This image released by the state-run Oman News Agency show the crew of the Galaxy Leader arriving in Muscat, Oman, after being released by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on January 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Wednesday (January 22, 2025) released the crew of the Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier seized in November 2023 at the start of their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war.

The move by the Iranian-backed Houthis marks their latest effort to de-escalate their attacks following a ceasefire in Gaza. However, it came as U.S. President Donald Trump moved to reinstate a terrorism designation he made on the group late in his first term that President Joe Biden had revoked, potentially setting the stage for new tensions with the rebels.

The Houthis said they released the sailors after mediation by Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula that’s long been an interlocutor with the Houthis. A Royal Air Force of Oman jet took a flight to Yemen earlier Wednesday and took off again about an hour after the Houthi announcement with the crew, who smiled as they stepped off into freedom in Muscat.

The Houthis also said Hamas separately requested the release of the ship’s crew of 25, who included mariners from the Philippines, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico.

“This step comes in support of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza,” the Houthis said in a statement on rebel-controlled SABA news agency.

World leaders react

In the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. confirmed the release of 17 Filipino crew members, describing the moment as an “utmost joy.” The Filipinos, who were in the custody of the Philippine Embassy in Muscat, Oman, would be flown home soon, Mr. Marcos said.

Bulgaria’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the release of two Bulgarians identified by officials as the ship’s captain, Lyubomir Chanev, and assistant captain, Danail Veselinov. A government jet was on the way to Oman to bring the Bulgarians home, the ministry said.

Hans Grundberg, the United Nations’ special envoy to Yemen, called the crew’s release “heartwarming news that puts an end to the arbitrary detention and separation that they and their families endured for more than a year.”

“This is a step in the right direction, and I urge Ansar Allah to continue these positive steps on all fronts, including ending all maritime attacks,” he added, using another name for the Houthis.

Israel connection

The Houthis said they hijacked the Galaxy Leader over its connection to Israel. The attack launched the rebels’ campaign targeting ships in international waters in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that connects them.

A representative for the Galaxy Leader’s owners had no comment on Wednesday.

The Bahamas-flagged vessel is affiliated with an Israeli billionaire, Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.

The Houthi attack on the Galaxy Leader saw the rebels launch a helicopter-borne raid. Propaganda footage of the raid has been played constantly by the Houthis, who even shot a music video aboard the ship at one point.

On Monday, the Houthis signaled they now will limit their attacks in the Red Sea corridor to only Israeli-affiliated ships after a ceasefire began in the Gaza Strip, but warned wider assaults could resume if needed.

Crucial route

However, it likely won’t be enough to encourage global firms to reenter the route crucial for cargo and energy shipments moving between Asia and Europe. Their attacks have halved traffic through the region, cutting deeply into revenues for Egypt, which runs the Suez Canal linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

The release of the vessel’s crew now may have been an effort to curry favour with the U.S., though the ship still remains moored off the Yemeni port city of Hodeida.

“This gesture by the Houthis may be intended as a goodwill measure towards the new Trump administration,” said Yemen expert Mohammed al-Basha, of the Basha Report risk advisory firm.

Terrorist designation

However, Trump signed an order urging Secretary of State Marco Rubio to reinstate a foreign terrorist organisation designation on the Houthis. Mr. Rubio separately called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, who have led a coalition battling the Houthis since 2015.

“Under President Trump, it is now the policy of the United States to cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities and operations, deprive them of resources, and thereby end their attacks on U.S. personnel and civilians, U.S. partners, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea,” the White House said.

Mr. Biden lifted the designation early in his term, citing the humanitarian threat that the sanctions posed to ordinary Yemenis and to back an de facto ceasefire that still broadly holds in Yemen’s war.

Former president Joe Biden had lifted that label when he took over the White House from Trump in 2021

The rockets from Gaza have mostly fallen silent. A ceasefire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has taken hold. But repeated fire from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a faraway foe, is proving a stubborn threat for Israel.

The Iran-backed Houthis are stepping up their missile attacks, sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis scrambling for shelter in the middle of the night, scaring away foreign airlines and keeping up what could be the last major front in the Middle East wars.

