AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthi militia said on Saturday that the US and UK militaries carried out two airstrikes on the Red Sea Ras Isa port in Yemen’s western province of Hodeidah.
This comes as Trafigura, an international trading corporation, said that it had extinguished a fire on one of its ships in the Red Sea caused by a Houthi missile hit.
Houthi-run Al-Masira TV reported that the US and UK struck Ras Isa port on Saturday morning, which has an oil export facility and is close to the decaying floating oil ship Safer that has captured the world’s attention over the past several years.
Without naming the target site, the US Central Command said that its forces conducted an airstrike at about 3:45 a.m. (Sanaa time) on Saturday against an anti-ship missile that the Houthis were about to fire.
Yemen’s oil exports from the central province of Marib pass through Ras Isa in Hodeidah, while oil from the southern provinces of Hadramout and Shabwa pass through Arabian Sea oil terminals.
The 48-year-old FSO Safer tanker and its replacement are both berthed at the new Ras Isa oil facility.
The airstrikes in Hodeidah happened after the Houthis launched a ballistic missile at a Marshall Islands-flagged and UK-linked tanker controlled by Trafigura, causing a fire.
Trafigura stated on Saturday that the tanker’s crew was able to extinguish the fire and that all of the crew members were safe, and thanked the Indian, US and French navy warships for their support.
“We are pleased to confirm that all crew on board the Marlin Luanda are safe and the fire in the cargo tank has been fully extinguished. The vessel is now sailing toward a safe harbor,” the company said in a statement.
In a statement by their military spokesperson Yahya Sarea on Friday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for launching “a number of naval missiles” at the British oil ship, claiming that the action was both in support of the Palestinian people and in retribution for UK and US bombings on regions under their control in Yemen.
The Houthis also launched on Friday an anti-ship ballistic missile from regions under their control toward the Arleigh-Burke class destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) in the Gulf of Aden on Friday, but it was intercepted by the US Navy, according to US Central Command.
In Houthi-controlled Ibb, residents of the Al-Sabrah district reported that the Houthis fired a missile from the Al-Hamza military base in the district on Friday evening but the missile failed to reach its target and exploded shortly after in an area not far from the military base, the latest in a string of botched missile launches by the Houthis.
Experts believe that the Houthis will continue to attack US and UK ships, particularly oil tankers, to remain in the spotlight and build popular support, playing on public outrage over Israel’s war in Gaza, despite the danger of causing a catastrophic environmental disaster off Yemen’s coast.
“They don’t care about the implications for Yemen or the potential of an environmental disaster. The Houthis are trying to project themselves as a power that can defeat the US-led coalition. They are masters of war of attrition and propaganda,” Yemen conflict expert Nadwa Al-Dawsari told Arab News.
He added that the Houthis were infamous for concealing weaponry within civilian infrastructures such as ports to force their enemies to bomb them and then exploit the footage for propaganda.
“Houthis have a history of putting their missile launchers and weapons in civilian facilities. If they are bombed, that is good propaganda material showing that the US is targeting vital civilian infrastructure.”
Meanwhile, Yemen’s internationally recognized Presidential Leadership Council repeated demands on Saturday for foreign relief groups working in Yemen to transfer their headquarters from Houthi-controlled Sanaa to the southern city of Aden, Yemen’s temporary capital.
During a meeting with Sonali Korde, USAID assistant to the administrator for the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance in Riyadh, PLC chairman Rashad Al-Amili said that his government would facilitate international relief organizations that wish to operate in Aden, attacking the Houthis for forcing US and UK citizens working with UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations to leave Yemen within a month.
Houthis accuse US, UK of targeting Ras Isa oil terminal in Hodeidah
https://arab.news/4ap3n
Houthis accuse US, UK of targeting Ras Isa oil terminal in Hodeidah
- Houthi-run Al-Masira TV reported that the US and UK struck Ras Isa port on Saturday
- The Houthis claimed responsibility for launching “a number of naval missiles” at the British oil ship
Israel issues first Gaza evacuation warning in weeks
The evacuation call is the first in weeks for Gaza as the Israeli military has largely shifted its focus to fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Hamas and the terrorist organizations continue their terrorist activities within your area and, as a result, the IDF (military) will act with great force against these elements,” the evacuation order posted by the Israeli army said, with an attached map listing the blocks to be evacuated.
Palestinians living in areas near the Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza have been warned to evacuate under the latest order posted on X.
Israel has destroyed large swathes of Gaza since Hamas’s October 7 attack last year, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly pledging to secure total victory over the militants.
A year later, the confirmed death toll from the Hamas attack — including hostages killed in captivity — has reached 1,205 on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants abducted 251 hostages during the attack, 97 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military has said are dead.
In Gaza, nearly all of its 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once.
At least 41,825 people have been killed, most of them women or children, according to the territory’s health ministry. The United Nations has acknowledged the figures as reliable.
The Israeli military has often returned to areas where it has previously conducted operations in response to reports of resurgent Hamas activity.
Emirates bans pagers, walkie-talkies onboard after Lebanon blasts
- mirates said that “such items found in passengers’ hand luggage or checked baggage will be confiscated by Dubai Police.”
Dubai: Dubai-based airline Emirates has banned pagers and walkie-talkies onboard its planes following sabotage attacks in Lebanon, and extended flight cancelations for Middle East destinations due to regional escalation.
“All Passengers traveling on flights to, from or via Dubai are prohibited from transporting pagers and walkie-talkies in checked or cabin baggage,” the carrier said, weeks after a wave of exploding communication devices used by the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which blamed Israel for the attacks.
In a statement posted on its website on Friday, Emirates said that “such items found in passengers’ hand luggage or checked baggage will be confiscated by Dubai Police.”
