Yemen’s Houthis threaten to hit US ships as more tankers steer clear

Pick-up trucks carrying Houthi policemen and tribal supporters of the group parade during a protest against recent US-led strikes on Houthi targets, near Sanaa, Yemen January 14, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 16 January 2024
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Yemen’s Houthis threaten to hit US ships as more tankers steer clear

  • The vessel’s US-based operator Eagle Bulk Shipping said it was hit by an “unidentified projectile” while sailing 100 miles (160 km) off the Gulf of Aden

WASHINGTON: Yemen’s Houthi movement will expand its targets in the Red Sea region to include US ships, an official from the Iran-allied group said on Monday, as it vowed to keep up attacks after US and British strikes on its sites in Yemen.
Attacks by the Houthis on ships in area since November have impacted companies and alarmed major powers in an escalation of Israel’s more than three-month war with Hamas militants in Gaza. The group says it is acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
British and American ships had become “legitimate targets” due to the strikes launched by the two countries on Yemen last week, Nasruldeen Amer, a spokesperson for the Houthis, told Al Jazeera.
“The ship doesn’t necessarily have to be heading to Israel for us to target it. It is enough for it to be American,” Amer said. “The United States is on the verge of losing its maritime security.”
The Houthis previously said they would only target Israeli ships or those en route to Israel.
In the latest apparent attack, the USCentral Command said Houthi forces in Yemen struck the US-owned and operated dry bulk ship Gibraltar Eagle with an anti-ship ballistic missile on Monday, although there were no reports of injuries or significant damage.
The vessel’s US-based operator Eagle Bulk Shipping said it was hit by an “unidentified projectile” while sailing 100 miles (160 km) off the Gulf of Aden. The attack caused a fire in a hold of the vessel, which was carrying steel products, but no injuries, and the ship was continuing on its way, it said.
Earlier in the day, British Maritime Security firm Ambrey said a Marshall Islands-flagged, US-owned bulk carrier was reportedly struck by a missile while transiting near Yemen’s port of Aden.
The vessel was assessed not to be Israel-affiliated, according to Ambrey, which also assessed the attack to have targeted US interests in response to the recent strikes on Houthi military positions.
The latest attack suggests that despite the US strikes, the Houthis appear undeterred.
Later on Monday an explosion was heard near Yemen’s Hodeidah airport, residents reported. Hodeidah is some distance from Aden, however, and it was not immediately clear what had caused the blast.
Container vessels have been pausing or diverting from the Red Sea that leads to the Suez Canal, the fastest freight route from Asia to Europe. Many ships have been forced to take the longer route via the Cape of Good Hope instead.
Ship-tracking data on Monday showed at least 15 tankers altering course in response to the escalating conflict.

LNG TANKERS
QatarEnergy, the world’s second-largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, has joined those avoiding the Red Sea, a senior source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Qatar’s Al Ghariya, Al Huwaila and Al Nuaman LNG tankers loaded at Ras Laffan and were heading to the Suez Canal but stopped in Oman on Jan. 14, LSEG ship-tracking data showed. The Al Rekayyat, which was sailing back to Qatar, stopped in the Red Sea on Jan. 13.
“It is a pause to get security advice, if passing (through the) Red Sea remains unsafe we will go via the Cape,” the source told Reuters regarding QatarEnergy.
The Qatari government and QatarEnergy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
About 12 percent of world shipping traffic transits the Suez Canal via the Red Sea.
The longer route round Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, which various shipping firms have opted for, can add about nine days to the normally 18-day trip from Qatar to northwest Europe.
The Houthis have been at war with a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen for years, but have turned their sights on the sea to show support for Palestinian group Hamas.
On Sunday, the United States said its fighter aircraft had shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired by the militants toward a US destroyer. No injuries or damage were reported, it said on X.
US ally Britain said it had no desire to be involved in Red Sea conflict but was committed to protecting free navigation.
“Let’s wait and see what happens,” Defense Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News on Monday regarding potential further strikes on Houthi sites.
China also called for an end to attacks on civilian vessels in the Red Sea that have placed Beijing’s commercial interests at risk.

SUPPLIES AFFECTED
With vessels pausing or diverting, some supply lines are being affected.
Carmaker Suzuki on Monday said it was halting production at its Esztergom plant in Hungary until Jan. 21 as the Red Sea attacks had delayed the arrival of Japanese-made engines.

In energy markets, however, the impact was limited. European benchmark gas prices were lower in afternoon trade on Monday, LSEG data showed, while oil prices lost roughly 1 percent as the conflict’s limited impact on crude output prompted profit taking after oil benchmarks gained 2 percent last week.

