Yemen's Houthi rebels claim responsibility for attacking ship in Red Sea
Military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the Houthis attacked the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned vessel with bomb-carrying drone boats and missiles.
The attack on Sunday left the Magic Seas ablaze in the Red Sea. Its 22 crew abandoned the ship and were safely rescued.
Mr Saree said the Houthis attacked the vessel as the ship belonged to a company which it said continued to do port calls in Israel.
Following the attack, the Israeli military said that it struck Houthi-held ports at Hodeida, Ras Isa and Salif, as well as the Ras Kanatib power plant.
It released footage showing an F-16 launching from Israel for the strike, which came after the Israeli military issued a warning for the area.
'These ports are used by the Houthi terrorist regime to transfer weapons from the Iranian regime, which are employed to carry out terrorist operations against the state of Israel and its allies,' the Israeli military spokesman said.
He also said the military struck the Galaxy Leader, a vehicle-carrying vessel that the Houthis seized back in November 2023 when they began their attacks in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war.
'Houthi forces installed a radar system on the ship and have been using it to track vessels in the international maritime arena to facilitate further terrorist activities,' the spokesman said.
The Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader was affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said that no Israelis were on board. The ship had been operated by a Japanese firm, NYK Line.
The Houthis acknowledged the strikes but offered no damage assessment from the attack. Mr Saree claimed its air defence forces 'effectively confronted' the Israelis.
Israel has repeatedly attacked Houthi areas in Yemen, including a naval strike in June. Both Israel and the United States have struck ports in the area in the past — including an American attack that killed 74 people in April — but Israel is now acting alone in attacking the rebels as they continue to fire missiles at Israel.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz threatened to launch further strikes.
'What's true for Iran is true for Yemen,' Mr Katz said in a statement. 'Anyone who raises a hand against Israel will have it cut off. The Houthis will continue to pay a heavy price for their actions.'
The Houthis then responded with an apparent missile attack on Israel. The Israeli military said that it attempted to intercept the two missiles launched by the Houthis but they appeared to make impact, though no injuries have been reported. Sirens sounded in the West Bank and along the Dead Sea.
The attack on the Magic Seas, a bulk carrier heading north to Egypt's Suez Canal, happened about 60 miles south west of Hodeida, which is held by the Houthis.
The British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations centre first said that an armed security team on the vessel had returned fire against an initial attack of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, though the vessel later was struck by projectiles.
Ambrey, a private maritime security firm, said that the Magic Seas also had been attacked by bomb-carrying drone boats.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
37 minutes ago
- New York Times
I'm a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.
A month after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, I believed there was evidence that the Israeli military had committed war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity in its counterattack on Gaza. But contrary to the cries of Israel's fiercest critics, the evidence did not seem to me to rise to the crime of genocide. By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a 'huge price' for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, 'into rubble,' and he called on 'the residents of Gaza' to 'leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.' Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember 'what Amalek did to you,' a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to 'kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings' of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting 'human animals' and, later, called for 'total annihilation.' Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on X that Israel's task must be 'erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.' Israel's actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel's actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
News24
an hour ago
- News24
EU mulls Israel sanctions over Gaza, but action seems unlikely in divided Europe
EU minister will discuss proposals for action against Israel. But it unlikely they will agree on any. The is anger in the EU over Israel's handling of the Gaza war. EU foreign ministers on Tuesday will discuss a raft of options for action against Israel over the war in Gaza - but likely will not agree on any. The bloc's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has put forward 10 potential steps after Israel was found to have breached a cooperation deal between the two sides on human rights grounds. The measures range from suspending the entire accord or curbing trade ties to sanctioning Israeli ministers, imposing an arms embargo and halting visa-free travel. But despite growing anger over the devastation in Gaza, EU states remain divided over how to tackle Israel and diplomats say there appears to be no critical mass for any move. 'I was asked to give the inventory of the options that could be taken and it's up to the member states to discuss what do we do with these options,' Kallas said on Monday. READ | 'Window of opportunity' in Gaza truce talks between Hamas and Israel closing amid sticking points The tone of discussions will be shaped strongly by how Israel is implementing a promise to the EU to improve humanitarian access to Gaza. Kallas said on Thursday she had struck a deal with her Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, to open more entry points and allow in more food. Gaza's two million residents are facing dire humanitarian conditions as Israel has severely limited aid during its devastating war with Palestinian militant group Hamas. 'We see some good signs of more trucks getting in,' Kallas said on Monday. 'But of course we know that this is not enough and we need to push more (so) that the implementation of what we have agreed also happens on the ground.' At a meeting of EU and neighbouring countries in Brussels on Monday, Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi said the situation in Gaza remained 'catastrophic'. Israel's Saar, speaking at the same meeting, sounded confident his country would avoid further EU action. 'I'm sure not any of them will be adopted by the EU member states,' said the foreign minister. There's no justification whatsoever. Gideon Saar While the EU appears unable for now to take any further moves against Israel, just getting to this stage has been a considerable step. The bloc only agreed to review the cooperation deal after Israel relaunched its devastating operation in Gaza following the collapse of a ceasefire in March. Until then, deep divisions between countries backing Israel and those more favourable to the Palestinians had hamstrung any move. The war was sparked by Hamas' 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which led to 1 219 deaths, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures. Ahmad Gharabli/AFP Of the 251 people taken hostage by militants that day, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. Hamas-run Gaza's health ministry says that at least 58 386 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israel's retaliatory campaign. The UN considers those figures reliable.
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Israel and Iran Usher In New Era of Psychological Warfare
In the hours before Israeli forces bombed Evin prison in Iran's capital on June 23, posts appeared on social media in Persian, foreshadowing the attack and urging Iranians to come free the prisoners. Moments after the bombs struck, a video appeared on X and Telegram, purporting to show a blast at an entrance to the prison, which is notorious for holding political prisoners. One post on X included a hashtag, in Persian: '#freeevin.' The attack on the prison was real, but the posts and video were not what they seemed. They were part of an Israeli ruse, according to researchers who tracked the effort. It was not the only trickery during the conflict. Over 12 days of attacks, Israel and Iran turned social media into a digital battlefield, using deception and falsehoods to try to sway the outcome even as they traded kinetic missile strikes that killed hundreds and roiled an already turbulent Middle East. The posts, researchers said, represented a greater intensity of information warfare, by beginning before the strikes, employing artificial intelligence and spreading widely so quickly. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
