SANAA, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Sunday confirmed that they’ve hijacked an “Israeli cargo ship” within the Red Sea.
“The Houthis announce the implementation of a military operation in the Red Sea, the results of which included the seizure of an Israeli ship,” Houthi army spokesman Yehya Sarea stated in an announcement aired by the group’s al-Masirah TV.
Renewing the insurgent group’s menace to focus on all ships belonging to or coping with Israel, Sarea known as on “all countries whose citizens work in the Red Sea to stop any activity with Israeli ships or ships rented by Israelis.”
The spokesman reiterated that the group would proceed to hold out army operations towards Israel till “its aggression against the Gaza Strip” stops.
Hours earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated in an announcement that the Houthis took management of the cargo ship close to Yemen within the southern Red Sea, including that the vessel was heading from Türkiye to India. IDF warned that the hijacking was “a very grave incident of global consequence.”
The ship was recognized because the Galaxy Leader, a cargo ship that transports automobiles, in accordance with a report by the Saudi-based Al Arabiya TV news.
Israel’s state-owned Kan TV news reported that the ship was operated by a Japanese firm, which leased it from a British firm co-owned by Rami Ungar, an Israeli transport mogul and importer of autos.
Marine Traffic, a web-based vessel monitoring platform, printed its final replace concerning the hijacked Galaxy Leader at 13:04 native time (1004 GMT) on Saturday.
The Houthi militia controls a lot of Yemen’s north, together with the strategic Red Sea port metropolis of Hodeidah because the Yemeni civil struggle erupted in late 2014.