Gaza City, January 16, 00:45
The U.S. military said the Iranian-backed Houthi militia struck an American-owned container ship, a day after a missile aimed at a Navy destroyer was shot down. No injuries were reported aboard the cargo ship.
A Houthi missile that hit a U. S. advertisement caused little damage, according to the United States.
After a taunting promise of news about captives, Hamas said two are dead and one is wounded.
A vehicle attack in Israel left one user dead and 17 injured, according to police.
Red Crescent ambulances are providing services in Gaza City after a two-month hiatus.
Sunak says steps taken in support of Houthi goals show Britain will back up its words with actions.
Little food, weeks of fear, a toy snatched from her hands: a 13-year-old woman recounts her captivity.
Britain makes the decision to ban an Islamist political organization that it says celebrated Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
A footballer was briefly detained in Turkey after appearing at a match with Israel.
An anti-shipment ballistic missile fired through Houthi fighters hit a U. S. shipment off the coast of Yemen on Monday, but the shipment and its equipment were seriously wounded, according to the U. S. military’s Central Command.
The most recent attack came through the Iranian-backed defense forces in the Red Sea and nearby waters, which claimed to be acting in reaction to the Israeli army’s reaction in the Gaza Strip. The attacks disrupted a major direction of industry to and from the Suez Canal and prompted U. S. -led airstrikes last week.
The missile hit the Gibraltar Eagle, a Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier, but caused no significant injuries or injuries, the U. S. military said in a social media post. The shipment heading to the Suez Canal still changed on Monday, according to information from Marine Traffic, which provides real-time data on the position of shipments.
Eagle Bulk Shipping, the operator of the Gibraltar Eagle, said the shipment was carrying metal products about 100 miles offshore in the Gulf of Aden when it passed through an “unidentifiable projectile. “
“As a result of the impact, the vessel sustained damage to a hold, but is solid and heading out of the area,” the company said in a statement.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a statement on Monday that the group had carried out a military operation targeting an American ship in the Gulf of Aden with “a number” of missiles. The Houthis acted “in defense of the Palestinian people in Gaza, who are being exposed, until this moment, to the most horrific type of massacres by the Zionist entity,” he said.
He considers “all U. S. and British ships” to be enemy targets, he said, warning that his reaction “is coming. “
The attack came a day after the U. S. said it had shot down a missile fired through Houthi fighters at one of its military ships in the Red Sea, one of the first skirmishes between the two since the U. S. attacked defense forces in Yemen.
The U. S. -led crackdown began in Yemen on Friday, local time, in reaction to more than two dozen Houthi attacks on cargo ships around the Red Sea in recent weeks. And British officials said the measures were aimed at degrading the Houthis’ ability to continue attacking ships, specific radar stations, missile launch sites and other military targets.
The Houthis have launched four ballistic cruise or anti-ship missiles in four separate attacks since the US-led measures began last week. Senior US military officials are preparing for much larger retaliatory attacks by the Houthis and are preparing a series of escalating military strikes. responses, Biden orders additional measures.
The Houthis launched an anti-ship cruise missile at the U.S.S. Laboon, a destroyer, on Sunday at about 4:45 p.m. Yemen time, the U.S. military said on social media. The missile was shot down by a U.S. Air Force fighter jet near the coast of the city of Hudaydah, and no injuries or damage were reported, U.S. military officials said.
The Houthi army’s moves have raised fears of an expansion of the confrontation between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East. But even as the U. S. and its allies have attacked Houthi sites in Yemen, it appears for now that Washington and Tehran are careful not to devote their forces to direct combat.
But analysts say the shock waves caused by the standoff between Israel and Hamas are growing, threatening shipping and the world’s energy supply. “It doesn’t look like we’re getting off track,” said Helima Croft, head of commodities at RBC Capital Markets, an investment firm. “There’s a real threat of a wake-up call: that it will spread to Iran,” added Croft, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst.
Last week, after making its intentions transparent, the U. S. destroyed some 30 Houthi sites. But U. S. officials have stated that the Houthis still have three-quarters of their ability to fire missiles and drones at ships crossing the Red Sea.
Corey Ranslem, chief executive of Dryad Global, a London-based maritime intelligence firm, said his company had pleaded with all its customers to avoid the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden because of the high likelihood of long-term attacks. It’s already down 40-50% over the past week from the same previous levels, he said.
