Houthis warn shipowners in new phase of Red Sea campaign: Prepare to be attacked

Houthis warn shipowners in new phase of Red Sea campaign: Prepare to be attacked
FILE PHOTO: Flames and smoke rise from Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion on the Red Sea, in this handout picture released August 29, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 03 October 2024
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Houthis warn shipowners in new phase of Red Sea campaign: Prepare to be attacked

Houthis warn shipowners in new phase of Red Sea campaign: Prepare to be attacked
  • Houthis have carried out nearly 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November
  • Greek-owned ships comprise nearly 30 percent of the attacks carried out by Houthi forces

ATHENS/LONDON: On a warm spring night in Athens, shortly before midnight, a senior executive at a Greek shipping company noticed an unusual email had landed in his personal inbox.
The message, which was also sent to the manager’s business email address, warned that one of the company’s vessels traveling through the Red Sea was at risk of being attacked by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militia.
The Greek-managed ship had violated a Houthi-imposed transit ban by docking at an Israeli port and would be “directly targeted by the Yemeni Armed Forces in any area they deem appropriate,” read the message, written in English and reviewed by Reuters.
“You bear the responsibility and consequences of including the vessel in the ban list,” said the email, signed by the Yemen-based Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOCC), a body set up in February to liaise between Houthi forces and commercial shipping operators.
The Houthis have carried out nearly 100 attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea since November, acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza. They have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least four seafarers.
The email, received at the end of May, warned of “sanctions” for the entire company’s fleet if the vessel continued “to violate the ban criteria and enter the ports of the usurping Israeli entity.”
The executive and the company declined to be named for safety reasons.
The warning message was the first of more than a dozen increasingly menacing emails sent to at least six Greek shipping companies since May amid rising geopolitical tension in the Middle East, according to six industry sources with direct knowledge of the emails and two with indirect knowledge.
Since last year, the Houthis have been firing missiles, sending armed drones and launching boats laden with explosives at commercial ships with ties to Israeli, US and UK entities.
The email campaign, which has not been previously reported, indicates that Houthi rebels are casting their net wider and targeting Greek merchant ships with little or no connection to Israel.
The threats were also, for the first time in recent months, directed at entire fleets, increasing the risks for those vessels still trying to cross the Red Sea.
“Your ships breached the decision of Yemen Armed Forces,” read a separate email sent in June from a Yemeni government web domain to the first company weeks later and to another Greek shipping company, which also declined to be named. “Therefore, punishments will be imposed on all vessels of your company ... Best Regards, Yemen Navy.”
Yemen, which lies at the entrance to the Red Sea, has been embroiled in years of civil war. In 2014, the Houthis took control of the capital, Sanaa, and ousted the internationally recognized government. In January, the United States put the Houthis back on its list of terrorist groups.
Contacted by Reuters, Houthi officials declined to confirm they had sent the emails or provide any additional comment, saying that was classified military information.
Reuters could not determine whether the emails had been also sent to other foreign shipping companies.
Greek-owned ships, which represent one of the largest fleets in the world, comprise nearly 30 percent of the attacks carried out by Houthi forces to early September, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence data that did not specify whether those ships had any ties with Israel.
In August, the Houthi militia — which is part of Iran’s Axis of Resistance alliance of anti-Israel irregular armed groups — attacked the Sounion tanker leaving it on fire for weeks before it could be towed to a safer area.
The strikes have prompted many cargoes to take a much longer route around Africa. Traffic through the Suez Canal has fallen from around 2,000 transits per month before November 2023 to around 800 in August, Lloyd’s List Intelligence data showed.
Tensions in the Middle East reached a new peak on Tuesday as Iran hit Israel with more than 180 missiles in retaliation for the killing of militant leaders in Lebanon, including Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday.