“It’s like musical chairs,” said Yoni Yovel, 31, who left the northern Israeli city of Haifa late last year to avoid rocket fire from Hezbollah only to see his apartment in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa neighborhood heavily damaged by a Houthi missile.

Israel has repeatedly bombarded ports, oil infrastructure and the airport in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) away. Israeli leaders have threatened to kill central Houthi figures and have tried to galvanize the world against the threat.

But the Houthis persist. In recent weeks, missiles and drones from Yemen have struck nearly every day, including early Friday (January 3, 2025) morning, setting off air raid sirens in broad swaths of Israel. In some cases, the projectiles have penetrated Israel’s sophisticated aerial defence system, most recently toppling an empty school and shattering the windows of apartments near an empty playground where one missile landed.

Because most missiles are intercepted and because the fire is usually a single missile at a time, the strikes have not caused major physical damage, although a few attacks have been fatal during the 15-month war in Gaza as the Houthis attack in solidarity with Hamas.

But the rocket fire is posing a threat to Israel’s economy, keeping many foreign airlines away and preventing the country from jump-starting its hard-hit tourism industry.

Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have all but shuttered an Israeli port in the city of Eilat and have prompted ships destined for it to take a longer, more costly route around Africa to Israel’s Mediterranean ports.

The Houthi strikes are also a symbolic reminder for Israel of the Iran-backed enemies that encircle it, known as the “Axis of Resistance,” and the last major holdout. And because Israel’s counterstrikes have yet to deter the Houthis, their persistent attacks defy Israel’s image as a regional military powerhouse.

“They are the only ones who are active now,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.

The Houthis, he said, “are a challenge of a different kind.”

Shortly after Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Houthis began striking Israel-linked ships in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait along Yemen’s coast. Those attacks expanded to include other ships with no ties to Israel, disrupting cargo and energy shipments that are critical for worldwide trade. The Houthis said it was part of their campaign aimed at pressuring Israel and the West over the war in Gaza.

In response, U.S. and partner forces have launched multiple rounds of coordinated airstrikes against Houthi launch sites and weapons storage sites.

Throughout the war, the Houthis have also been firing missiles and drones at Israel, at first focusing on Eilat and eventually broadening attacks to include major population centres and the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv. The launches have intensified in recent weeks.

“There was thunder the other night and my daughter thought it was a missile. She woke up and started screaming,” said Ibrahim Sosa, 53, whose home in Jaffa is near the site of a recent missile landing.

Israel has retaliated repeatedly and vowed to escalate if the attacks don’t stop.

“We will hunt down all of the Houthis’ leaders and we will strike them just as we have done in other places,” said Defense Minister Israel Katz, shortly after Israeli jets struck Yemen last week.

The Israeli strikes have been deadly, with several people killed. Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told The Associated Press that Israel’s strikes focused on “military infrastructure which was used and directly contributed to Houthi terror activities, including to smuggle arms and finance their terror activities.”

Mr. Hagari acknowledged the battle would be complex. And despite massive Israeli air power, the Houthis have continued their assaults. That stands in contrast to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran — three other enemies Israel has largely neutralized over the past 15 months.

“Israel has many years of familiarity with those enemies. There is intelligence and there is the important element of a ground maneuver, and in Yemen we can’t do that. The scale here is different,” said Eyal Pinko, a former Israeli defence official and senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, an Israeli think tank.

Yemen does not border Israel, and Israel cannot easily stage a ground invasion as it has in Gaza and Lebanon to dismantle enemies’ infrastructure. Israel has to orchestrate complex air missions to fly to Yemen, which are costly and limited in what they can achieve.

Pinko also said the Houthis have learned over years of fighting against a Saudi-led coalition how to bounce back from airstrikes.

While the Houthis have been active as an insurgent force for years, Israel hasn’t seen them as a priority or invested as much in gathering intelligence against them.