Ranslem said Monday’s attack on the advertising ship is consistent with other recent Houthi attacks. “In each and every attack that has occurred so far, we have noticed damage to the shipment or container, but we have not noticed a missile or drone attack. “The attack will cause a catastrophic structural failure that would result in the sinking of a ship,” he said.
Eric Schmitt, Vivian Nereim, Vivek Shankar and Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.
—Jenny Gross and Stanley Reed
Hamas said on Monday that two of the hostages captured on Oct. 7 were killed in Israeli airstrikes and released photographs showing their bodies, but the Israeli military disputed that claim.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF’s chief spokesman, told a news conference that at least one of the hostages had been killed by his forces. “This is a lie on the part of Hamas,” he said. He mentioned the fate of the other hostage.
“We are investigating the event and its circumstances, examining the images released by Hamas, as well as the additional data we have,” he added.
The claim of the hostages’ deaths, in a video released through Hamas’s military wing, followed two provocative messages from the organization on Monday promising news about the fate of three hostages: the two, it later said, were murdered and a third, as reported. killed. injured.
A senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to comment on the video, but the Israeli condemned the messages as a mental war.
The video included clips, apparently recorded earlier, of the two hostages who it claimed were killed, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, speaking while looking into a video camera, and then showed video apparently showing their bodies. It included narration by the hostage who reportedly survived, Noa Argamani, 26, who told of her companions’ deaths and described being wounded, herself.
It was unimaginable to know when and where the scenes in the video were filmed.
Admiral Hagari, confirming the deaths, said that “in recent days” the army had met with the men’s families “and expressed grave fear for their fate, because of the data we have. “
An earlier video, posted on Sunday, showed the three hostages identifying each other by phone call and age, and ended with a caption that read: “Tomorrow we will tell you their fate. »
Another video, released early Monday, showed photographs of the three hostages and said, “Tonight we will tell you their fate. “
The videos appeared designed to taunt Israelis desperate for news of the hostages and to ratchet up pressure on the Israeli government to make concessions to secure their release. At the same time, the videos appeared to demonstrate the leverage which Hamas can exert on Israeli society through the hostages.
In a third video that announced the two deaths, Ms. Argamani addressed a camera while seated against a white background. It was not possible to determine whether she was speaking from a script that had been prepared for her; Mia Schem, a hostage released in late November, has said that Hamas dictated to her what to say for a video that was published in October.
Previous videos of the hostages released through Hamas have omitted or distorted details.
Rights groups and international law experts say that any hostage video is, by definition, made under duress, and can constitute a war crime.
In the last of the three videos, Ms. Argamani said she was at a construction site with two other people when she hit three missiles fired from an Israeli fighter jet, two of which exploded and buried them under the rubble. She said Hamas fighters dug her and Mr. Svirsky, but that Mr. Sharabi had been killed. He did not say when the attack occurred.
She testified that two nights later, she and Mr. Svirsky had been moved to another location. Along the way, Mr. Svirsky was killed through an Israeli strike, she said, and she received shrapnel in the head and body. The video ends with photographs of what appeared to be the bodies of the two men lying on white sheets.
Admiral Hagari later said that Svirsky did not break through Israeli forces.
“The building where they were being held was not a target and was not attacked by our forces,” he said. “We didn’t know their real-time location; We don’t attack in places where we know there might be hostages. “, we know that we hit goals close to where they were made. “
—Matthieu Mpoke Bigg and Adam Rasgon
Two Palestinians stole cars and ran over Israelis in a Tel Aviv suburb on Monday, Israeli police said. One user was killed and 17 others were injured, according to emergency services.
The two attackers, nationals of the Israeli-occupied West Bank region of Hebron, were arrested, police said in a statement. His motives are still under investigation, but the incident was treated as a terrorist attack, according to police spokesman Dean Elsdunne.
Magen David Adom, an Israeli emergency medical service, said a woman in her 60s died. Of the other 17 people injured, two are in serious condition, he said.
The French Foreign Ministry said two of the wounded were young French men, but did not give names or ages. “There is no justification for terrorism,” the ministry said.
The incident, which occurred in the city of Ra’anana, came amid rising tensions in Israel, as the war against Hamas in Gaza entered its fourth month and Israeli security forces tightened restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank.
Avi Bitton, commander of Israel’s Central District police, said the suspects used two cars to cause “a series of water hammers. “
In a statement, Hamas praised what it described as the “Ra’anana attack,” calling the attackers “heroes” and calling their moves “a natural reaction to the occupation’s massacres and aggressions against the Palestinian people. “the incident.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency, knew the suspects as Ahmad Zidat, 25, and Mahmoud Zidat, 44. He said they were members of the same circle of relatives from the village of Bani Naim and were among the banned Palestinians. Israel.