New Phase
The European Union’s naval force Aspides, which has helped more than 200 ships to sail safely through the Red Sea, confirmed the evolution of Houthis’ tactics in a closed door meeting with shipping companies in early September, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.
In the document, shared with shipping companies, Aspides said the Houthis’ decision to extend warnings to entire fleets marked the beginning of the “fourth phase” of their military campaign in the Red Sea.
Aspides also urged ship owners to switch off their Automatic Identification System (AIS) transponders, which shows a vessel’s position and acts as a navigational aid to nearby ships, saying they had to “shut it off or be shot.”
Aspides said the Houthis’ missile strikes had 75 percent accuracy when aimed at vessels operating with the AIS tracking system on. But 96 percent of attacks missed when AIS was off, according to the same briefing.
Aspides did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The Houthis’ email campaign began in February with messages sent to shipowners, insurance companies and the main seafarers union from HOCC.
These initial emails, two of which were seen by Reuters, alerted the industry the Houthis had imposed a Red Sea travel ban on certain vessels, although they did not explicitly warn companies of an imminent attack.
The messages sent after May were more menacing.
At least two Greek-operated shipping companies that received email threats have decided to end such journeys via the Red Sea, two sources with direct knowledge told Reuters, declining to identify the companies for security reasons.
An executive at a third shipping company, which has also received a letter, said they decided to end business with Israel in order to be able to continue to use the Red Sea route.
“If safe transit through the Red Sea cannot be guaranteed, companies have a duty to act – even if that means delaying their delivery windows,” said Stephen Cotton, General Secretary of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, the leading union organization for seafarers, which received an email from HOCC in February. “The lives of the seafarers depend on it.”
The email campaign has increased alarm among shipping companies. Insurance costs for Western ship owners’ have already jumped because of the Houthi’s attacks, with some insurers suspending cover altogether, the sources told Reuters.
Greece-based Conbulk Shipmanagement Corporation stopped Red Sea voyages after its vessel MV Groton was attacked twice in August.
“No (Conbulk) vessel is trading in the Red Sea. It mainly has to do with the crew safety. Once the crew is in danger, all the discussion stops,” Conbulk Shipmanagement CEO Dimitris Dalakouras told a Capital Link shipping conference in London on Sept. 10.
Torben Kolln, managing director of German-based container shipping group Leonhardt & Blumberg, said the Red Sea and wider Gulf of Aden was a “no go” area for their fleet.
Contacted by Reuters, the companies did not respond to a request for comment on whether they had been targeted by the Houthi email campaign.
Some companies continue to cross the Red Sea due to binding long-term agreements with charterers or because they need to transfer goods in that particular area.
The Red Sea remains the fastest way to bring goods to consumers in Europe and Asia.
The Houthis have not stopped all traffic and the majority of Chinese and Russian-owned ships — which they do not see as affiliated with Israel — are able to sail through unhindered with lower insurance costs.
“We are re-assuring the ships belonging to companies that have no connection with the Israeli enemy that they are safe and have freedom (of movement) and (to) keep the AIS devices going on all the time,” according to an audio recording of a Houthi message broadcast to ships in the Red Sea in September shared with Reuters.
“Thank you for your cooperation. Out.”


Israel strikes south Beirut as Hezbollah says targeted south Israel

Israel strikes south Beirut as Hezbollah says targeted south Israel
Updated 58 min 38 sec ago
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Israel strikes south Beirut as Hezbollah says targeted south Israel

Israel strikes south Beirut as Hezbollah says targeted south Israel
  • Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported three raids “within the third round of strikes on the southern suburbs today“
  • AFPTV footage showed columns of smoke rising from the area, usually a densely populated residential district but now largely emptied

BEIRUT: Successive rounds of Israeli strikes hit Hezbollah’s southern Beirut stronghold Thursday after Israeli military evacuation warnings, while Hezbollah claimed a series of attacks including on a base near south Israel’s Ashdod, its deepest so far.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported three raids “within the third round of strikes on the southern suburbs today,” saying they hit the Haret Hreik and Hadath areas.
It had earlier reported two other rounds of three raids each on the southern suburbs, including a “very violent strike” on Haret Hreik and a raid on the Kafaat neighborhood that destroyed a building and damaged others nearby.
AFPTV footage showed columns of smoke rising from the area, usually a densely populated residential district but now largely emptied.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee on social media platform X issued several rounds of evacuation warnings for areas in the southern suburbs, saying the military would target Hezbollah “facilities and interests,” pinpointing six buildings.
The Israeli military in a statement said its air force carried out strikes on “Hezbollah command centers and terror infrastructure” in the southern suburbs, which it has hit repeatedly since September 23 when it escalated air raids against the Iran-backed group.
Hezbollah claimed a series of attacks on Israeli troops in south Lebanon and on military facilities across the border including a drone attack on the Haifa naval base, which it has repeatedly claimed strikes against.
The group also said its fighters “targeted... for the first time, the Hatzor air base” near the southern city of Ashdod, around 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, “with a missile salvo.”
Israeli first responders said a man was killed on Thursday after rocket fire from Lebanon hit the Galilee region in Israel’s north.
The renewed Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs came after two days of relative calm in Beirut and its suburbs while US envoy Amos Hochstein visited, seeking to broker an end to the almost two-month-long Israel-Hezbollah war.
Hochstein was to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, the premier’s office said.
The Israeli army also issued evacuation warnings for areas in and around the southern coastal city of Tyre, while the NNA reported Israeli strikes in south and east Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry said on Wednesday that at least 3,558 people had been killed in the violence since October 2023.
Most of the deaths have been since September this year, when Israel began its massive bombing campaign and later sent ground forces in to Lebanon.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that three soldiers, including a 70-year-old, were killed in south Lebanon, bringing to 52 the number killed in Lebanon since the start of ground operations.


