How Gaza hostage diplomacy could dictate the course of Israel-Hamas war

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Released after 13 days in captivity, US citizens Natalie Shoshana Raanan and Judith Tai Raanan were among roughly 230 people taken hostage by Hamas during the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. (AFP)
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Updated 02 November 2023
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How Gaza hostage diplomacy could dictate the course of Israel-Hamas war

  • Hamas took an estimated 230 hostages, including children and elderly people, during its Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel
  • The politics and tactics of hostage-taking is the subject of the latest report by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit

LONDON: One of the defining images that emerged in the aftermath of the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 was a frame taken from a video, widely disseminated on social media, showing an elderly Israeli woman being driven away into captivity on a golf cart.

It was no coincidence that this image was released, nor that it was so widely used by media organizations around the world. Kidnapping is a visceral act, designed precisely to generate emotional responses that can only benefit the agenda of the hostage-takers.

Yaffa Adar, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother, was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar, close to the border with Gaza.

In the photograph she sits wrapped in a blanket, surrounded by armed men yet gazing ahead with an incongruously calm expression.




Yaffa Adar, an 85-year-old Israeli grandmother who was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, remains in captivity. (Hatem Ali/AP)

She is, as her granddaughter Adva Adar told Reuters on the day of the attacks, “a strong lady ... she’s sitting trying to show them she’s not afraid and she’s not hurt.”

And then she echoed the plaintive plea of every family that has ever suffered the agony of seeing a loved one snatched from their everyday world and held hostage as a pawn in a political game that is beyond their control.




This image taken from video released by Al Qassam brigades on its Telegram channel, shows Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, center, and Nurit Cooper, 79, being escorted by Hamas as they are released to the Red Cross in an unknown location on Oct. 23, 2023. (Al Qassam Brigades via AP)

“I have a message, I have a hope that they will understand that these people have done nothing wrong,” said Adar, fighting back tears.

“I can’t even start to understand how people think it makes sense to kidnap an 85-year-old lady, to kidnap babies, kidnap kids.”

But of course, as those who are holding Yaffa Adar and an estimated 230 other hostages know all too well, in the cold-blooded logic of those who seek to leverage political advantage by placing governments under extreme emotional pressure, kidnapping vulnerable children and old ladies makes the most perfect, terrible sense.

The politics and tactics of hostage-taking is the subject of the latest report published by the Arab News Research and Studies Unit. The author is James Denselow, a writer on Middle East politics and security issues who has worked for the UK-based foreign policy think-tank Chatham House and international NGOs.

In “The Hostage Dilemma,” Denselow reviews the long and much-practised business of “hostage diplomacy,” which, he writes, has been a weapon in the arsenal of terror groups and rogue governments for decades.

From the recent and controversial release in September of five prisoners each by Iran and the US, following agreement by the American government to unfreeze $6 billion of Iranian assets, to the holding hostage for 444 days of 52 Americans seized at the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, “perhaps the most challenging response to hostage diplomacy,” writes Denselow, “is the inconsistent policies of states toward it.”




Pro-Iran Revolution activists held 53 American citizens hostage for 444 days until Jan. 20, 1981. (Getty Images/File)

The truth of this observation can be seen now in the unfolding Gaza crisis, where the raw emotions unleashed by the plight of so many hostages is preventing a unified international response, and even muddying the waters for Israeli military planners.

The awful reality is that, even as it releases a token few hostages here and there, Hamas is seen by its critics as indifferent to the fate of the people it has taken, beyond keeping at least some of them alive long enough for the prospect of their release — or their deaths — to serve its purpose.

Desperately concerned for their loved ones, and tortured daily by thoughts of what they must be going through, many of the families of the hostages have, in effect, become the unwilling allies of their captors.

Ever since the hostages were taken, pressure on the Israeli government at home and from around the world to enter into negotiations with their captors has mounted daily.

The horror the families are dealing with was emphasised on Monday with the news that Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli woman who was living in Tel Aviv and was thought to have been kidnapped from the scene of the massacre at the music festival at the start of the attacks on Oct. 7, was in fact dead.




Shani Louk, a 22-year-old German-Israeli kidnapped by Hamas militants, was confirmed dead on Oct. 30, 2023. (Instagram)

The gruesome details of how Louk’s death was confirmed will serve only to pile on more pressure, not only on Israel but also on all the governments now facing pleas from frantic families.

Israeli forensic scientists identified Louk from DNA extracted from a fragment of skull bone, which so far is the only part of her body that has been recovered.

Hamas is thought to be holding several other Germans, among the citizens of some 24 other countries who were snatched on Oct. 7, and who together account for half of the hostages now being held.