Footage from the scene showed rescue workers and police officers near a disabled white vehicle on a sidewalk next to a bus station.
— Adam Rasgon reporting from Jerusalem
The Palestine Red Crescent announced on Monday that it had resumed emergencies and aid in Gaza City, more than two months after an Israeli offensive forced it to suspend operations and close its hospital.
The resumption of the facility was imaginable because the Israeli army is withdrawing its forces from spaces around some hospitals in northern Gaza as it concentrates southward, said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesman for the Red Crescent.
Weeks of intense airstrikes and an Israeli offensive have necessarily isolated the north. Hospitals struggled to care for patients as materials dwindled and turned into makeshift shelters as citizens fled their homes. But now some have begun to arrive in the region, allowing hospitals to resume operations. limited operations.
After nearly a week of negotiations between the group and Israeli authorities, two Red Crescent ambulances arrived in Gaza City on Sunday, along with two others that were sent to bolster the agency’s semi-operational emergency center in Jabaliya, where one ambulance had remained, Ms. Farsakh said. Three other ambulances transporting emergency crews and supplies were set to return to southern Gaza, she added. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions about its interactions with the Red Crescent.
But Al-Quds Hospital, run by the Red Crescent, is far from being in a position to return to treating patients, Farsakh said.
Nearly a dozen members of the rescue team arrived at the hospital, which was the group’s center of operations in Gaza City before it ran out of fuel and closed its doors on Nov. 12. Crew members were “shocked by the great destruction” they saw and learned. They couldn’t work there, Farsakh said.
“The hospital burned to the ground, outside and inside, all the equipment was completely destroyed,” he added. The company is thinking about where to set up a new center.
The Red Crescent said three weeks ago that its emergency center in Jabaliya had been attacked by the Israeli army, which arrested some and destroyed several ambulances. Six members of the team were still detained in Israel on Monday, Farsakh said.
The organization claimed last week that a missile introduced through an Israeli drone destroyed one of its ambulances in central Gaza, killing four team members and the two patients who were transporting it. The Israeli military denied carrying out an attack on the domain that day and refused to respond. Additional questions.
Eight Red Crescent staff members have been killed and 29 others wounded since the start of the war on Oct. 7, according to the agency.
Gaza’s Fitness Ministry said on Monday that the Israeli military had “deliberately targeted” 150 fitness facilities, destroying 30 hospitals and 53 medical centers and destroying 121 ambulances since the bombardment began in Gaza. Ministry officials said at a press conference on Saturday that only six ambulances were operational in the entire Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have accused Hamas, the armed organization that controls Gaza, of using medical facilities and other civilian infrastructure to hide its fighters, treating other Gazans as human shields.
Fifteen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are partially functional, adding six in the north, according to the World Health Organization. The WHO said Friday that after more than two weeks of efforts, its staff was going to succeed at the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital. Al-Shifa, the hospital located in northern Gaza, and will deliver medical supplies and 9,300 litres of fuel. Dozens of staff members have returned to work there, the company said.
Although some aid has begun to arrive, the United Nations said Friday that Israel continues to prevent its humanitarian convoys from reaching northern Gaza. On Monday, the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs said hospitals in the north will offer limited maternity, trauma and emergency care. services, but face several challenges, in addition to shortages of medical personnel and supplies, fuel, food and water.
Despite repeated Israeli orders for civilians to evacuate the north and incessant air and ground operations there, some have chosen to remain in an area with little medical care and little aid. The U. N. said Friday that 160,000 displaced people were in its facilities in northern Gaza City and Gaza City.
— Hiba Yazbek, reporting from Jerusalem
transcription
Together with the United States, Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands, we have commissioned the R. A. F. I need to make it clear that these are limited attacks. They have consciously targeted drone and ballistic missile launch sites to degrade the Houthis’ ability to launch additional attacks on foreign ships. The first assessment is that all thirteen planned targets have been destroyed. At the Bani drone and cruise missile base, nine buildings were effectively hit. Three other buildings were hit at Abs airfield, as well as a cruise missile launcher stuck in the open. So far, we have not observed any evidence of civilian casualties, which we have been very careful to avoid. Threats to navigation will have to stop. Illegally detained ships and crews will have to be released, and we are in a position to back up our words. with facts.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Monday that Britain’s involvement last week in air strikes on Houthi army installations had met its objectives and showed that the country “is prepared to back up our words with deeds. “
Speaking in Parliament, Mr. Sunak said that Britain’s initial assessment was that all 13 targets its forces struck had been destroyed. Nine buildings were successfully hit at a drone and cruise missile base, another three were struck at an airfield and a cruise missile launcher caught in the open was also hit, he said.
