Yemen’s Houthis threaten to hit US ships as more tankers steer clear/node/2442311/middle-east
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)
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
Updated 16 January 2024
Reuters
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 NGO warns of “quiet annexation” of West Bank under cover of war
ACRI accuses Netanyahu govt. of “excessive, unrestrained and illegal use of force” in occupied territory in a new report
Says govt. is “implementing profound changes to all aspects of control, most of which are flying under the radar”
Updated 9 min 43 sec ago
Jonathan Gornall
LONDON: On Oct. 12 last year, a group of armed settlers and Israeli soldiers drove into the West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq, 10 kilometers east of the Palestinian city of Ramallah.
There, they seized and handcuffed three Palestinian men, subjecting them to hours of abuse and violence, later compared by one of the victims to the treatment meted out by rogue US soldiers to prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2003.
The abuses in Wadi Al-Seeq were led by members of the IDF’s Sfar Hamidbar (Desert Frontier) unit, notorious for recruiting into its ranks violent “hilltop youth” from the illegal farming settlements that are proliferating in the West Bank with the blessing of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, which includes, and is dependent on the support of, far-right parties.
“For hours,” as an Israeli newspaper reported on Oct. 21, 2023, the Palestinians “were severely beaten, stripped to their underwear, and photographed handcuffed.
“Their captors urinated on two of them and extinguished burning cigarettes on them. There was even an attempt to penetrate one of them with an object.”
Palestinians bound and stripped after being apprehended by IDF soldiers and settlers in the central West Bank village of Wadi Al-Seeq on October 12, 2023. (The Times of Israel)
Israeli human rights activists who arrived at the scene were also arrested, cuffed, beaten, threatened with death and, like the Palestinians, robbed.
At the time, many in Israel were shocked to read the reports of the joint operation between the IDF and settlers, exposed by the left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
But as a new report from an Israeli human rights group makes clear, such events have become commonplace as, under cover of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli government and its agencies have been pursuing the ultimate goal of “realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”
In the report, “One year of war: the collapse of human and civil rights in Israel and the West Bank,” the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) accuses the government of “excessive, unrestrained, and illegal use of force.”
Furthermore, it says, Netanyahu’s government is “demolishing the judicial system and the civil service with the aim of accumulating unlimited power; increasing the use of force in the West Bank and granting tacit permission for unrestrained settler violence; using force to limit freedom of expression and protest; and systematically violating the rights of detainees and prisoners.”
Israeli settlers march towards the outpost of Eviatar, near the Palestinian village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)
The list of charges levelled against the government is long, including institutionalized discrimination against Arab society, “unprecedented” infringement of the rights of suspects and prisoners, the “mass armament and creation of untrained forces” of settlers, the “destruction of democratic foundations,” attacks on freedom of expression and “normalization of citizen surveillance and disregard for privacy.”
Legislative steps are being taken with the aim of excluding certain parties from running for the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Last month a controversial bill was passed to change the rules for banning individuals or parties from membership of the Knesset if they have “supported terror,” a definition which now includes visiting the family of someone accused of an act of terrorism.
Likud, Netanyahu’s party, has even accused Arab members of the Knesset of supporting terror simply on the ground of their support for Palestinian statehood.
“Depriving a population of the right to protest politically and the right to political representation” is “a very slippery slope,” said Noa Sattath, the CEO of ACRI.
“When there’s no political representation of a minority, then there's a radicalization of that minority.”
IN NUMBERS
733 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023.
40 Israelis killed during the same period.
3,340 Palestinians in administrative detention as of last June.
11,800 Palestinians arrested since current conflict erupted.
What the ACRI report exposes on a grand scale, says Sattath, is “the excessive use of power. Of course, we see it in Gaza, and in Lebanon now, but we also see it in the West Bank.
“We also see it being used against Israeli protesters. We’re also seeing it in the treatment of prisoners. In all walks of life, basically, the Israeli government has moved to using excessive power against the different players, rather than making more complicated decisions.”
The headline scandal of the past year is what ACRI describes as “the quiet coup” in the West Bank.
“With public attention focused elsewhere,” says the report, “the government is implementing profound changes to all aspects of control in the West Bank, most of which are flying under the radar.
“In the last two years, the government has made giant strides in advancing policies aimed at accelerating the annexation process of the West Bank, while establishing Jewish supremacy and marginalizing the Palestinian population, all in pursuit of realizing the vision of full Israeli sovereignty in the occupied territory.”
A member of the Israeli security forces walks past a bulldozer demolishing a house belonging to Palestinians in the southern area of the occupied West Bank on November 6, 2024. (AFP)
The annexation of the West Bank has long been on the agenda, said Sattath, “but the war has given cover and enabled this to happen.
“Basically, they’re creating a new reality on the ground, behind the scenes, without a lot of public scrutiny, without a lot of international discourse on this new reality that they’re manufacturing.”
The Israeli government has, in certain instances, issued statements that aim to distance itself from the violent actions of settlers in the West Bank. Netanyahu has occasionally called for calm and condemned settler attacks on Palestinians, especially after high-profile incidents.