In addition to coping with the mounting pressure from its own increasingly angry families, who fear their loved ones will be murdered by Hamas or fall victims to Israeli bombs and bullets in Gaza, the government is now having to deal with a wide range of demands and diplomatic pressure from other nations around the world.


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Whether by accident or design, there are, in fact, more hostages from other countries being held than citizens of Israel, including 54 Thai nationals, 15 Argentinians, 12 Germans, 12 Americans, six French and six Russians, and this serves Hamas well.

And, although on Wednesday some holders of foreign passports were allowed to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, international concern remains high for the citizens of many countries who have found themselves trapped by the conflict in increasingly desperate conditions.

On Monday a UK Cabinet minister said that the 200 Britons trapped in Gaza were, in effect, also hostages, trapped by Hamas’ refusal to allow them to leave, despite direct pleas by the US and other countries.

Their plight was thrown into sharp focus when Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf disclosed that his own parents, who had been visiting Gaza, had run out of drinking water.

 

 

A seemingly endless flow of similar stories is piling pressure onto the Israeli government from countries that defend Israel’s right to defend itself, but not at the cost of the innocent lives of their own citizens who, through no fault of their own, find themselves pawns in the Hamas game plan.

“The mass hostage-taking of Israelis, many of whom were children or the elderly, as well as high numbers of dual nationals, is a crucial component of the deadly equation of the crisis currently playing out between Israel and Hamas,” Denselow told Arab News.

“The taking of hostages was seemingly a key objective — not an opportunistic act — of the attack itself.”

And, as Hamas will surely have intended, “some of the families of hostages taken have already proven to be some of the most powerful advocates of diplomacy and military de-escalation to see their relatives returned safely.”

Cracks are appearing in Israeli society, ramping up the level of political jeopardy faced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Organizing via WhatsApp and the hashtag “Bring them home now,” on Saturday the Hostages and Missing Families Forum gathered at Israel’s Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, carrying photographs of the missing and demanding to know what the government planned to do to save their lives.




Israelis protest outside the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv on October 19, 2023, to demand the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)

The previous week Hamas had announced that 50 hostages had already died under Israeli bombardment in Gaza. Now Friday night’s incursions into Gaza by Israeli forces had only ratcheted up the anxiety of relatives, stoking fears that Israel’s much-advertised bombing of 150 underground targets had been carried out with little or no concern for the hostages possibly being held in Hamas tunnels.

“Why this offensive? There is no rush. Hamas wasn’t going anywhere,” one man at the protest told the media as he stood holding a picture of his missing 19-year-old nephew, and a poster that read: “Don’t abandon us twice.”

The mood among the protesters was that the government had already failed the hostages once for having allowed the unprecedented attack of Oct. 7 to take place virtually unchallenged. Now, many believe, morally, the government has only one option — to release all Palestinians held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the hostages.

The cry, “All the prisoners for all the hostages,” that is echoing ominously in Israel’s corridors of power will no doubt be music to the ears of the Hamas leadership.

For now, Hamas appears to be in complete control of the increasingly tense standoff between the Israeli government, its own people, and the under-pressure governments of many of its global allies, and only small adjustments to the model are required by Hamas to maintain the pressure on Netanyahu and his cabinet.

On Oct. 18 a Hamas spokesman announced the group was willing to release women and children.




This photo provided by Ichilov hospital shows Yocheved Lifshitz, one of the two women released from Hamas captivity late Monday, Oct. 23, 2023, being wheeled in a wheelchair down the hall at the hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel. (Jenny Yerushalmy/Ichilov hospital via AP)

Two days later, two American hostages, Judith Raanan and her daughter, Natalie, were suddenly released, with US President Joe Biden publicly thanking “the government of Qatar and the government of Israel for their partnership in this work.”

Three days after that, two more elderly Israeli hostages were released. One, 85-year-old grandmother Yocheved Lifshitz, was a peace activist who, according to her grandson, had worked for years helping Palestinians in Gaza to receive medical treatment.

In footage of the women’s release, filmed and released by the media-savvy Hamas, Lifshitz was seen shaking hands with one of her armed captors and wishing him “Shalom” — peace.

On Monday Hamas released a video featuring three kidnapped Israeli women, one of whom accused Netanyahu of having failed to protect Israel on Oct. 7, and then condemned Israel’s military incursions into Gaza.

 

 

“We are innocent citizens,” she told her prime minister. “You want to kill us all. You want to kill us all using the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).”

Each such episode bolsters hope for those who remain in captivity, appears to show Hamas in a humanitarian light, and makes any large-scale military incursion into Gaza by Israeli forces appear reckless.

