US intercept Houthi anti-ship missiles, vessel hit in Red Sea

An aircraft takes off to join the U.S.-led coalition to conduct air strikes against military targets in Yemen, aimed at the Iran-backed Houthi militia that has been targeting international shipping in the Red Sea, from an undisclosed location, in this handout picture released on January 12, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 17 January 2024
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US intercept Houthi anti-ship missiles, vessel hit in Red Sea

  • France chose not take part in the US-led strikes because it wants to avoid a regional escalation, President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference
  • Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister underlined the link between Houthi attacks on commercial ships to the war in Gaza

WASHINGTON/DAVOS: The US military carried out new strikes in Yemen on Tuesday against anti-ship ballistic missiles in a Houthi-controlled part of the country as a missile struck a Greek-owned vessel in the Red Sea.
Disruptions to Red Sea shipping caused by Houthi attacks will push up prices of consumer goods in Europe in particular, an executive from port and freight operator DP World said as the impact on commerce increased.
The Iran-allied Houthi militia has threatened to expand its attacks to include US ships in response to American and British strikes on its sites in Yemen.
Attacks by the Houthis on ships in the region since November have affected companies and alarmed major powers — an escalation of Israel’s more than three-month-old war with Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza. The Houthis say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
The White House said additional US strikes on Tuesday took out ballistic missiles Houthis were ready to launch, confirming a Reuters story earlier, citing US officials, that a new strike was launched at four anti-ship missiles. The strike had not been previously reported.
“We’re not looking to expand this. The Houthis have a choice to make and they still have time to make the right choice, which is to stop these reckless attacks,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said.
France chose not take part in the US-led strikes because it wants to avoid a regional escalation, President Emmanuel Macron told a news conference. The country has a “defensive” approach in the Red Sea and would stick to this stance, Macron said.
Two heads of international banking groups attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos said privately that they were worried the crisis might cause inflationary pressures that could ultimately delay or reverse interest rate cuts and jeopardize hopes for a US economic soft landing.
DP World CFO Yuvraj Narayan said he expected disruptions to hit European imports.
“The cost of goods into Europe from Asia will be significantly higher,” Narayan told Reuters at the annual WEF meeting in Davos, the Swiss ski resort.
“European consumers will feel the pain ... It will hit developed economies more than it will hit developing economies,” the Dubai-based logistics company’s finance chief added.
War risk insurance premiums for shipments through the Red Sea are rising, insurance sources said on Tuesday.
In Spain, four factories owned by French tire maker Michelin are planning to halt output again this weekend, a further sign of the impact of delays in the delivery of raw materials.

SHIP HIT
A Malta-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier was struck by a missile while northbound in the Red Sea 76 nautical miles northwest of the Yemeni port of Saleef, a security firm and two Greek shipping ministry sources said.
Yemen’s Houthis carried out the attack on the ship, the Zografia, using naval missiles, resulting in a “direct hit,” the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said.
The Zografia was sailing from Vietnam to Israel with 24 crew on board and was empty of cargo when attacked, one of the Greek sources said. “There were no injuries, only material damage,” the source added. It was still sailing but would probably reroute for safety checks.
Underlining concerns, Japanese shipping operator Nippon Yusen, also known as NYK Line, instructed its vessels navigating near the Red Sea to wait in safe waters and is considering route changes, a company spokesperson said.
Shipping giant Maersk, however, sent two container ships through the Red Sea carrying goods for the US military and government.

GAZA CEASEFIRE CALL
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 circumnavigate South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope instead.
About 12 percent of world shipping traffic accesses the Suez Canal via the Red Sea.
Egypt’s Suez Canal authority played down any disruption, saying in a statement that the suspension of transit through the canal by companies was “temporary” and that traffic through the canal was “going as per normal.”
British oil major Shell has suspended all shipments through the Red Sea indefinitely after the US and UK strikes triggered fears of further escalation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Shell declined to comment.
US oil major Chevron said it is maintaining its shipping routes through the Red Sea. Exxon Mobil, which does not own or operate shipping vessels, said it “continues to support ship owners and operators in following guidance from the Combined Maritime Forces” — a reference to a multi-national naval partnership aimed at keeping the seas safe.
Russian tanker group Sovcomflot is also considering alternative routes in case the crisis escalates, TASS news agency reported. Sovcomflot did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
European diplomats said member states of the European Union had given initial backing to creation of a naval mission by Feb. 19 at the latest to help protect ships.
The existing US-led coalition meant to safeguard commercial traffic in the Red Sea is weak because regional powerhouses Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have not taken part, Yemen’s vice president said on Tuesday.
“This Bab Al-Mandab corridor is of interest to the whole world and to the region, so regional intervention is key,” Aidarous Al-Zubaidi told Reuters in an interview, referring to the narrow strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
Zubaidi’s separatist Southern Transitional Council is part of an alliance that opposes the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Monday, Guterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday.
“Regarding the situation in the Red Sea, the secretary-general reiterated his call to all the parties to avoid any further escalation,” Dujarric said.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister underlined the link between Houthi attacks on commercial ships to the war in Gaza. Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said the kingdom’s priority is finding a path to de-escalation through a ceasefire in Gaza.

 


Israeli ultra-orthodox party leaves Netanyahu’s government due to dispute over military conscription bill, statement says

Updated 4 sec ago
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Israeli ultra-orthodox party leaves Netanyahu’s government due to dispute over military conscription bill, statement says

TEL AVIV: Israel’s ultra-orthodox party Degel HaTorah said in a statement its Knesset members have resigned from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government due to a dispute over failure to draft a bill to exempt Yeshiva students from military service. 