Libya’s Derna hosts theater festival year after flash flood

Libya’s Derna hosts theater festival year after flash flood
Updated 21 November 2024
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Libya’s Derna hosts theater festival year after flash flood

Libya’s Derna hosts theater festival year after flash flood
  • Nizar Al-Aned, artistic director of the Derna Festival, said organizers had “insisted that the festival take place, even if the theater is still under construction” to rebuild it
  • Tunisian comedian Abir Smiti said it was her first time at the event

DERNA, Libya: A year after a flash flood ripped through Derna and killed thousands of people, the coastal Libyan city is hosting a theater festival with a message of hope.
The city in the war-torn country’s east is still reeling from the flooding that destroyed historic buildings, including Libya’s oldest theater where the festival was held in previous years.
Nizar Al-Aned, artistic director of the Derna Festival, said organizers had “insisted that the festival take place, even if the theater is still under construction” to rebuild it.
Now, back after a pause due to the September 2023 floods, the festival’s sixth edition is being held this week under the slogan: “Derna is back, Derna is hope.”
With five theater troupes from Libya, and one each from neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, the event has drawn artists, comedians and visitors from across the Arab world.
Tunisian comedian Abir Smiti said it was her first time at the event.
“To me, Derna is a discovery,” she told AFP.
“When you just arrive, you can feel the pain, but at the same time there’s joy. You can feel how everyone has hope.”
Once home to about 120,000 inhabitants, the wall of water that swept through Derna last year killed nearly 4,000 people, left thousands missing and displaced more than 40,000 others, according to the United Nations.
It was the result of extreme rainfall from hurricane-strength Storm Daniel, which had caused two dams to burst inland from the city that lies some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.
Libya is still grappling with the aftermath of the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled long-time dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The chaos that ensued saw the rise of jihadist movements, with Derna coming under the control of Al-Qaeda and later the Daesh group before they were chased out by 2018.
The North African country remains split between two rival administrations.
The divisions have complicated the emergency response and reconstruction efforts.
Derna is under the eastern administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, whose son Belgacem Haftar has been the figurehead for reconstruction in the city.
At the theater festival, jury member Hanane Chouehidi told AFP that “despite the drama, the deaths and the destruction,” she was confident Derna could be rebuilt.
“Derna deserves to be beautiful, just as its residents deserve to be happy,” she said.


Israeli foreign minister says ICC “lost all legitimacy” with Netanyahu, Gallant ruling

Israeli foreign minister says ICC “lost all legitimacy” with Netanyahu, Gallant ruling
Updated 21 November 2024
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Israeli foreign minister says ICC “lost all legitimacy” with Netanyahu, Gallant ruling

Israeli foreign minister says ICC “lost all legitimacy” with Netanyahu, Gallant ruling
  • “A dark moment for the International Criminal Court,” Saar said on X
  • French foreign ministry’s spokesman Christophe Lemoine said their reaction will be in line with the court’s statutes

JERUSALEM: The International Criminal Court has “lost all legitimacy” after issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday.
“A dark moment for the International Criminal Court,” Saar said on X, adding that it had issued “absurd orders without authority.”

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s office rejected the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants against him and his former defense chief, describing them as “anti-Semitic.”
“Israel rejects with disgust the absurd and false actions leveled against it by ICC,” his office said in a statement, adding Israel won’t “give in to pressure” in the defense of its citizens. 

When asked during a news conference if France would arrest Netanyahu, the French foreign ministry’s spokesman Christophe Lemoine said their reaction will be in line with the court’s statutes, but declined to say whether France would arrest the leader if he came to the country.
“It’s a point that is legally complex so I’m not going to comment on it today,” he said.


Displaced by war, cancer patients in Lebanon struggle for survival

Displaced by war, cancer patients in Lebanon struggle for survival
Updated 21 November 2024
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Displaced by war, cancer patients in Lebanon struggle for survival