Against Hamas, yearslong intelligence helped target and erode the group’s forces. With Hezbollah, Israel penetrated deep into the organization, allowing it to unleash an offensive last year that detonated the pagers of rank-and-file members and decimated its senior ranks in secret bunkers. In Iran, Israel struck Hamas’ top leader in an apartment in Tehran and knocked out many of its air defences in an October strike that left parts of the capital exposed.

But the Houthis’ hideouts, weapons and infrastructure are less known to Israel, making its counterstrikes somewhat less effective. Mr. Hagari recognized that Israel’s intelligence in Yemen was “an issue” and said the military was working to improve.

Until then, some in Israel are steeling themselves for a war of attrition with the distant enemy.

“There’s no quick fix,” Mr. Citrinowicz said. “Even if the war in Gaza ends, this is a threat that will not disappear.”

Emergency services personnel work near a damaged site after a projectile fired from Yemen was intercepted, in Ramat Gan, Israel December 19, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Israel said on Thursday (December 19, 2024) that it struck ports and energy infrastructure used by Houthi rebels in Yemen after intercepting a missile fired from the country, warning Houthi leaders it “will reach you too.”

Houthi media said the strikes hit power stations, oil facilities and the port of Hodaidah, causing deaths and injuries, without giving further details.

Also read: Suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels targets ship in the Red Sea

The strikes came after the interception of a missile fired by Houthi rebels towards Israel. The group has regularly targeted Israel over its military operation in Gaza.

Israel’s military said it “conducted precise strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen — including ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa, which the Houthis have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military actions.”

“I warn the leaders of the Houthi terrorist organisation: Israel’s long arm will reach you too,” Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said.

Al-Masira, a media channel belonging to the Houthis, said a series of “aggressive raids” were launched in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeidah.

It reported raids that “targeted two central power plants” in and around Yemen’s capital Sanaa, while in Hodeidah it said “the enemy launched four aggressive raids targeting the port… and two raids targeting” an oil facility.

It said there were casualties at the oil facility without giving further details.

The strikes came after Israel’s military intercepted a missile from Yemen for the second time this week.

On Monday, the Houthis claimed a missile launch they said was aimed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of Yaffa” — a reference to Israel’s Tel Aviv area.

Also Monday (December 16, 2024), an Israeli navy missile boat intercepted a drone in the Mediterranean after it was launched from Yemen, the military said.

Will attack Israel till Gaza aggression stops: Houthis

The Houthi rebels have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and pledged Monday to continue operations “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted”.

On December 9, a drone claimed by Houthis exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israel city of Yavne, causing no casualties.

In July, a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

The Houthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes on Huthi targets by United States and sometimes British forces.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the group had become a “global threat,” pointing to Iran’s support for the rebels.

“We will continue to act against anyone, anyone in the Middle East, that threatens the state of Israel,” he said.

(Clockwise from top left): People, who fled their villages in southern Lebanon, take refuge at a school turned temporary shelter in the capital Beirut; Smoke billows over southern Lebanon as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel; Firefighters work to extinguish a fire after a rocket, fired from Lebanon, hit a local municipality storage in Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel; and Lebanese citizens who fled from the southern villages amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Sept. 23, sit in a pickup in Beirut.
| Photo Credit: AFP, Reuters and AP

After Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out the deadliest attack in Israeli history on October 7, 2023, Israel responded with a devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

The air and ground operation has killed more than 41,700 people, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.

Hamas attacks

At dawn on October 7, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrate Israel.

The unprecedented attack results in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures. This toll includes hostages who subsequently died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas took 251 hostages back to Gaza, some as corpses. A year later, some 64 are still detained, while 117 have been freed and 70 confirmed dead.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to destroy Hamas, which is blacklisted as a “terrorist” organisation by the European Union and the United States.

Ground offensive

Israel begins bombing Gaza and further tightening its siege of the territory. On October 13, 2023, it tells civilians in northern Gaza to move south.

The United Nations later estimates that nearly all of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million is eventually displaced.

On October 27, 2023, Israel launches a ground offensive. On November 15, 2023, its troops raid Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa, where Israel says Hamas has a command centre, an accusation the militants deny.