However, ACRI fears that under the incoming US administration of Donald Trump, whose election has been welcomed so enthusiastically by far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, things are only going to get worse.
A member of the Israeli security forces scuffles with a protestor as Palestinian and Israeli peace activists demonstrate at the entrance of Huwara in the occupied West Bank, on March 3, 2023. (AFP)
“I think that the next years are going to be very difficult,” said Sattath.
“The US government is one of the only checks and balances on the behavior of the Israeli government behavior and, even if we would have liked them to be more forceful in the way that they do it, we're very worried that the disappearance of that will have grave implications for the lives of Palestinians, both in Gaza, where the US is currently so involved in the humanitarian aid efforts there, and in the West Bank.”
Disturbingly, she says, Israel is manoeuvring behind the scenes to end the status of the West Bank as an occupied territory under military occupation, which is how it has been defined by international law since the occupation of the West Bank by Israel in 1967.
A picture shows burnt cars, which were set ablaze by Israeli settlers, in the area of in Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya in the occupied West Bank on June 21, 2023. (AFP)
“It seems a little strange that an organization like ACRI would be advocating for military occupation,” she said.
“But under international conventions military occupation gives the protected citizens of that area many different rights and gives the occupiers obligations.
“Residents in occupied territories cannot be moved. You cannot build on their territory and the occupying force has all sorts of obligations toward them, in terms of humanitarian aid.
“Now, what the settler movement, through its ministers in the government, is trying to do is erase the military occupation, replacing it with government agencies and officials to facilitate the settlement enterprise.”
A Palestinian man walks at the village of Khallet Al-Daba, in the occupied West Bank on October 26, 2023, after it was attacked by Israeli settlers. (AFP)
The process began in February 2023 when, despite disquiet among some members of Netanyahu’s government, authority over many civilian issues in the West Bank was stripped from Defense Ministry agency COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories) and transferred to Bezalel Smotrich, the religious Zionism leader and finance minister.
According to a Times of Israel report, the agreement “appears to give the ultranationalist leader sweeping powers over the territory, and allows him to advance his goal of thwarting Palestinian aspirations for a state in the West Bank by enabling the Israeli population there to substantially expand.”
Anti-settlement organizations denounced the agreement, with one, Breaking the Silence, saying it amounted to “legal, de jure annexation,” of the West Bank.
The importance of ACRI’s report, says Sattath, lies in the sheer breadth of abuses by the Israeli government it exposes.
Israeli security forces fire tear gas at Palestinians demonstrating in the village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on April 10, 2023. (AFP)
ACRI, founded in 1972 and the oldest civil and human rights organization in Israel, has been publishing reports on the state of human rights in Israel and the West Bank for decades. But, she says, “we have never published a report showing such a severe and comprehensive deterioration as we have seen over the past year.”
ACRI says it hopes its report “will deepen the public’s understanding of the damage being done to human rights and democratic institutions, and that it will stir the public to action and resistance.”
It added: “Monitoring human rights violation processes is also critical for there to be any hope of correction under a different government and reality.”
Sirens sound in central, northern Israel after ceasefire announcement: army
Sirens sounded in a number of areas in central and northern Israel following projectiles that crossed from Lebanon
Updated 11 min 37 sec ago
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said sirens sounded across central and northern Israel Tuesday, with three projectiles fired from Lebanon after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his cabinet would vote for a ceasefire.
“Sirens sounded in a number of areas in central and northern Israel following projectiles that crossed from Lebanon,” the military said in a statement. “Three projectiles that crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory were successfully intercepted by the IAF (Israeli air force).”
UAE thanks Turkiye for helping to arrest Zvi Kogan murder suspects
Sincere condolences’ expressed to family of Moldovan-Israeli national
Three men arrested were named as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33
Updated 13 min 3 sec ago
Arab News
DUBAI: The UAE has thanked Turkiye for helping in the arrest of three men suspected of murdering Moldovan-Israeli rabbi Zvi Kogan.
It was reported on Monday that three Uzbek nationals had been detained and were being investigated over the killing.
The UAE “expressed its sincere condolences and solidarity” with the family of Kogan, 28, the Emirates News Agency reported on Tuesday.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs extended its sincere appreciation to the authorities in the Republic of Turkiye for their cooperation in arresting the perpetrators,” the agency said.
The ministry “commended the exceptional diligence and professionalism” of the authorities overseeing the case.
The Ministry of Interior said on Sunday that the three arrests had been made in “record time” after Kogan’s family had reported him missing.
A specialized search and investigation team was assembled leading to the discovery of the victim’s body.
The three men arrested were named as Olimboy Tohirovich, 28, Makhmudjon Abdurakhim, 28, and Azizbek Kamilovich, 33.
The Foreign Ministry’s statement on Tuesday said the UAE is committed to upholding the principles of tolerance and peaceful coexistence among diverse religions and cultures.