 


Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others

Updated 5 sec ago
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Israeli strike on Lebanese army center kills soldier, wounds 18 others

  • It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops
  • Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike on a Lebanese army center on Sunday killed one soldier and wounded 18 others, the Lebanese military said.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes that have killed over 40 Lebanese troops, even as the military has largely kept to the sidelines in the war between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has said previous strikes on Lebanese troops were accidental and that they are not a target of its campaign against Hezbollah.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned it as an assault on US-led ceasefire efforts, calling it a “direct, bloody message rejecting all efforts and ongoing contacts” to end the war.

“(Israel is) again writing in Lebanese blood a brazen rejection of the solution that is being discussed,” a statement from his office read.

The strike occurred in southwestern Lebanon on the coastal road between Tyre and Naqoura, where there has been heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of the Gaza Strip ignited the war there. Hezbollah has portrayed the attacks as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas. Iran supports both armed groups.

Israel has launched retaliatory airstrikes since the rocket fire began, and in September the low-level conflict erupted into all-out war, as Israel launched waves of airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon and killed Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and several of his top commanders.

Israeli airstrikes early Saturday pounded central Beirut, killing at least 20 people and wounding 66, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. Hezbollah has continued to fire regular barrages into Israel, forcing people to race for shelters and occasionally killing or wounding them.

Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The fighting has displaced about 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.

On the Israeli side, about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed by bombardments in northern Israel and in battle following Israel’s ground invasion in early October. Around 60,000 Israelis have been displaced from the country’s north.

The Biden administration has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, and US envoy Amos Hochstein was back in the region last week.

The emerging agreement would pave the way for the withdrawal of Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon below the Litani River in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. Lebanese troops would patrol the area, with the presence of UN peacekeepers.

Lebanon’s army reflects the religious diversity of the country and is respected as a national institution, but it does not have the military capability to impose its will on Hezbollah or resist Israel’s invasion.


EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal

Updated 12 min 53 sec ago
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EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal

BEIRUT: The European Union’s foreign policy chief called on Sunday during a visit to Beirut for pressure to be exerted on both the Israeli government and on Lebanon’s Hezbollah to accept a US ceasefire proposal.
Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, Josep Borell also urged Lebanese leaders to pick a president to end a two-year power vacuum in the country, and he pledged 200 million euros in support for Lebanon’s armed forces. 


Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave

Updated 54 min 51 sec ago
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Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave

  • Israeli military blames Hamas rocket fire for renewed evacuation directive
  • Palestinians say hospitals in north Gaza barely functioning

CAIRO: The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern Gaza City suburb, setting off a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and a Gaza hospital director was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian medics said.
The new orders for the Shejaia suburb posted by the Israeli army spokesperson on X on Saturday night were blamed on Palestinian militants firing rockets from that heavily built-up district in the north of the Gaza Strip.
“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south,” the military’s post said. The rocket volley on Saturday was claimed by Hamas’ armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base over the border.
Footage circulated on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.
Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday’s early hours, residents and Palestinian media said — the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.
In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.
Hospital director wounded by gunfire
In north Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring its director Hussam Abu Safiya.
“This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this job at any cost,” Abu Safiya said in a video statement circulated by the health ministry on Sunday.
“We are being targeted daily. They targeted me a while ago but this will not deter us...,” he said from his hospital bed.
Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings including housing blocks, hospitals and schools for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminately targeting populated areas.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in north Gaza that are barely operational as the health ministry said the Israeli forces have detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical, food and fuel supplies from reaching them.
In the past few weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from north Gaza hospitals in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Residents in three embattled north Gaza towns — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.
Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.
The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.


Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports

Updated 24 November 2024
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Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports

  • A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday

DUBAI: Iran plans to hold talks about its disputed nuclear program with three European powers on Nov. 29 in Geneva, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, days after the UN atomic watchdog passed a resolution against Tehran.
Iran reacted to the resolution, which was proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, with what government officials called various measures such as activating numerous new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
Kyodo said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government was seeking a solution to the nuclear impasse ahead of the inauguration in January of US President-elect Donald Trump.
A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday, adding that “Tehran has always believed that the nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomacy. Iran has never left the talks.”
In 2018, the then-Trump administration exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact’s nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
Indirect talks between President Joe Biden’s administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said in his election campaign in September that “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.”