Truce and hostage swap

On November 24, 2023, a weeklong truce between Israel and Hamas takes effect.

Hamas releases 80 Israeli hostages in return for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Twenty-five other hostages, mainly Thai farm workers, are also freed. Israel allows more aid into Gaza via Egypt, but the humanitarian situation there remains dire.

When fighting resumes, Israel expands its actions into southern Gaza.

Aid hitches

On February 29, Gaza’s Health Ministry says 120 northern Gaza residents were shot dead by Israeli forces as they rushed towards a convoy of food aid. Israel says soldiers believed they “posed a threat”.

From early March, several countries airdrop aid into Gaza. A first aid ship from Cyprus arrives on March 15. On April 1, seven aid workers from the U.S. charity World Central Kitchen are killed in an Israeli strike, which the military calls a “tragic mistake”.

Israel-Iran tensions

On April 13, 2024, Iran pounds Israel with drones and missiles in retaliation for a deadly strike on its consulate in Damascus blamed on its arch-enemy. Most of the projectiles are intercepted.

Operations in the south

On May 7, 2024, the Israeli army launches a ground offensive in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where a majority of the territory’s people have sought shelter.

It takes control of the border crossing with Egypt, blocking a key entry point for aid, and targets safe areas, including tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people.

“On July 13, 2024, a strike in southern Gaza kills the chief of Hamas’s armed wing, Mohammed Deif,” Israel says.

Regional flare-up feared

On July 20, 2024, Israel attacks Yemen in retaliation for a deadly drone strike on Tel Aviv by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who have repeatedly attacked Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping in solidarity with Gaza.

On the Israel-Lebanon border, almost daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah intensify. On July 27, 2024, in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, 12 children are killed in a rocket strike. Hezbollah denies responsibility.

Hezbollah’s top commander, Fuad Shukr, is killed in a Beirut suburb on July 30 in a retaliatory strike.

The next day, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh is killed in a strike in Iran, blamed on Israel. Hamas names Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza, to replace him.

Truce talks

Washington on August 16, 2024 presents a new truce deal, which Hamas immediately rejects. Negotiations mediated by Egypt, then Qatar, resume on August 22, 2024.

On August 25, Israel says it has thwarted a large-scale Hezbollah attack with air strikes into Lebanon. Hamas says it successfully launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel.

West Bank raid

On August 28, 2024, Israel launches a major operation against Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations calls for an immediate end to the raid.

After the military recovers the bodies of six hostages from Gaza on August 31, pressure mounts on the Israeli government to secure the release of the remaining captives, but Mr. Netanyahu does not budge over a truce.

Lebanon attacks

On September 17 and 18, 2024, thousands of Hezbollah members’ pagers and walkie-talkies explode across Lebanon, killing at least 39 people and wounding almost 3,000.

Israel had announced it was expanding its Gaza war aims to include securing the northern front with Lebanon, but does not claim responsibility.

Amid a mounting series of bombardments against Hezbollah, on September 27, 2024, an Israeli strike on its south Beirut stronghold kills the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah alongside an Iranian general in the Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vows that Mr. Nasrallah’s death “will not be in vain”.

On October 1, 2024, Iran launches a barrage of missiles at Israel in what the Revolutionary Guards say is a response to the killings of Nasrallah and Haniyeh.

The attack comes the day Israel announced limited ground operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. More than 1,900 people have also been killed in Lebanon since Hezbollah and Israel began clashing last October, according to Lebanon’s health minister.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels conducted drone strikes in Israel’s Tel Aviv early this morning, backing the Palestinian and Lebanese wars against Israel. The operation achieved its goals as the drones successfully reached their targets, the Houthis said in a statement.

“The Drone Air Force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation targeting a vital target in the Yaffa area “Tel Aviv” in occupied Palestine using several Yaffa drones. The operation successfully achieved its goals, with the drones reaching their targets without the enemy being able to intercept or down them,” said statement read.

The armed forces said the attack, which was part of its fifth phase of the “Battle of the Promised Conquest”, was in support of the people of Palestine and Lebanon, and Hamas’s “Al-Aqsa Flood”.