Erdogan ally wants pro-Kurdish party, jailed militant to talk
The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third largest, responded by applying for its co-chairs to meet with Ocalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
Updated 26 November 2024
Reuters
ANKARA: A key ally of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan expanded on his proposal to end 40 years of conflict with Kurdish militants by proposing on Tuesday that parliament’s pro-Kurdish party holds direct talks with the militants’ jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan.
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party, made the call a month after suggesting that Ocalan announce an end to the insurgency in exchange for the possibility of his release.
The pro-Kurdish DEM Party, parliament’s third largest, responded by applying for its co-chairs to meet with Ocalan, founder of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Erdogan described Bahceli’s initial proposal as a “historic window of opportunity” but has not spoken of any peace process.
Ocalan has been held in a prison on the island of Imrali, south of Istanbul, since his capture 25 years ago.
“We expect face-to-face contact between Imrali and the DEM group to be made without delay, and we resolutely reiterate our call,” Bahceli told his party’s lawmakers in a parliamentary meeting, using the name of the island to refer to Ocalan.
Bahceli regularly condemns pro-Kurdish politicians as tools of the PKK.
DEM’s predecessor party was involved in peace talks between Ankara and Ocalan a decade ago. Gulistan Kilic Kocyigit, DEM’s parliamentary group chairperson, said it applied to the Justice Ministry on Tuesday for its leaders to meet Ocalan.
“We are ready to make every contribution for a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue and the democratization of Turkiye,” she said.
Turkiye and its Western allies call the PKK a terrorist group. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the fighting, which in the past was focused in the mainly Kurdish southeast but is now centered on northern Iraq, where the PKK is based.
Growing regional instability and changing political dynamics are seen as factors behind the bid to end the conflict with the PKK. The chances of success are unclear as Ankara has given no clues on what it may entail.
The only concrete move so far has been Ankara’s permission for Ocalan’s nephew to visit him, the first family visit in 4-1/2 years.
Authorities are continuing to crack down on alleged PKK activities. Early on Tuesday, police detained 231 people of suspected PKK ties, the interior ministry said. DEM Party said those detained included its local officials and activists.
Earlier this month, the government replaced five pro-Kurdish mayors in southeastern cities for similar reasons, in a move that drew criticism from DEM and others.
Algeria holds writer Boualem Sansal on national security charges: lawyer
“Boualem Sansal... was today placed in detention” on the basis of an article of the Algerian penal code, lawyer Francois Zimeray said
Sansal had been interrogated by “anti-terrorist” prosecutors and said he was being “deprived of his freedom on the grounds of his writing“
Updated 26 November 2024
AFP
PARIS: Algerian authorities have remanded in custody on national security charges prominent French-Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal following his arrest earlier this month that sparked alarm throughout the literary world, his French lawyer said on Tuesday.
“Boualem Sansal... was today placed in detention” on the basis of an article of the Algerian penal code “which punishes all attacks on state security,” lawyer Francois Zimeray said in a statement to AFP.
He added that Sansal had been interrogated by “anti-terrorist” prosecutors and said he was being “deprived of his freedom on the grounds of his writing.”
Sansal, a major figure in francophone modern literature, is known for his strong stances against both authoritarianism and Islamism, as well as being a forthright campaigner on freedom of expression issues.
His detention by Algeria comes against a background of tensions between France and its former colony, which also appear to have spread to the literary world.
The 75-year-old writer, granted French nationality this year, was on November 16 arrested at Algiers airport after returning from France, according to several media reports.
The Gallimard publishing house, which has published his work for a quarter of a century, in a statement expressed “its very deep concern following the arrest of the writer by the Algerian security services,” calling for his “immediate release.”
A relative latecomer to writing, Sansal turned to novels in 1999 and has tackled subjects including the horrific 1990s civil war between authorities and Islamists.
His books are not banned in Algeria but he is a controversial figure, particularly since making a visit to Israel in 2014.
Sansal’s hatred of Islamism has not been confined to Algeria and he has also warned of a creeping Islamization in France, a stance that has made him a favored author of prominent figures on the right and far-right.
In 2015, Sansal won the Grand Prix du Roman of the French Academy, the guardians of the French language, for his book “2084: The End of the World,” a dystopian novel inspired by George Orwell’s “Nineteen-Eighty Four” and set in an Islamist totalitarian world in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.
The concerns about his reported arrest come as another prominent French-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud is under attack over his novel “Houris,” which won France’s top literary prize, the Goncourt.
A woman has claimed the book was based on her story of surviving 1990s Islamist massacres and used without her consent.
She alleged on Algerian television that Daoud used the story she confidentially recounted to a therapist — who is now his wife — during treatment. His publisher has denied the claims.
The controversies are taking place in a tense diplomatic context between France and Algeria, after President Emmanuel Macron renewed French support for Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara during a landmark visit to the kingdom last month.
Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is de facto controlled for the most part by Morocco.
But it is claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, who are demanding a self-determination referendum and are supported by Algiers.
Daoud organized a petition signed by fellow literary luminaries published in the Le Point weekly calling for Sansal’s “immediate” release.
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is nothing more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” said the letter also signed by the likes of British novelist Salman Rushdie and Turkish Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk.