Britain took part in U. S. -led moves aimed at reducing the ability of the Houthis, an Iranian-backed organization operating in Yemen, to target shipping after more than 20 attacks on advertising vessels in recent weeks. The U. S. military announced the measures on Thursday and Friday. It used more than 150 munitions, radar stations, missile and drone bases and other army targets.
Mr. Sunak said that Britain did not take the decision to use force lightly. Rather, its action was “limited, not escalatory” and a “necessary and proportionate response to a direct threat.”
“So far we have not noticed evidence of civilian casualties, which we have been very careful to avoid,” Sunak told lawmakers. It was unimaginable to independently verify Mr Sunak’s assessment of the good fortunes of the strikes.
Separately, Grant Shapps, the British defence secretary, told Sky News: “We never imagined that he would destroy all his installations. That’s not the purpose. The purpose is to send a very transparent message.
— Stephen Castle
Hila Rotem Shoshani had invited her friend Emily Hand to a sleepover at Kibbutz Beeri, Israel. The girls, who were 12 and 8 years old at the time, woke up early the next morning, October 7, to the sound of thunderous bangs — the beginning of the deadliest attacks. attack in the history of his country.
For about six hours, Hila and Emily hid in space with Hila’s mother, 54-year-old Raaya Rotem, as Hamas attackers invaded the kibbutz. Then, armed men burst in with guns and knives and took the three men through a landscape of horror, beyond. corpses and burning buildings, even a car. One of the attackers saw Hila holding a full animal, grabbed it and tossed it aside.
“I had it in my hand the whole time. I didn’t notice,” Hila said Friday in an interview in New York, before speaking at a rally with the remaining hostages. “When you’re afraid, you don’t realize it. “
Hila was one of more than 30 youths kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and held until the end of November, when they were released, along with dozens of other adults, after a brief truce. Hila, now 13, is the youngest of the repatriated hostages to speak. about the harsh situations in which they were held, trying to shed light on the fate of more than a hundred hostages left behind in Gaza.
The terrifying drive to Gaza, surrounded by Hamas terrorists, was the first time, Hila said, that she fully realized how “really close” the territory was to the community she had grown up in.
She said she, her mother and Emily were taken to a space in Gaza, where they were placed in a dark room with a few other hostages. At first, an armed guard remained in the room, but moved into the living room.
“They understood we’re not going to run away,” Hila said. “Outside it’s dangerous too — why would we run?”
They were warned not to try to escape, Hila said, told that “if we go outside ‘the people out there don’t like you, so you’ll be killed anyway.’”
Their captors gave them little food — half a pita and a bit of halva on some days, canned beans on others — and very little water, often well water so distasteful, Hila said, that she had to force herself to drink.
Sometimes the kidnappers ate and the captives didn’t, he said, “There were days when there was just no food and they kept it for themselves. “
Occasionally, Hila said, they heard other children’s voices, and wondered if they were elsewhere in the home. They had to request permission to use the bathroom, and Hila learned the Arabic word for it, hammam.
Once, an explosion nearby caused the window of their room to break, Hila said, but they escaped injury.
Sometimes, he says, they woke them up at night and threw them into the darkness.
“At first they told us, ‘You’re going to move to a safer place,'” Hila said. “But we didn’t know if they were going to kill us. “
The women were told to close. Emily turned nine years old and Hila’s birthday was approaching. They tried to keep busy, drawing or playing.
“We’ve been playing cards, but how can you play cards all day, all hours?” said Hila.
Freedom came suddenly, he says.
About a month and a half after their captivity, the kidnappers separated the women from Hila’s mother.
“Mom had started to be afraid that something was going to happen, that they wouldn’t take her away,” Hila said, adding, “and then they came here and took us, and she stayed. “
Subsequently, the women were released and sent back to Israel. The separation of mother and son violated the terms of the swap agreement, sparking outrage in Israel. After all, Raaya was released a few days later, just after Hila’s 13th birthday.
– Nadav Gavrielov
The British government plans to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist political group, by designating it as a terrorist organization, the government said Monday, raising what it considers a compliment for the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The U. K. Home Office announced the plan in a statement, saying the new designation would mean that “a club, inviting and displaying pieces in a public position in a manner that raises suspicion of a club or that organization would be a criminal offence. “»
Parliament is expected to debate and vote on the measure this week. If approved, it would take effect as early as Friday.