Displaced by war, cancer patients in Lebanon struggle for survival

BEIRUT: Lebanese small business owner Ahmad Fahess thought nothing could be more devastating than his cancer diagnosis until suddenly, while he was at work one day, Israeli airstrikes started targeting his town of Nabatieh in south Lebanon.
When he saw the tangled mess around him, he knew he had to grab his family and flee.
“We want to go back to our homes, to our work,” he said, breaking into tears as he received cancer treatment at the American University of Beirut’s Medical Center (AUBMC), his sister sitting next to his bed.
Israel launched a broad attack on southern Lebanon in September, almost a year after Iran-backed Hezbollah militants there stepped up their rocket fire on northern Israel as Israeli forces fought Hamas gunmen who had attacked Israel from Gaza.
Washington is trying to broker a ceasefire but Israel says it must be able to continue defending itself. It says Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields, something the militants deny.
A father of two teenagers who owned four welding shops in Nabatieh, Fahess is now not only unsure when he will be able to go home, but also how long he will be able to access treatment for the rare cancer, sarcoma, which affects the connective tissue in his left arm.
“I used to come three days to Beirut for treatment and go back home,” he said. “Now with the war, we were displaced, and the treatment struggle started.”
Thousands of cancer patients are among more than a million people who have fled their homes.
“It all happened very quickly. We were at work when the shelling started; we were surprised by it,” he said. He fled with his family to Antelias in Mount Lebanon with only $4,500 that quickly dwindled.
Fahess now depends on the hospital’s Cancer Support Fund, a charity initiative launched in 2018 to assist cancer patients and now also giving extra support to displaced individuals.
“The treatment is costly; if the hospital didn’t help me, I couldn’t have afforded it,” he said.
But he is worried about funding drying up. “If we have to pay and we’re back at our homes, it would be fine, but if we are still displaced, it’ll be impossible,” he said.
Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 2,500 displaced cancer patients have been forced to find new treatment centers, as at least eight hospitals in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburbs were out of action due to Israeli shelling.
Cancer was already expensive to treat under Lebanon’s health care system, which in recent years has been battered further by economic crisis.
It is now under severe strain, said Ali Taher, the director of the Naef K. Basile Cancer Institute at AUBMC, adding that treating displaced patients has brought new complications, including finding their missing medical records and doctors.
“It’s also difficult to get cancer screening ahead of time because it’s no longer a priority for people,” Taher said.
Ghazaleh Naddaf, 67, was displaced from the southern village of Debel. Now living with her brother in Beirut, the former pharmacist assistant lost her job and has been unable to afford her therapy for multiple myeloma for two months.
“I am skipping treatment and medication,” she said. “I used to come twice a week for treatment, paying over $1,000. I can’t afford it anymore,” adding that she also needs a bone marrow transplant costing $50,000, an expense far beyond her reach.
“It’s war, and there is no safety, and I still need to go through the treatment to get on with my life,” she said.
Hala Dahdah Abou Jaber, co-founder of the Cancer Support Fund, said displaced cancer patients have to choose between basic necessities and life-threatening therapies and many can no longer co-pay for their treatment.
“Cancer doesn’t wait. Cancer is not a disease that gives you time; it’s harsh,” she said.


Iran president visits Sistan-Baluchistan after deadly attack

Iran president visits Sistan-Baluchistan after deadly attack
Updated 21 November 2024
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Iran president visits Sistan-Baluchistan after deadly attack

Iran president visits Sistan-Baluchistan after deadly attack

TEHRAN: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian arrived in the restive southeast of Iran on Thursday for a visit to Sistan-Baluchistan province, state media reported, nearly a month after one of the deadliest ever attacks in the region.
Sistan-Baluchistan, located some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) from the capital Tehran, shares a long border with Pakistan and Afghanistan and has experienced recurring clashes between Iranian security forces and rebels from the Baluch minority, radical Sunni groups and drug traffickers.
On October 26, ten police officers were killed in what the authorities described as a “terrorist” attack.
Pezeshkian arrived at the airport in the regional capital Zahedan for a one-day visit during which he was set to meet the families of the dead police officers, state television reported.
Since the October 26 attack, Iranian forces have launched a vast counterterrorism operation in Sistan-Baluchistan that is ongoing, during which at least 26 militants have been killed and around fifty people arrested, according to the authorities.
The Sunni jihadist group Jaish Al-Adl — Army of Justice in Arabic — based in Pakistan and active in southeastern Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack in a message on Telegram.
The Iranian president is also scheduled to visit the Chabahar Free Trade-Industrial Zone, a major project aimed at developing southern Iran.
Chabahar Port, which bypasses the heavy traffic of the Strait of Hormuz, is aimed at attracting businesses from nearby Pakistan, India, the Gulf and China among others.
Chabahar, located on the edge of the Indian Ocean, was exempted by Washington from the economic sanctions it unilaterally reimposed after withdrawing from a landmark nuclear agreement.
Sistan-Baluchistan, one of the most impoverished provinces in the country, is home to a large number of the Baluch minority, an ethnic group spread between Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan which practices Sunni Islam in contrast to the country’s predominantly Shiite population.