What does Hamas want? Last week a senior official was quoted on NBC News saying that it would be willing to release all civilian hostages “in one hour” if Israel halted all attacks on the Gaza Strip and released all Palestinians detained by Israel.

This is, of course, exactly what many of Israel’s own citizens are now calling for.




Israeli armored personnel carriers and tanks move towards the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on   Nov.1, 2023. (AP)

But Denselow says the situation in Gaza — and the fate of the hostages held there — remains on a knife edge.

“Reports suggest that the release of a handful of hostages may have played a role in delaying a ground offensive,” he said.

“Yet history shows that while in more stable conflicts hostage negotiation and return can occur, in more fast-moving and intensive conflicts hostages are often tragically unable to escape the wider maelstrom of violence.

“If, by some diplomatic miracle, hostages are safely released, there is still the question of what happens next, and whether violence could indeed escalate.”

 


Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators as fuel shortage threatens hospitals

Updated 3 sec ago
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Gaza doctors cram babies into incubators as fuel shortage threatens hospitals

GAZA: At Gaza’s largest hospital, doctors say crippling fuel shortages have led them to put several premature babies in a single incubator as they struggle to keep the newborns alive while Israel presses on with its military campaign.
Overwhelmed medics say the dwindling fuel supplies threaten to plunge them into darkness and paralyze hospitals and clinics in the Palestinian territory, where health services have been pummelled during 21 months of war.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the fate of Israeli hostages in Gaza with US President Donald Trump in Washington this week, patients at Al Shifa medical center in Gaza City faced imminent danger, doctors there said.
“We are forced to place four, five, or sometimes three premature babies in one incubator,” said Dr. Mohammed Abu Selmia, Al Shifa’s director.
“Premature babies are now in a very critical condition.”
The threat comes from “neither an airstrike nor a missile — but a siege choking the entry of fuel,” Dr. Muneer Alboursh, director general of the Gaza Ministry of Health, told Reuters.
The shortage is “depriving these vulnerable people of their basic right to medical care, turning the hospital into a silent graveyard,” he said.
Gaza, a tiny strip of land with a population of more than 2 million, was under a long, Israeli-led blockade before the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas erupted.
Palestinians and medical workers have accused the Israeli military of attacking hospitals, allegations it rejects.
Israel accuses Hamas of operating from medical facilities and running command centers underneath them, which Hamas denies.
Patients in need of medical care, food and water are paying the price.
There have been more than 600 attacks on health facilities since the conflict began, the WHO says, without attributing blame. It has described the health sector in Gaza as being “on its knees,” with shortages of fuel, medical supplies and frequent arrivals of mass casualties.
Just half of Gaza’s 36 general hospitals are partially functioning, according to the UN agency.
Abu Selmia warned of a humanitarian catastrophe and accused Israel of “trickle-feeding” fuel to Gaza’s hospitals.
COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about fuel shortages at Gaza’s medical facilities and the risk to patients.

OXYGEN RISK
Abu Selmia said Al Shifa’s dialysis department had been shut down to protect the intensive care unit and operating rooms, which can’t be without electricity for even a few minutes.
There are around 100 premature babies in Gaza City hospitals whose lives are at serious risk, he said. Before the war, there were 110 incubators in northern Gaza compared to about 40 now, said Abu Selmia.
“Oxygen stations will stop working. A hospital without oxygen is no longer a hospital. The lab and blood banks will shut down, and the blood units in the refrigerators will spoil,” Abu Selmia said, adding that the hospital could become “a graveyard for those inside.”
Officials at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis are also wondering how they will cope with the fuel crisis. The hospital needs 4,500 liters of fuel per day and it now has only 3,000 liters, said hospital spokesperson Mohammed Sakr.
Doctors are performing surgeries without electricity or air conditioning. The sweat from staff is dripping into patients’ wounds, he said.
Earlier this year, Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza for nearly three months, before partly lifting it. Israel accuses Hamas of diverting aid, something Hamas denies.
“You can have the best hospital staff on the planet, but if they are denied the medicines and the pain killers and now the very means for a hospital to have light ... it becomes an impossibility,” said James Elder, a spokesperson for UN children’s agency UNICEF, recently returned from Gaza.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Gaza’s health ministry says Israel’s response has killed over 57,000 Palestinians. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced almost all Gaza’s population and prompted accusations of genocide and war crimes, which Israel denies.

