Yemen’s Houthis, an Iran-backed insurgent group, seized a cargo ship within the southern Red Sea and say they’ve taken it to a Yemeni port.
‘We are treating the ship’s crew in accordance with Islamic ideas and values,’ a spokesperson of the group’s army stated in an announcement. The group stated the ship was an Israeli vessel.
The Israeli army stated Sunday that the cargo ship was hijacked within the southern Red Sea because it was crusing from Turkey to India, elevating the alarm that regional tensions over the Israel-Hamas conflict are spilling over onto the maritime entrance.
In a social media put up, the Israeli army known as the hijacking ‘a really grave incident on a worldwide degree’ however stated the vessel is just not Israeli-owned.
The ship is British-owned and Japanese-operated, carrying 25 crew members of varied nationalities however not Israelis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s workplace stated.
A spokesperson for the Houthi group stated earlier Sunday that each one ships owned or operated by Israeli corporations, or carrying the Israeli flag might be focused.
Ownership particulars in public delivery databases related the ship’s house owners with Ray Car Carriers, which was based by Abraham ‘Rami’ Ungar, who is named one of many richest males in Israel.
Ungar advised The Associated Press he was conscious of the incident however could not remark as he awaited particulars.
A ship linked to Ungar skilled an explosion in 2021 within the Gulf of Oman. Israeli media blamed it on Iran on the time.
Netanyahu’s workplace condemned the seizure of the Galaxy Leader, a car provider, calling it “another Iranian act of terrorism that represents an escalation in Iran’s belligerence against the citizens of the free world, with concomitant international ramifications vis-à-vis the security of global shipping routes.’
According to U.S. officials, the hijackers came down on the ship’s deck from a helicopter.
The attack off the coast of Yemen comes just days after the Houthis issued a graphic with captions in Hebrew, Arabic and English saying, “we’ll sink your ships.” The graphic showed an Israeli commercial ship on fire.
On Nov. 16, the International Maritime Security Construct, an international group that tries to maintain security in regional waters, issued a warning to all mariners in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Djibouti to stay as far away from Yemeni waters as possible and recommended travel at night whenever possible.
A U.S. Defense official said, ‘we’re aware of the situation and are monitoring it closely.”
Some data for this text got here from The Associated Press, and Reuters.