Athens:

A risky operation to salvage an oil tanker attacked by Houthi militants in the Red Sea and avert what could have been one of the largest oil spills in recorded history has been completed, British maritime security company Ambrey and Greece have said.

The 900-foot Greek-registered MT Sounion, carrying 150,000 tonnes of crude oil, was struck by several missiles and drones and caught fire on Aug. 21, triggering fears of an oil spill that could cause catastrophic environmental damage in the area.

Months later, the vessel has been declared safe and its cargo has been removed, said Ambrey, which led the salvage operation.

Greece had urged all nations to assist with the case with political negotiations extending from the Houthis, who eventually allowed salvage teams to tow the ship, to Saudi Arabia, a key player in the region.

“It’s a great relief, mainly due to the environmental disaster risk. It was a very complex operation,” Greek Shipping Minister Christos Stylianides told Reuters on Monday. “I feel relieved and content.”

In mid-September, Sounion, which was hit 58 miles off the Yemeni coast, was towed to a safe location 150 miles to the north by a flotilla of seven salvage vessels escorted by the European Union’s naval force Aspides.

Extinguishing the fires on board took three weeks in difficult climate conditions, Ambrey said, and the vessel was later towed north to Suez for her cargo to be removed.

More than 200 people and six companies – Megatugs Salvage & Towage, Diaplous, Offmain, Fire Aid, Pro Liquid and Ambipar Response, were involved in the projects.

As Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited Saudi Arabia on Monday, a Greek government official said the salvage of Sounion was pivotal in boosting bilateral ties.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

(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.

Dubai:

Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Monday said they targeted two tankers in the Red Sea with missiles and drones after a British security agency reported several attacks in the troubled waterway.

In a statement on social media platform X, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree identified the two ships as BENTLEY I, a Panama-flagged oil tanker, and the CHIOS LION, a Liberia-flagged crude oil tanker.

The BENTLEY I was attacked with “drone boats, unmanned aerial vehicles, and ballistic missiles”, while the CHIOS LION was targeted with uncrewed surface vessels, Saree said.

They were targeted because their owners had used Israeli ports, according to the rebel spokesperson.

Earlier on Monday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported two separate incidents in the Red Sea.

A ship sailing southwest of the port city of Hodeidah came under attack from three small vessels, two of which had three people each on board, UKMTO said.

The third skiff was unmanned, according to the agency, which is run by Britain’s Royal Navy.

The “unmanned small craft collided with the vessel twice and the two manned small craft fired at the vessel”, UKMTO said.

“After 15 minutes, the small craft aborted the attack. The vessel and crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call.”

The same ship later reported four missiles exploding in “close proximity”, UKMTO said, adding that the strikes did not cause any injuries or damage.

British maritime security firm Ambrey also reported the attack, saying the merchant vessel had a private armed security team on board.

In a separate incident on Monday, an uncrewed surface vessel “impacted” a merchant vessel 97 nautical miles northwest of Hodeidah, UKMTO said.

The attack caused “some damage and light smoke”, it said, adding that “the vessel and crew are reported safe and proceeding to next port of call”.

Houthi drone and missile strikes have taken place despite the deployment of Western naval forces to protect ships in the Red Sea, a vital waterway for global trade.

Since January, the United States and Britain have carried out repeated retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.

On Sunday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces destroyed several Houthi drones.

“These actions were taken to protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure,” it said in a post on social media platform X.

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

London:

Captain Avhilash Rawat and his crew of an oil tanker have been named among the winners of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) 2024 Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea for their “extraordinary courage” shown in a Red Sea rescue mission.

Mr Rawat and his crew were declared winners by the IMO on Wednesday for the “determination and endurance” demonstrated while coordinating firefighting and damage control efforts to combat a fire that broke out after an anti-ship missile reportedly fired by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels struck their vessel ‘Marlin Luanda’ earlier this year.

Congratulations to Captain Avhilash Rawat and the Indian seafarers on Marlin Luanda for the IMO 2024 Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea! This award is special and showcases the technical prowess and unwavering dedication, skill, resilience and bravery of Indian seafarers. pic.twitter.com/9a12VesAdF

— Directorate General of Shipping, Govt. of India (@dgship_goi) July 11, 2024

Captain Brijesh Nambiar and the crew of the Indian Navy ship INS Visakhapatnam have been conferred a Letter of Commendation for their support to the oil tanker when in distress.

“On the evening of J26 January 2024, the Marlin Luanda, carrying 84,147 tonnes of Naphtha, was en route from Suez to Incheon when it was struck by an anti-ship ballistic missile. The explosion ignited a cargo tank, creating a significant fire hazard with flames exceeding 5 meters,” reads the award citation.