China, Russia should work together for Middle East peace, Beijing says

Updated 21 min 17 sec ago
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China, Russia should work together for Middle East peace, Beijing says

  • Wang Yi said the two countries should push for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue

BEIJING: China's foreign minister told his Russian counterpart on Thursday that China and Russia should strengthen strategic coordination to promote peace in the Middle East, according to a ministry statement.

Wang Yi said the two countries should push for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue, as he met with Russia's Sergei Lavrov in Kuala Lumpur, China's foreign ministry said.

"Peace cannot be achieved through force, and applying pressure won't solve problems," Wang said, adding that dialogue and negotiations were the way out.


UN calls for ‘immediate deescalation’ in Libyan capital

Updated 36 min 24 sec ago
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UN calls for ‘immediate deescalation’ in Libyan capital

  • The United Nations called for all parties to “engage in good faith” in deescalation and for the “swift implementation of security arrangements” set out during efforts to end the May violence

TRIPOLI: The UN mission in Libya called for “immediate deescalation,” citing reports of armed forces being mobilized in the capital and its surroundings that have raised fears of renewed violence.
In mid-May, there were clashes in Tripoli between forces loyal to the government and powerful armed groups wanting to dismantle it.
In a statement published late on Wednesday on X, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said there were “increased reports of continued military build-up in and around Tripoli.”
It said it “strongly urges all parties to refrain from using force, particularly in densely populated areas, and to avoid any actions or political rhetoric that could trigger escalation or lead to renewed clashes.”
It called for all parties to “engage in good faith” in deescalation and for the “swift implementation of security arrangements” set out during efforts to end the May violence.
Those clashes left six people dead, the United Nations said.
“Forces recently deployed in Tripoli must withdraw without delay,” UNSMIL said.
Libya has been gripped by conflict since the 2011 overthrow and killing of longtime ruler Muammar Qaddafi in a NATO-backed uprising.
The country remains split between Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah’s UN-recognized government based in Tripoli and a rival administration based in the east.
In a TV interview on Monday, Dbeibah called for armed groups to vacate the areas under their control.
Among the sites held by armed factions are the Mitiga airport in the east of the capital, which is controlled by the powerful Radaa Force.
“Dialogue — not violence — remains the only viable path toward achieving lasting peace, stability in Tripoli and across Libya,” the UNSMIL statement said.


What to know as Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch new, more violent attacks on ships in the Red Sea

Updated 19 min 56 sec ago
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What to know as Yemen’s Houthi rebels launch new, more violent attacks on ships in the Red Sea

  • For the Houthis, attacking commercial ships remains far easier than targeting warships as those vessels don’t have air defense systems
  • The attacks on the two ships, the Magic Seas and the Eternity C, represent a new level of violence being employed by the Houthis

