deal with Hamas in the Gaza Strip or Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Efforts this year by mediators to secure a truce and hostage-release deal in the Gaza war have failed.
Qatar early this month said it was suspending its mediation role until the warring sides showed “seriousness.”
With an intensive Israeli military operation in besieged north Gaza continuing, remaining residents were left “scavenging among the rubble” for food, said Louise Wateridge, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Such scavenging puts Gazans at risk of encountering unexploded and unused ordnance that can be found in many populated areas of the territory, the Danish Refugee Council said.


Israeli airstrikes intensify in Lebanon amid rumors of imminent ceasefire agreement

Updated 26 November 2024
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Israeli airstrikes intensify in Lebanon amid rumors of imminent ceasefire agreement

  • Latest attacks cause further destruction in areas stretching from border region to distant areas as far north as Bekaa and beyond
  • Israel escalates attacks to put pressure on Lebanese authorities whenever peace talks advance, says deputy speaker of Lebanese parliament

BEIRUT: Israeli attacks on targets in Lebanon intensified on Monday, as rumors circulated in Tel Aviv and Beirut about the possibility of a ceasefire agreement within two days.

US envoy Amos Hochstein has been leading complex negotiations between Israeli and Lebanese authorities with the aim of ending the conflict, which began on Sep. 23 with Israeli airstrikes, followed by ground incursions into border areas on Oct. 1.

Since then, Israel has assassinated senior Hezbollah leaders, and the confirmed death toll from the fighting stands at about 3,800. This figure does not include Hezbollah members killed on the battlefield, the numbers of which are difficult to ascertain because of intense shelling in southern areas.

The escalating war has also resulted in the destruction of thousands of residential and commercial buildings in areas stretching from the south of the country to the southern suburbs of Beirut and northern Bekaa. Tensions continue to run high as the population lives in fear of the intense airstrikes, with ambulances and fire trucks remaining on standby in all regions.

MP Elias Bou Saab, the deputy speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, said: “We are optimistic about a ceasefire and there is hope. But nothing can be confirmed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What might put pressure on him is the battlefield.”

Israeli aggression intensifies whenever peace negotiations move closer to an agreement, he added, in an attempt to put pressure on Lebanese authorities.

“We insist on our position regarding the inclusion of France in the committee overseeing the ceasefire implementation,” said Bou Saab.

“We did not hear anything about Israel’s freedom of movement in Lebanon, and we still speak only about UN Resolution 1701, with no additions and with an implementation mechanism.”

Resolution 1701 was adopted by the Security Council in 2006 with the aim of resolving the conflict that year between Israel and Hezbollah. It calls for an end to hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, the withdrawal of Hezbollah and other forces from parts of the country south of the Litani River, and the disarmament of Hezbollah and other armed groups.

News channel CNN quoted a spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister as saying talks were moving toward a ceasefire. Another regional source told the network: “The agreement is closer than ever. However, it has not been fully finalized yet.”

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Herzog, said an agreement “could happen in a few days” but “there are still some sticking points that need to be resolved.”

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority quoted the country’s education minister as saying that Hochstein has the green light to proceed with an agreement. It added that a deal with Lebanon had been finalized and Netanyahu was considering “how to explain it to the public.”

Also on Monday, diplomat Dan Shapiro from the US Department of Defense held meetings with senior Israeli officials that focused on the members of a proposed committee to monitor the ceasefire, most notably the participation of France, and the details of a monitoring mechanism to be led by the US.

One report suggested Washington had agreed to provide Israel with a guarantee it would support any military action in response to threats from Lebanon and to disrupt any Hezbollah presence along the border.

According to news website Axios, the draft agreement for a ceasefire includes a 60-day transitional period during which the Israeli army would withdraw from southern Lebanon, to be replaced by the Lebanese army in areas close to the border, and Hezbollah would move its heavy weapons from the border region to areas north of the Litani Line.

Against this backdrop of peace negotiations, the continual Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut intensified on Monday, following 10 strikes the previous evening. The attacks targeted Haret Hreik, Hadath, Ghobeiry, Bir Al-Abed and Sfeir.

Hundreds of buildings have been damaged or destroyed, and as Arab News visited targeted areas, residents said “there have never been any Hezbollah offices in these structures, neither now nor in the past, and the buildings are mainly for residential purposes.”

A lawyer called Imad said the apartment building in the Hadath area in which he lived collapsed when it was hit by an airstrike.

“It is unbelievable that they use Hezbollah as a pretext to destroy our homes, which we purchased through financial loans to provide shelter for our families. They intend to annihilate us all,” he said.

The Israeli army said on Monday that an airstrike that hit the Basta area of central Beirut early on Saturday had “targeted a command center affiliated with Hezbollah.”

Efforts to help the injured and recover the bodies of the dead continued at the scene of the attack until Sunday evening. The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 29 people were killed and 67 wounded.

The Israeli army also carried out numerous airstrikes in southern Lebanon, mainly targeting the cities of Tyre and Nabatieh. Ten people were killed, including a woman and a member of the Lebanese army, and 17 injured in three airstrikes on Tyre.

Also in Tyre, an Israeli drone killed a motorcycle rider in a parking lot near the Central Bank of Lebanon. And three civilians were killed by an airstrike in the town of Ghazieh, south of Sidon.

From the southern border to the northern banks of the Litani River, no area has been spared from Israeli airstrikes, which have extended as far north as the city of Baalbek, and the town of Hermel close to the border with Syria.

In the east, back-and-forth operations between the Israeli army and Hezbollah continued as the former attempted to gain control over the town of Khiam. Its forces advanced, supported by Merkava tanks, from the southern outskirts under the cover of airstrikes and artillery bombardment, moving into the center of the town and toward Ebel Al-Saqi and Jdidet Marjeyoun.

The Israeli army also deployed tanks between olive groves in the town of Deir Mimas after an incursion into the town last week. It began advancing toward the Tal Nahas-Kfar Kila-Qlayaa triangle. Elsewhere, Hezbollah and Israeli forces clashed in the western sector of the Maroun Al-Ras-Ainata-Bint Jbeil triangle.

Hezbollah said it targeted Israeli army positions on the outskirts of the towns of Shamaa and Biyada. Israeli forces carried out house-demolition operations in Shamaa.

Hezbollah also continued to launch attacks against northern Israel. The group said its rockets “reached the Shraga base, north of the city of Acre, and targeted an Israeli army gathering in the settlement of Meron.”

Israeli medical services said one person was injured in Nahariya by falling fragments from a rocket.


Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

Updated 26 November 2024
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Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry says war death toll at 44,235

  • Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry

GAZA CITY: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Monday that at least 44,235 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 24 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,638 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.