“Despite the damage, Captain Avhilash Rawat swiftly organised firefighting efforts, ensuring the crew’s safety and maintaining the ship’s navigability amidst the chaos. With the starboard lifeboat destroyed, the remaining crew mustered at the port lifeboat station, ready for potential evacuation,” it added.

Despite the extreme danger and the constant threat of further attacks, Rawat and his crew fought the fire using fixed foam monitors and portable hoses. The fire continued to spread, particularly affecting an adjacent tank, but the crew managed to contain it using seawater after foam supplies were exhausted, the IMO notes.

After four and a half hours fighting the fire on their own, assistance arrived from the merchant tanker Achilles and later from the French frigate FS Alsace and the United States frigate USS Carney, which provided additional firefighting foam and support, followed soon after by the Indian warship INS Visakhapatnam.

Despite relentless efforts by the Marlin Luanda crew, the fire reignited multiple times. The situation remained critical, and expert consultations suggested abandoning the vessel.

However, Captain Rawat and his crew persisted. The turning point came when professionally trained firefighters from the Indian Navy boarded the ship. They managed to get closer to the fire due to their superior equipment, and their efforts, combined with those of the Marlin Luanda crew, finally succeeded in extinguishing the fire and sealing a significant hull breach.

“Twenty-four hours after the missile strike, the Marlin Luanda sailed to safety under naval escort,” the IMO noted.

Captain Rawat and his crew were nominated for the award by the Marshall Islands and, along with Captain Jorge Fernando Galaviz Fuentes and the crew of the tugboat Pemex Maya, nominated by Mexico, will receive their awards at the annual ceremony to be held at the IMO Headquarters in London on December 2, during the 109th session of the Maritime Security Committee.

A total of 41 nominations were received from 15 member states and three non-governmental organisations in consultative status with IMO. Nominations were initially reviewed by an Assessment Panel, and their recommendations were considered by a panel of judges, who ultimately selected the recipients of honours.

The recommendations of the Panel of Judges have now been endorsed by the IMO Council, meeting for its 132nd session being held in London this week. 

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

U.S. forces on June 1 destroyed one Iran-backed Houthi uncrewed aerial system in the southern Red Sea and saw two others crash into Red Sea, U.S. Central Command said.

The Central Command forces also destroyed two Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles fired in direction of the USS Gravely, it said. No injuries or damage were reported by U.S., coalition or commercial ships, it said.

Sanaa:

Yemen’s Houthi rebels say that they have launched a missile strike on a United States aircraft carrier in the Red Sea in retaliation for recent deadly strikes by the US and UK in Yemen, Al Jazeera reported.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced the attack on the Eisenhower carrier on Friday, following earlier claims by the group that at least 16 people were killed in US and UK assaults on Yemen’s Hodeidah province. This marks the highest publicly acknowledged death count from multiple rounds of strikes linked to the group’s alleged assaults on shipping.

Al Masirah television, a Houthi-controlled channel, broadcasted footage showing wounded civilians being treated in Hodeidah, revealing the fallout from Thursday’s attacks. At least 42 people were reported injured.

“The American-British aggression will not prevent us from continuing our military operations in support of Palestine,” Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said on X, warning that the rebels would “meet escalation with escalation”.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported that attacks on 13 Houthi targets resulted in the destruction of eight uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and over the Red Sea, according to Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defence stated that Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s conducted strikes on Hodeidah and Ghulayfiqah. It described targets as “buildings identified as housing drone ground control facilities and providing storage for very long-range drones, as well as surface-to-air weapons”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended the military action as a form of “self-defence in the face of an ongoing threat that the Houthis pose”.

The Houthi movement, aligned with Iran, controls significant portions of Yemen after nearly a decade of conflict against a Western-backed and Saudi-led coalition. They have vocally supported Palestinians amid Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza, launching repeated drone and missile attacks on ships in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb strait, and the Gulf of Aden since November.

Iran condemned the US-UK strikes as “violations of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity … international laws and human rights”, Al Jazeera reported, citing, Iranian state media.

“The aggressor US and British governments are responsible for the consequences of these crimes against the Yemeni people,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said.

According to the US Maritime Administration, Houthis have launched over 50 attacks on shipping, resulting in casualties, vessel seizures, and disruptions to global trade routes. The campaign has forced shipping firms to seek alternative routes, impacting approximately 12 per cent of global trade that traverses the Red Sea.

Despite retaliatory strikes by the US and UK aimed at degrading Houthi capabilities, the rebels have continued their assaults. In their latest actions, they targeted a Greek-owned bulk carrier and other vessels in response to Israeli strikes on Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.

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

Cairo:

Ships will have to obtain a permit from Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Maritime Affairs Authority before entering Yemeni waters, Houthi Telecommunications Minister Misfer Al-Numair said on Monday.

