Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels have seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship, bound for India, in a crucial Red Sea shipping route and taken its 25 crew members hostage, officials said, raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship Sunday over its connection to Israel and would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel\u2019s campaign against Gaza\u2019s Hamas rulers. \u201cAll ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,\u201d the Houthis said.<\/p>\n
Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the Houthis\u2019 chief negotiator and spokesman, later added in an online statement that the Israelis only understand \u201cthe language of force.\u201d \u201cThe detention of the Israeli ship is a practical step that proves the seriousness of the Yemeni armed forces in waging the sea battle, regardless of its costs and costs,\u201d he added. \u201cThis is the beginning.\u201d Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said no Israelis were on board.<\/p>\n
The ship\u2019s Japanese operator, NYK Line, said the vessel had no cargo at the time of the hijacking. Its crew members are from the Philippines, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico, NYK said. Japan on Monday condemned the hijacking. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said the Japanese government was doing its utmost for an early release of the crew through negotiations with Houthi rebels, while also communicating with Israel and cooperating with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Oman and Iran.<\/p>\n
The Houthis said they were treating the crew members \u201cin accordance with their Islamic values,\u201d but did not elaborate on what that meant. Netanyahu\u2019s office condemned the seizure as an \u201cIranian act of terror\u201d. The Israeli military called the hijacking a \u201cvery grave incident of global consequence.\u201d Israeli officials insisted the ship was British-owned and Japanese-operated. However, ownership details in public shipping databases associated the ship\u2019s owners with Ray Car Carriers, founded by Abraham \u201cRami\u201d Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.<\/p>\n
Ungar told The Associated Press he was aware of the incident but couldn\u2019t comment as he awaited details. A ship linked to him experienced an explosion in 2021 in the Gulf of Oman. Israeli media blamed it on Iran at the time. Authorities confirmed Monday that the captain and the first mate on the Galaxy Leader were Bulgarians. Bulgaria\u2019s top police officer, Zhivko Kotsev, told reporters that they were in touch with their families. \u201cNobody has sought contact with us up to this moment,\u201d he said. International shipping often involves a series of management companies, flags and owners stretching across the globe in a single vessel.<\/p>\n
Two US defence officials confirmed that Houthi rebels seized the Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea on Sunday afternoon local time. The rebels descended on the cargo ship by rappelling from a helicopter, the officials said, confirming details first reported by NBC News. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to publicly discuss the matter. The ship\u2019s seizure resembles others previously conducted by Iran, which has long armed the Houthis. Twice in the last month, US warships have intercepted missiles or drones from Yemen that were believed to be headed toward Israel or posing a threat to American vessels. The USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones that were launched by Houthi forces toward the northern Red Sea last month.<\/p>\n
On Nov. 15 the USS Thomas Hudner, another destroyer, was sailing toward the Bab-el-Mandeb strait when the crew saw a drone, reported to have originated in Yemen. The ship shot down the drone over the water. The officials said the crew took action to ensure the safety of US personnel, and there were no casualties or damage to the ship. Satellite tracking data from MarineTraffic.com analysed by the AP showed the Galaxy Leader travelling in the Red Sea southwest of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, more than a day ago. The vessel had been in Korfez, Turkey, and was on its way to Pipavav, India, at the time of the seizure reported by Israel.<\/p>\n
It had its Automatic Identification System tracker, or AIS, switched off, the data showed. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted or to smuggle contraband, which there was no immediate evidence to suggest was the case with the Galaxy Leader. The British military\u2019s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Persian Gulf and the wider region, put the hijacking as having occurred some 150 km (90 miles) off the coast of Yemen\u2019s port city of Hodeida, near the coast of Eritrea. It later cited a security officer with the ship\u2019s company saying the vessel had been taken to Hodeida.<\/p>\n
The Red Sea, stretching from Egypt\u2019s Suez Canal to the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating the Arabian Peninsula from Africa, remains a key trade route for global shipping and energy supplies. That\u2019s why the US Navy has stationed multiple ships in the sea since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct 7. Since 2019, a series of ships have come under attack at sea as Iran began breaking all the limits of its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. As Israel expands its devastating campaign against Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip following the militant group\u2019s unprecedented attack on southern Israel, fears have grown that the military operations could escalate into a wider regional conflict.<\/p>\n
The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to target Israeli ships in the waters off Yemen. Such attacks both back its Iranian benefactors, as well as bolster the Houthis\u2019 position in Yemen as anger has grown against their rule in recent months as that country\u2019s civil war grinds on without resolution, said Gregory D Johnsen, a Yemen expert with the Arabian Gulf States Institute in Washington. \u201cThe Houthis view the war between Israel and Hamas as an opportunity to mute some of this domestic criticism,\u201d Johnsen wrote in an analysis earlier this month. \u201cIf they are attacking Israel, their local rivals will be less inclined to attack them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yemen\u2019s Houthi rebels have seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship, bound for India, in a crucial Red Sea shipping route and\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":12075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[3517,3516,1380,773,535,1418,1647,3514,3515,774,536,3513,534,95,771],"class_list":["post-12074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-abraham-rami-ungar","tag-galaxy-leader","tag-gaza","tag-houthi-rebels","tag-iran","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-israeli-pm-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-military","tag-missiles-shot-down","tag-oman","tag-palestine","tag-red-sea","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-usa","tag-yemen"],"reading_time":"6 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}