James Cleverly, the home secretary, said in a statement on Monday, “Hizb ut-Tahrir is an antisemitic organization that actively promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling 7 October attacks.”
The British branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir said efforts to ban it were “a desperate measure to censor debate on the genocide in Palestine and prevent the fair political choice of Islam,” and that it would challenge the move by all legal means.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Sunni Islamist organization founded in 1953 and based in Lebanon, has long been active (and arguable) in Britain. It calls for a single Islamic government in the entire Muslim world and has in the past celebrated violence against Israel. .
Previous UK governments had proposed banning the group, but they did.
But a government watchdog on terrorism legislation and rights groups warned against those measures in 2011, arguing in part that Hizb ut-Tahrir was not violent in Britain under the legal parameters of the time, and they were dropped.
In October, a video of a protest organized through Hizb ut-Tahrir, along with a much larger nonviolent protest, in which a man calls for “jihad,” sparked complaints from the group.
Tom Tugendhat, Britain’s security minister, said that the group’s “celebration of Hamas’ appalling attacks on Israel, going so far as to call the terrorists who raped and murdered Israeli citizens ‘heroes’ is disgraceful.”
— Megan Specia reporting from London
An Israeli footballer from a Turkish club was briefly detained by the Turkish government and suspended from the club after posting a message of help to Israel on Sunday.
The player, Sagiv Jehezkel, a 28-year-old wing for the top-division club Antalyaspor, flashed the message after he scored in a match.
To celebrate his goal, Jehezkel ran to the corner of the field, where an organization of photographers was positioned. He pointed to a handwritten message on tape on his left wrist that included a six-pointed Star of David and “100 days. “, 7/10”, a reference to the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on 7 October.
His gesture spread quickly on social media, stirring outrage among fans and even the president of his club, who called his action “propaganda” in a series of posts on X, the site formerly known as Twitter. But it also highlighted the risks that prominent athletes face when sharing their opinions on the war in Gaza, after controversies in France, Germany and South Africa.
Turkish prosecutors arrested Jehezkel after the attack in the club’s southwestern hometown of Antalya, accused of “inciting hatred and enmity among the public. “He was released on Monday, Turkish channels reported, and returned to Israel on Monday night. , traveling with his family, according to Israeli Minister of Sports and Culture Miki Zohar.
Jehezkel told prosecutors that his message was a call to end the war, according to Turkish media.
On Sunday, Antalyaspor president Sinan Boztepe said the club’s board of directors had suspended Jehezkel from the team. In a statement, the club accused Jehezkel of “insulting Turkey’s values. ” The team also said they would look to terminate the three-year contract signed through Jehezkel when he joined Antalyaspor in September. The Turkish Football Federation also said it had started disciplinary proceedings against him.
Israeli officials responded angrily to his detention, and to a separate incident in which another club in the Turkish league, Basaksehir, began disciplinary proceedings against the Israeli player Eden Karzev after he shared a post on Instagram calling for the release of the hostages held in Gaza.
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, called Mr. Jehezkel’s arrest “scandalous,” and Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, criticized Turkey for “working against humane values and sports values.” Mr. Katz called on other countries and international sports organizations to take action against Turkey “and against its political use of violence and threats against athletes.”
Turkish society is broadly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but support for Hamas is limited, according to a recent poll. Still, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has publicly expressed support for Hamas since the start of the war, saying that it is not a terrorist organization but a group of “mujahedeen” fighting to liberate their country, and he has leveled harsh criticisms of both Israel and the Western countries who support the war.
Others immediately demanded strong action against Mr. Jehezkel. The company that sponsors Antalyaspor’s jerseys declared it would withdraw the support if the club didn’t take action, and a small group of fans gathered in front of Antalyaspor’s facilities in Antalya on Sunday night and chanted for his expulsion from the city, calling him a “Zionist dog.”
The athletes’ reaction to the war in Gaza has sparked controversy in other countries, including Germany and France, where players of Arab descent have faced consequences — including legal action — for their posts about the war on social media.
This month, Youcef Atal, an Algerian player for French club Nice, received an eight-month suspended criminal sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros ($49,000) after a court found him guilty of inciting devout hatred for sharing a post on Instagram peddling attacks on Israelis. .
Mr. Atal, who deleted the post and apologized for it, had already been suspended for seven games by the league.