Houthis rebels, who control most parts of Yemen and consider Israel their enemy, entered the war in support of the Hamas after the conflict started in the Middle East last year. They are part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the United States.

Houthis have fired multiple missiles at Israeli cities while Israel has been conducting airstrikes in Yemen, targeting crucial infrastructure including power plants. Seaports used by Houthi rebels to transfer Iranian weapons also came under attack in recent times.

This satellite picture from Planet Labs PBC shows the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion burning in the Red Sea after being attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Salvagers abandoned an initial effort to tow away a burning oil tanker in the Red Sea targeted by as it “was not safe to proceed,” a European Union naval mission said Tuesday (September 3, 2024), leaving the Sounion stranded and its 1 million barrels of oil at risk of spilling.

While a major spill has yet to occur, the incident threatens to become one of the worst yet in the Iranian-backed rebels’ campaign that has disrupted the $1 trillion in goods that pass through the Red Sea each year over the. It also has halted some aid shipments to conflict-ravaged Sudan and Yemen.

“The private companies responsible for the salvage operation have concluded that the conditions were not met to conduct the towing operation and that it was not safe to proceed,” the EU’s Operation Aspides mission said, without elaborating. “Alternative solutions are now being explored by the private companies.”

The EU mission declined to answer questions from The Associated Press (AP) about the announcement, other than to say its “assets have been engaged in protecting the tugs involved.” The safety issue could be the fire burning aboard the vessel. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC taken Tuesday afternoon and analyzed by the AP showed the Sounion still ablaze.

The U.S. State Department has warned that a spill from the Sounion could be “four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster” in 1989 off Alaska.

Meanwhile, there’s the threat of attacks by the Houthis, who on Monday (September 2, 2024), targeted. The Houthis have suggested they’ll allow a salvage operation to take place, but critics say the rebels have used the threat of an to extract concessions from the international community.

The Houthis initially attacked the Greek-flagged Sounion tanker on August 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Aspides rescued its crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.

Last week, the Houthis released footage showing and ignited them in a propaganda video, something the rebels have done before in their campaign.

The Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. They and that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.

The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.

“There are no American vessels known to be in the Red Sea at the moment as the EU mission has taken charge after the Sounion attack. A U.S. defence official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss information not made public,” said the American military has not been asked and has no role in the cleanup or the towing of the Sounion.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower recently served a monthslong deployment in the Red Sea, facing the most intense, continuous combat the .

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, along with its carrier groups, are in the Gulf of Oman to counter a threatened Iranian retaliation against Israel over. Satellite pictures and a report Tuesday from the U.S. Navy Institute suggest the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group, once with the Roosevelt, has moved into the Gulf of Aden.

“However, the U.S. has continued a campaign of airstrikes targeting the Houthis. A strike Tuesday (September 3, 2024) destroyed a Houthi missile system,” the U.S. military’s Central Command said.

“The onus is on the Houthis, again, to look at the impact that they’re having, not only in the short term, but in the long term as it relates to the environment, the economy and the safety of those that are transiting this important waterway,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary.

The Houthis’ attacks likely will continue until there’s a cease-fire in Gaza, warned Matthew Bey, a senior analyst at the RANE Network, a risk consultancy. Even then, there’s a risk that the rebels continue the attacks.

“The Houthis have learned quite a bit from what they’ve been doing over the last year — it’s been a very significant recruiting boon for them,” Mr. Bey said. “I think there are a lot of incentives for them to target shipping in the future because they’ve learned that they can be very successful in that. It brings in the West, which is kind of the enemy that they want to fight to some degree as well.”

This satellite picture from Planet Labs PBC shows the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion burning in the Red Sea after being attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Salvagers abandoned an initial effort to tow away a burning oil tanker in the Red Sea targeted by as it “was not safe to proceed,” a European Union naval mission said Tuesday (September 3, 2024), leaving the Sounion stranded and its 1 million barrels of oil at risk of spilling.