 


Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

Updated 8 min 23 sec ago
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Mediators working to bridge gaps in faltering Gaza truce talks

  • Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP
  • US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week”

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Stuttering Gaza ceasefire talks entered a second week on Monday, with meditators seeking to close the gap between Israel and Hamas, as more than 20 people were killed across the Palestinian territory.
The indirect negotiations in Qatar appear deadlocked after both sides blamed the other for blocking a deal for the release of hostages and a 60-day ceasefire after 21 months of fighting.
An official with knowledge of the talks said they were “ongoing” in Doha on Monday, telling AFP: “Discussions are currently focused on the proposed maps for the deployment of Israeli forces within Gaza.”
“Mediators are actively exploring innovative mechanisms to bridge the remaining gaps and maintain momentum in the negotiations,” the source added on condition of anonymity.
Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who wants to see the Palestinian militant group destroyed — of being the main obstacle.
“Netanyahu is skilled at sabotaging one round of negotiations after another, and is unwilling to reach any agreement,” the group wrote on Telegram.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency said at least 22 people were killed Monday in the latest Israeli strikes in and around Gaza City and in Khan Yunis in the south.
An Israeli military statement said troops had destroyed “buildings and terrorist infrastructure” used by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza City’s Shujaiya and Zeitun areas.
The Al-Quds Brigades — the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, which has fought alongside Hamas — released footage on Monday that it said showed its fighters firing missiles at an Israeli army command and control center near Shujaiya.
The military later on Monday said three soldiers — aged 19, 20 and 21 — “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip” and died in hospital on Monday. Another from the same battalion was severely injured.

US President Donald Trump said he was still hopeful of securing a truce deal, telling reporters on Sunday night: “We are talking and hopefully we’re going to get that straightened out over the next week.”
Hamas’s top negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad held a “consultative meeting” in Doha on Sunday evening to “coordinate visions and positions,” a Palestinian source with knowledge of the talks told AFP.
“Egyptian, Qatari and American mediators continue their efforts that make Israel present a modified withdrawal map that would be acceptable,” they added.
On Saturday, the same source said Hamas rejected Israeli proposals to keep troops in more than 40 percent of Gaza, as well as plans to move Palestinians into an enclave on the border with Egypt.
A senior Israeli political official countered by accusing Hamas of inflexibility and trying to deliberately scupper the talks by “clinging to positions that prevent the mediators from advancing an agreement.”

Netanyahu has said he would be ready to enter talks for a more lasting ceasefire once a deal for a temporary truce is agreed, but only when Hamas lays down its arms.
He is under pressure to wrap up the war, with military casualties rising and with public frustration mounting at both the continued captivity of the hostages taken on October 7 and a perceived lack of progress in the conflict.
Politically, Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition is holding, for now, but he denies being beholden to a minority of far-right ministers in prolonging an increasingly unpopular conflict.
He also faces a backlash over the feasibility, cost and ethics of a plan to build a so-called “humanitarian city” from scratch in southern Gaza to house Palestinians if and when a ceasefire takes hold.
Israel’s security establishment is reported to be unhappy with the plan, which the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert have described as a “concentration camp.”
“If they (Palestinians) will be deported there into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing,” Olmert was quoted as saying by The Guardian newspaper late on Sunday.
Hamas’s attack on Israel in 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
A total of 251 hostages were taken that day, of whom 49 are still being held, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s military reprisals have killed 58,386 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

 


Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

Updated 26 min 6 sec ago
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Paramilitary attack kills 48 in central Sudan village: war monitor

  • Over 4 million refugees have fled Sudan’s more than two-year civil war to seven neighboring countries where shelter conditions are widely viewed as inadequate due to chronic funding shortages

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) killed 48 civilians in an attack on a village in the center of the war-torn country, a monitoring group reported Monday.
The Emergency Lawyers, a group that has documented atrocities throughout the two-year conflict between the regular army and the RSF, reported civilians were killed en masse Sunday when paramilitary fighters stormed the village of Um Garfa in North Kordofan state, razing houses and looting property.
 

 


Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says

Updated 37 min 6 sec ago
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Two drones fell in Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism service says

  • An investigation into the incident was launched in coordination with security forces in Kurdistan

BAGHDAD: Two drones fell in the Khurmala oilfield in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement on Monday.
Khurmala oilfield is located near the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil.
The Iraqi Security Media Cell, an official body responsible for disseminating security information, said in a statement that no casualties were reported and only material damage was recorded.
An investigation into the incident was launched in coordination with security forces in Kurdistan, it added. 

 


Israeli forces fatally shoot 20-year-old Palestinian man near Jenin

Updated 14 July 2025
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Israeli forces fatally shoot 20-year-old Palestinian man near Jenin

  • Youssef Walid Sheikh Ibrahim killed close to military checkpoint
  • 42 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched offensive in town

LONDON: A Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces on Monday evening near the town of Ya’abd in Jenin governorate, north of the occupied West Bank.

The Ministry of Health reported that Youssef Walid Sheikh Ibrahim, 20, from the town of Kafr Ra’i, died after being shot by Israeli forces near a military checkpoint close to the illegal settlement of Mevo Dotan, and his body was detained.

A total of 42 Palestinians have been killed since Israeli forces launched a military campaign in Jenin town and its refugee camp in January, according to the WAFA news agency.

Since October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank have killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians.

On Sunday, hundreds of Palestinians from Al-Mazraa Al-Sharqiya attended the funeral of Saif Al-Din Kamil Abdul Karim Musalat, 20, and Mohammed Rizq Hussein Al-Shalabi, 23, who were killed by Israeli settlers last week.

About 1 million Israelis live in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law. Their attacks against Palestinians have escalated since 2023, with 820 recorded by rights groups in the first half of this year.