Israel cracks down on Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza

Updated 24 November 2024
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Israel cracks down on Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza

  • Israeli authorities have opened more incitement cases against Palestinian citizens during the war in Gaza than in the previous five years combined

UMM AL-FAHM, Israel: Israel’s yearlong crackdown against Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza is prompting many to self-censor out of fear of being jailed and further marginalized in society, while some still find ways to dissent — carefully.
Ahmed Khalefa’s life turned upside down after he was charged with inciting terrorism for chanting in solidarity with Gaza at an anti-war protest in October 2023.
The lawyer and city counselor from central Israel says he spent three difficult months in jail followed by six months detained in an apartment. It’s unclear when he’ll get a final verdict on his guilt or innocence. Until then, he’s forbidden from leaving his home from dusk to dawn.
Khalefa is one of more than 400 Palestinian citizens of Israel who, since the start of the war in Gaza, have been investigated by police for “incitement to terrorism” or “incitement to violence,” according to Adalah, a legal rights group for minorities. More than half of those investigated were also criminally charged or detained, Adalah said.
“Israel made it clear they see us more as enemies than as citizens,” Khalefa said in an interview at a cafe in his hometown of Umm Al-Fahm, Israel’s second-largest Palestinian city.
Israel has roughly 2 million Palestinian citizens, whose families remained within the borders of what became Israel in 1948. Among them are Muslims and Christians, and they maintain family and cultural ties to Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967.
Israel says its Palestinian citizens enjoy equal rights, including the right to vote, and they are well-represented in many professions. However, Palestinians are widely discriminated against in areas like housing and the job market.
Israeli authorities have opened more incitement cases against Palestinian citizens during the war in Gaza than in the previous five years combined, Adalah’s records show. Israeli authorities have not said how many cases ended in convictions and imprisonment. The Justice Ministry said it did not have statistics on those convictions.
Just being charged with incitement to terrorism or identifying with a terrorist group can land a suspect in detention until they’re sentenced, under the terms of a 2016 law.
In addition to being charged as criminals, Palestinians citizens of Israel — who make up around 20 percent of the country’s population — have lost jobs, been suspended from schools and faced police interrogations posting online or demonstrating, activists and rights watchdogs say.
It’s had a chilling effect.
“Anyone who tries to speak out about the war will be imprisoned and harassed in his work and education,” said Oumaya Jabareen, whose son was jailed for eight months after an anti-war protest. “People here are all afraid, afraid to say no to this war.”
Jabareen was among hundreds of Palestinians who filled the streets of Umm Al-Fahm earlier this month carrying signs and chanting political slogans. It appeared to be the largest anti-war demonstration in Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. But turnout was low, and Palestinian flags and other national symbols were conspicuously absent. In the years before the war, some protests could draw tens of thousands of Palestinians in Israel.
Authorities tolerated the recent protest march, keeping it under heavily armed supervision. Helicopters flew overhead as police with rifles and tear gas jogged alongside the crowd, which dispersed without incident after two hours. Khalefa said he chose not to attend.
Shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, Israel’s far-right government moved quickly to invigorate a task force that has charged Palestinian citizens of Israel with “supporting terrorism” for posts online or protesting against the war. At around the same time, lawmakers amended a security bill to increase surveillance of online activity by Palestinians in Israel, said Nadim Nashif, director of the digital rights group 7amleh. These moves gave authorities more power to restrict freedom of expression and intensify their arrest campaigns, Nashif said.
The task force is led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hard-line national security minister who oversees the police. His office said the task force has monitored thousands of posts allegedly expressing support for terror organizations and that police arrested “hundreds of terror supporters,” including public opinion leaders, social media influencers, religious figures, teachers and others.
“Freedom of speech is not the freedom to incite ... which harms public safety and our security,” his office said in a statement.
But activists and rights groups say the government has expanded its definition of incitement much too far, targeting legitimate opinions that are at the core of freedom of expression.
Myssana Morany, a human rights attorney at Adalah, said Palestinian citizens have been charged for seemingly innocuous things like sending a meme of a captured Israeli tank in Gaza in a private WhatsApp group chat. Another person was charged for posting a collage of children’s photos, captioned in Arabic and English: “Where were the people calling for humanity when we were killed?” The feminist activist group Kayan said over 600 women called its hotline because of blowback in the workplace for speaking out against the war or just mentioning it unfavorably.
Over the summer, around two dozen anti-war protesters in the port city of Haifa were only allowed to finish three chants before police forcefully scattered the gathering into the night. Yet Jewish Israelis demanding a hostage release deal protest regularly — and the largest drew hundreds of thousands to the streets of Tel Aviv.
Khalefa, the city counselor, is not convinced the crackdown on speech will end, even if the war eventually does. He said Israeli prosecutors took issue with slogans that broadly praised resistance and urged Gaza to be strong, but which didn’t mention violence or any militant groups. For that, he said, the government is trying to disbar him, and he faces up to eight years in prison.
“They wanted to show us the price of speaking out,” Khalefa said.