The blasts last month killed at least 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 across Lebanon.
Emirates, the Middle East’s biggest airline,also announced that its Iraq and Iran routes will remain suspended until Tuesday.
The cancelations were first announced in the wake of a major Iranian attack on Israel this week that saw missiles flying over Iraq and Iran.
Emirates said its flights to Jordan, which were also suspended, would resume on Sunday.
Flights to and from Lebanon will remain suspended until October 15, Emirates said, as Israel steps up attacks on the country, including parts of the capital near its only airport.
Several other carriers have also put some services to and from Beirut and other Middle East airports on hold.
Roadside bomb wounds four in Iraq’s Kirkuk
Baghdad: A roadside bomb wounded four people in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on Saturday, police sources said.
The bomb targeted a commercial district in the city center. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Earlier in the week, four Iraqi soldiers were killed and three others injured in an ambush on an army convoy southwest of Kirkuk, which Daesh militants claimed responsibility for.
Despite the group’s defeat in 2017, remnants continue to conduct hit-and-run attacks against government forces.
Health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says war death toll at 41,825
- Toll includes 23 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday that at least 41,825 people have been killed in almost a year of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 23 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 96,910 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Israeli strike hits north Lebanon as raids pummel Beirut suburbs
- Israeli strike hits Tripoli in north Lebanon, source says
- More nightly raids hit Beirut’s southern suburbs
BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: An Israeli strike hit Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli for the first time early on Saturday, a Lebanese security source said, after more bombardment hit Beirut’s suburbs and Israeli troops sought to make new ground incursions into southern Lebanon.
The source told Reuters a Hamas official, his wife and two children were killed in the strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in Tripoli. Hamas-affiliated media said the strike killed a leader of the group’s armed wing.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike on Tripoli, a Sunni-majority port city.
Israel army struck Hezbollah fighters inside mosque
The Israeli military said Saturday its forces struck Hezbollah fighters inside a south Lebanon mosque overnight, the first such strike since clashes erupted between Israel and the militants last year.
“Overnight, with the direction of IDF (army) intelligence, the IAF (air force) struck Hezbollah terrorists who were operating within a command center that was located inside a mosque adjacent to the Salah Ghandour Hospital in southern Lebanon,” the military said in a statement.
“The command center was used by the Hezbollah terrorists to plan and execute terrorist attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.”
Israel has sharply expanded its strikes on Lebanon in recent weeks after nearly a year of exchanging fire with Lebanon’s Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah. Fighting had been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, taking place in parallel to Israel’s year-old war in Gaza against Hamas.
Israel has been carrying out nightly bombardment of Beirut’s once densely populated southern suburbs, a stronghold of Hezbollah. Overnight, a military spokesman issued three alerts for residents there to evacuate, and Reuters witnesses then heard at least one blast.
On Friday, Israel said it had targeted Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in the southern suburbs and was assessing the damage after a series of strikes on senior figures in the group.
Israel has eliminated much of Hezbollah’s senior military leadership, including Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in an air attack on Sept. 27.
Lebanon’s government says more than 2,000 people have been killed there in the past year, most in the past two weeks. Strikes on medical teams and facilities, including the Lebanese Red Cross, Lebanese public hospitals and rescue workers affiliated to Hezbollah, have also increased.
Lebanon’s government says more than 1.2 million Lebanese have been forced from their homes, and the United Nations says most displacement shelters in the country are full. Many had gone north to Tripoli or to neighboring Syria, but an Israeli strike on Friday closed the main border crossing between Lebanon and Syria.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called the toll on Lebanese civilians “totally unacceptable.”
Iran defiant, Israel weighs options
Israel has been weighing options in its response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Tuesday.
Oil prices have risen on the possibility of an attack on Iran’s oil facilities as Israel pursues its goals of pushing back Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and eliminating their Hamas allies, also backed by Tehran, in Gaza.
US President Joe Biden on Friday urged Israel to consider alternatives to striking Iranian oil fields, adding that he thinks Israel has not yet concluded how to respond to Iran.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a rare appearance leading Friday prayers, told a huge crowd in Tehran that Iran and its regional allies would not back down.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi landed in Syria on Saturday for talks after a visit to Lebanon, in which he reiterated support for Lebanon and Hezbollah.
In Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs, many buildings have been reduced to rubble. “We’re alive but don’t know for how long,” said Nouhad Chaib, a 40-year-old man already displaced from the south.
On Friday, Hezbollah fired more than 200 rockets into Israel, according to the Israeli military, and air raid sirens continued to sound in its north on Saturday.
The latest bloodletting in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered by the Palestinian Hamas group’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 and in which about 250 were taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and displaced nearly all of Gaza’s population.
Ground operations
The Lebanese government has accused Israel of targeting civilians, pointing to dozens of women and children killed. It has not broken its total death toll down between civilians and Hezbollah fighters.
Israel says it targets military capabilities and takes steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians. It accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.
Israel, which began ground operations targeting southern Lebanon this week, says they are focussed on villages near the border and has said Beirut “was not on the table,” but has not specified how long the ground incursion would last.
It says the operations aim to allow tens of thousands of its citizens to return home after Hezbollah bombardments, which began on Oct. 8, 2023, forced them to evacuate from its north.
Iran’s missile salvo was partly in retaliation for Israel’s killing of Nasrallah, a dominant figure who had turned the group into a powerful armed and political force with reach across the Middle East.
Axios cited three Israeli officials as saying that Hashem Safieddine, rumored to be Nasrallah’s successor, had been targeted in an underground bunker in Beirut on Thursday night, but his fate was not clear.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz posted a photo of Safieddine and Nasrallah on X on Saturday and urged Khamenei to “take your proxies and leave Lebanon.”