DUBAI: In just days, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have begun a new, more violent campaign of attacks targeting ships in the Red Sea, sinking two of them and killing some of their crew.
The assaults represent the latest chapter of the rebels’ campaign against shipping over the Israel-Hamas war. They also come as Yemen’s nearly decadelong war drags on in the Arab world’s poorest country, without any sign of stopping.
Here’s what to know about the Houthis, Yemen and their ongoing attacks.
Rebels involved in years of fighting
The Houthis are members of Islam’s minority Shiite Zaydi sect, which ruled Yemen for 1,000 years until 1962. They battled Yemen’s central government for years before sweeping down from their northern stronghold in Yemen and seizing the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. That launched a grinding war still technically being waged in the country today. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 to try to restore Yemen’s exiled, internationally recognized government to power.
Years of bloody, inconclusive fighting against the Saudi-led coalition settled into a stalemated proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, causing widespread hunger and misery in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country. The war has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, killing tens of thousands more.
A ceasefire that technically ended in October 2022 is still largely being honored. Saudi Arabia and the rebels have done some prisoner swaps, and a Houthi delegation was invited to high-level peace talks in Riyadh in September 2023 as part of a wider détente the kingdom has reached with Iran. While they reported “positive results,” there is still no permanent peace.
Houthis supported by Tehran while raising own profile
Iran long has backed the Houthis. Tehran routinely denies arming the rebels, despite physical evidence, numerous seizures and experts tying the weapons back to Iran. That’s likely because Tehran wants to avoid sanctions for violating a United Nations arms embargo on the Houthis.
The Houthis now form the strongest group within Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance.” Others like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas have been decimated by Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that sparked Israel’s war of attrition in the Gaza Strip.
Iran also is reeling after Israel launched a 12-day war against the country and the US struck Iranian nuclear sites.
The Houthis also have seen their regional profile raise as they have attacked Israel, as many in the Arab world remain incensed by the suffering Palestinians in the Gaza Strip face.
Houthis attack ships over Israel-Hamas war
The Houthis have been launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end Israel’s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Between November 2023 and December 2024, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two and killing four sailors. Their campaign has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.
The last Houthi attack, targeting US warships escorting commercial ships, happened in early December. A ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war began in January and held until March. The US then launched a broad assault against the rebels that ended weeks later when Trump said the rebels pledged to stop attacking ships.
Since then, the Houthis have continued occasional missile attacks targeting Israel, but they hadn’t attacked ships until this past weekend. Shipping through the Red Sea, while still lower than normal, had increased in recent weeks.
New attacks raise level of violence and complexity
The attacks on the two ships, the Magic Seas and the Eternity C, represent a new level of violence being employed by the Houthis.
Experts have referred to the assaults as being complex in nature, involving armed rebels first racing out to the vessels in the Red Sea, firing small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. They then have used anti-ship missiles and both aerial and sea drones loaded with explosives to attack the ships.
This coordinated attack sank two vessels in just a matter of days, doubling the number of ships they have sunk. There also is a growing fear the attack on the Eternity C may have been the rebels’ deadliest at sea as crew members remain missing.
The attacks also signal that Israeli and American airstrikes have not stripped the rebels of their ability to launch attacks.
Commercial ships have few defense options
For the Houthis, attacking commercial ships remains far easier than targeting warships as those vessels don’t have air defense systems. Instead, some carry a few armed guards able to shoot at attackers or approaching drones. Downing a drone remains difficult and shooting down a missile is impossible with their weaponry.
Armed guards also typically are more trained for dealing with piracy and will spray fire hoses at approaching small boats or ring a bridge with cyclone wire to stop attackers from climbing aboard. The Houthis, however, have experience doing helicopter-borne assaults and likely could overwhelm a private security detail, which often is just a three-member team aboard a commercial vessel.
Resumed attacks have international and domestic motives
To hear it from the Houthis, the new attack campaign “represents a qualitative shift in the course of the open battle in support of Gaza.” Their SABA news agency said Israel commits “daily massacres against civilians in Gaza and relies on sea lanes to finance its aggression and maintain its siege.”
“This stance, which is not content with condemnation or statements, is also advancing with direct military action, in a clear effort to support the Palestinians on various fronts,” the rebels said.
However, the rebels stopped their attacks in late December as Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire. The Houthis formally suspended their attacks, though they said ships or companies calling on Israeli ports would remain possible targets.
The rebels also may have reconstituted their forces following the grinding American airstrikes that targeted them. They have not acknowledged their materiel losses from the attacks, though the US has said it dropped more than 2,000 munitions on more than 1,000 targets.
There likely is an international and domestic consideration, as well. Abroad, a new possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war — as well as the future of talks between the US and Iran over Tehran’s battered nuclear program — remain in the balance. The Houthis in the past have been a cudgel used by Tehran, though experts debate just how much influence Tehran wields in picking targets for the rebels.
At home, the Houthis have faced growing discontent over their rule as Yemen’s economy is in tatters and they have waged a campaign of detaining of UN officials and aid workers. Resuming their attacks can provide the Houthis something to show those at home to bolster their control.


Israeli army says intercepted missile launched from Yemen

Updated 10 July 2025
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Israeli army says intercepted missile launched from Yemen

  • The Houthis carried out a military operation using a ballistic missile

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen on Thursday, with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels later claiming responsibility for the attack, which followed Israeli strikes on Houthi targets.
The Houthis “carried out a qualitative military operation” using a ballistic missile, military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video statement.
The Israeli military said earlier in a post on X that a missile launched from Yemen had been intercepted following air raid sirens that sounded before dawn in several areas of Israel.
The Houthis began targeting Israel and ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden they accuse of having links to the country after the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.
In response, Israel has carried out several strikes on Yemen, including attacks on Sunday on the port city of Hodeida.
The Houthis claimed responsibility this week for the sinking of two vessels, as they resumed their campaign against global shipping in the Red Sea.
Their fresh attacks mark the end of a months-long lull and threaten a May ceasefire with the United States that ended weeks of strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
Saree said the Eternity C bulk carrier, which was first attacked on Monday, was headed for the Israeli port of Eilat and was attacked in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
Saree warned companies dealing with Israeli ports that their ships would be targeted until Israel was forced to “lift the siege” on Gaza and end the war.
The Houthis said Monday that they had boarded and sank another vessel, the Magic Seas, a day earlier, because its owner had done business with Israel and used its ports.
Houthi attacks have prompted many shipping firms to make the time-consuming detour around the southern tip of Africa to avoid the Red Sea, which normally carries about 12 percent of global trade.