While a major spill has yet to occur, the incident threatens to become one of the worst yet in the Iranian-backed rebels’ campaign that has disrupted the $1 trillion in goods that pass through the Red Sea each year over the. It also has halted some aid shipments to conflict-ravaged Sudan and Yemen.

“The private companies responsible for the salvage operation have concluded that the conditions were not met to conduct the towing operation and that it was not safe to proceed,” the EU’s Operation Aspides mission said, without elaborating. “Alternative solutions are now being explored by the private companies.”

The EU mission declined to answer questions from The Associated Press (AP) about the announcement, other than to say its “assets have been engaged in protecting the tugs involved.” The safety issue could be the fire burning aboard the vessel. Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC taken Tuesday afternoon and analyzed by the AP showed the Sounion still ablaze.

The U.S. State Department has warned that a spill from the Sounion could be “four times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster” in 1989 off Alaska.

Meanwhile, there’s the threat of attacks by the Houthis, who on Monday (September 2, 2024), targeted. The Houthis have suggested they’ll allow a salvage operation to take place, but critics say the rebels have used the threat of an to extract concessions from the international community.

The Houthis initially attacked the Greek-flagged Sounion tanker on August 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Aspides rescued its crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.

Last week, the Houthis released footage showing and ignited them in a propaganda video, something the rebels have done before in their campaign.

The Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October. They and that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a U.S.-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.

The rebels maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.

“There are no American vessels known to be in the Red Sea at the moment as the EU mission has taken charge after the Sounion attack. A U.S. defence official, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to discuss information not made public,” said the American military has not been asked and has no role in the cleanup or the towing of the Sounion.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower recently served a monthslong deployment in the Red Sea, facing the most intense, continuous combat the .

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, along with its carrier groups, are in the Gulf of Oman to counter a threatened Iranian retaliation against Israel over. Satellite pictures and a report Tuesday from the U.S. Navy Institute suggest the USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group, once with the Roosevelt, has moved into the Gulf of Aden.

“However, the U.S. has continued a campaign of airstrikes targeting the Houthis. A strike Tuesday (September 3, 2024) destroyed a Houthi missile system,” the U.S. military’s Central Command said.

“The onus is on the Houthis, again, to look at the impact that they’re having, not only in the short term, but in the long term as it relates to the environment, the economy and the safety of those that are transiting this important waterway,” said U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon’s press secretary.

The Houthis’ attacks likely will continue until there’s a cease-fire in Gaza, warned Matthew Bey, a senior analyst at the RANE Network, a risk consultancy. Even then, there’s a risk that the rebels continue the attacks.

“The Houthis have learned quite a bit from what they’ve been doing over the last year — it’s been a very significant recruiting boon for them,” Mr. Bey said. “I think there are a lot of incentives for them to target shipping in the future because they’ve learned that they can be very successful in that. It brings in the West, which is kind of the enemy that they want to fight to some degree as well.”

Sanaa:

The leader of Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels vowed a “military response” Thursday to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel.

“There has to be a military response to these crimes, which are shameless and dangerous, and constitute a major escalation by the Israeli enemy,” Abdul Malik al-Huthi said in a televised speech.

The Yemeni rebels have been launching drones and missiles at shipping in the Red Sea since November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians during the Gaza war.

Last month, a deadly Huthi drone strike on Tel Aviv prompted Israeli air strikes on Hodeida, impoverished Yemen’s lifeline port, that killed nine people and triggered a massive inferno.

The rebel leader described the killing of the Hamas chief as “a flagrant violation of all norms and principles”.

He also condemned the killing of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr on Tuesday in a Beirut strike claimed by Israel.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Cairo:

Yemen’s Houthis said on Tuesday that they, along with the Islamic resistance in Iraq, have conducted a joint military operation, attacking a vital target in Israel’s Haifa.

The military operation has been carried out with “a number of winged missiles,” Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement, without identifying the target that was attacked.

The Houthi group has been launching drone and missile strikes in shipping lanes since November, in what it says is in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The Iran-aligned Houthis first launched drone and missile strikes in shipping lanes in November. In dozens of attacks, they have sunk two vessels, seized another and killed at least three seafarers.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)