Houthi militants have repeatedly launched drones and missiles against international commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden since mid-November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

The near-daily attacks have forced firms into long and costly diversions around southern Africa, and stoked fears that the Israel-Hamas war could destabilise the wider Middle East. The United States and Britain have bombed Houthi targets in response.

The territorial waters affected by the Yemeni order extend halfway out into the 20-km (12-mile) wide Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow mouth of the Red Sea through which around 15% of the world’s shipping traffic passes on its way to or from the Suez Canal.

“(We) are ready to assist requests for permits and identify ships with the Yemeni Navy, and we confirm this is out of concern for their safety,” Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement, reported Al-Numair as saying.

Hong Kong-based HGC Global Communications said on Monday that at least four underwater communications cables – Asia-Africa-Europe 1, the Europe India Gateway, Seacom and TGN-Gulf – had been damaged last week in the Red Sea, without stating the cause.

It estimated that the damage had affected 25% of the data traffic flowing under the Red Sea, and said in a statement that it had devised a plan to reroute traffic.

Al-Numair’s ministry on Saturday blamed U.S. and British attacks for any damage to cables.

In the latest incident, the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency said on Monday it had received a report that a vessel had been damaged by two explosions, 91 nautical miles southeast of Aden, but there were no casualties and the vessel was proceeding to its next port of call.

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

Eilat, Israel:

The Red Sea’s spectacular coral reefs face a new threat, marine biologists warn — the mass death of sea urchins that may be caused by a mystery disease.

Because the long-spined creatures feed on algae that can suffocate corals, their die-off could “destroy our entire coral reef ecosystem”, warned scientist Lisa-Maria Schmidt.

In Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat, which borders Jordan and Egypt, Schmidt recalled the moment she and her colleagues first witnessed the population collapse.

“When we jumped into the water, all of a sudden all those specimens we used to see before were gone, and what we saw was skeletons and piles of spines,” she told AFP.

The team had first heard reports in January that a sea urchin species off Eilat was dying rapidly, so they went to a site known for an abundance of the species Diadema setosum.

They first thought that local pollution could be to blame.

But, within two weeks, the spiny invertebrates also started dying down the coast, including in a seawater-fed facility of the Inter-University Institute for Marine Sciences.

Scrambling to find the cause, the scientists watched with growing alarm as the mass mortality spread south through the Red Sea.

The team found that it affected two kinds of sea urchin, Diadema setosum and Echinothrix calamaris, while other species in the same environment remained unharmed.

In the marine reserve off Eilat, colourful fish and some other sea urchin species could be seen by a visiting AFP journalist — although the impact of humans was never far away.

While snorkelling, Schmidt grabbed floating plastic rubbish and pushed it up the sleeve of her wetsuit, to discard later.

Walking along the beach, she also picked up handfuls of algae, to feed to the sea urchins still alive in tanks.

‘Absolutely devastating’

A similar mass mortality earlier hit sea urchins in the Caribbean, raising speculation that a disease may have arrived in the Red Sea by ships, whose ballast water can carry pathogens and exotic species.

“I think it’s especially scary for that region, especially in the Red Sea,” said Mya Breitbart, a biologist from the University of South Florida in the United States.

She pointed out that, while coral reefs are dying off in many other areas, “those corals are known to be quite resilient, and I think people have placed a lot of hope in those reefs”.

Early last year, Breitbart started hearing that the Diadema antillarum species — similar to those affected in the Red Sea — was rapidly changing behaviour and then dying in droves in the Caribbean.

The area has still not recovered from a similar event in the 1980s, whose cause was never discovered, and Breitbart described this second die-off there as “absolutely devastating”.

Within months she and scientists working across the Caribbean had pinpointed a pathogen, giving hope that the cause of the Red Sea die-off could be discovered.

Next disease ‘on the way’

Omri Bronstein, from the University of Tel Aviv, has been working with the team in Eilat and elsewhere to try and identify the source.

“Are we talking about the same pathogen, for example, as the one that hit the Caribbean” in the 1980s, asked Bronstein, who runs a laboratory at the university where sea urchins lie in glass jars.

“Or are we looking at a completely different scenario?”

Stopping the die-off in the seas is impossible, lamented Bronstein.

Instead, the scientific community is working towards establishing a broodstock population of the affected species which can be released into the Red Sea once the current threat has passed.

Once the cause has been identified, Bronstein and his colleagues will also seek to determine how it reached the Red Sea.

If it was transported by a vessel, for example, steps could be taken to clean up ships and minimise the risk of spreading the next deadly pathogen.

“This is something that we can fix, because the next disease is on the way,” he said.

“It is probably in one harbour and in one of the ships that is currently sailing our oceans.”

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