In Germany, Anwar El Ghazi, a striker of Dutch and Moroccan descent, has been released through his club Mainz, in a case that has highlighted Germany’s sensitivity to occasions in Israel and Gaza. El Ghazi had already been suspended through his team and was allowed to return to education after speaking with club officials. But when he hinted that he had stood by his previous comments, Mainz temporarily terminated his contract.
“Stand up for what is right, even if it’s just your status,” El Ghazi said on social media after his firing. “The loss of my livelihood pales in comparison to the hell unleashed on the innocent and vulnerable in Gaza. “
Last week, Mr. El Ghazi lashed out on social media at the broadcaster Piers Morgan after Mr. Morgan commented on the decision by South African cricket officials to replace the country’s under-19 national team captain, who is Jewish, on the eve of a major tournament.
The captain, David Teeger, had praised Israeli soldiers at an awards ceremony in October, and was being replaced because of the risk “of conflict or even violence” between rival groups at the upcoming Under-19 Cricket World Cup in South Africa, cricket officials said. Jewish groups denounced the decision as antisemitic, and Mr. Morgan, who has a large social media following, asked if Mr. Teeger had been “sacked because he’s Jewish?”
This led to a report in which El Ghazi accused Morgan of applying double standards, and the network claimed that El Ghazi had shown a lack of outrage at the October 7 Hamas attacks that triggered the war.
— Safak Timur and Tariq Panja
Since mid-November, the Houthis, an Iranian-backed Yemeni insurgent group, have launched dozens of attacks on ships sailing in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, a shipping direction through which 12% of the world’s industry passes.
The U. S. and a handful of allies, including Britain, retaliated by launching missile strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday morning local time, with the rebels and their long-running armed struggle further in the spotlight.
The attack on Houthi bases came a day after the United Nations Security Council voted to condemn “in the most powerful terms imaginable” at least two dozen Houthi attacks on merchant ships and industries, which he said have hampered global industry and undermined freedom of navigation. . Formation
Here’s a primer on the Houthis, their relationship with Hamas and the attacks in the Red Sea.
The Houthis, led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, are an Iranian-backed Shiite rebel organization that has been fighting Yemen’s government for about two decades and now the country’s northwest and its capital, Sana’a.
They have built their ideology around opposition to Israel and the United States, seeing themselves as part of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance,” along with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their leaders often draw parallels between the American-made bombs used to pummel their forces in Yemen and the arms sent to Israel and used in Gaza.
In 2014, a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to try to repair the country’s original government after the Houthis took the capital, sparking a civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead.
Last April, talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia raised hopes of a peace deal that would potentially guarantee the Houthis’ right to govern northern Yemen.
The Houthis, once a poorly organized insurgent group, have beefed up their arsenal in recent years, now including ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range drones. Analysts highlight the expansion of Iran, which has provided militias across the Middle East to expand. their own influence.
When the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7, the Houthis declared their support for Hamas and said they would target any ship traveling to Israel or leaving it.
Yahya Sarea, a spokesman for the Houthis, has said that the organization is attacking ships to protest the “killings, destruction and siege” in Gaza and to express explicit solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The Gazan authorities say that more than 23,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Israeli bombing campaign and ground offensive that started after Hamas carried out cross-border raids and killed, the Israeli authorities say, about 1,200 people.
Since November, the Houthis have launched 27 drone and missile strikes on ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that they say were headed for or departing from Israeli ports. The most recent occurred at 2 a. m. on Thursday, when a missile landed near an advertising ship, the U. S. military said.
Perhaps the Houthis’ most audacious operation took place on Nov. 19, when gunmen hijacked a ship called the Galaxy Leader and took it to a Yemeni port, holding the 25 members of its mostly Filipino team captive.
Speaking to reporters in Bahrain on Wednesday, the American secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, warned that continued Houthi attacks in the Red Sea could disrupt supply chains and in turn increase costs for everyday goods. The Houthis’ attacks have affected ships tied to more than 40 countries, he said.
The world’s largest container companies, MSC and Maersk, have said they are avoiding the region and shipping lines face difficult choices.
Redirecting ships around Africa adds an additional 4,000 miles and 10 days to sea routes, and requires more fuel. But proceeding to use the Red Sea would increase insurance premiums. Either option would damage an already fragile global economy.
The Biden leadership has condemned the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and created a naval task force to try to stop them.
The task force, called Operation Prosperity Guardian, brought together the United States, Britain and other allies and has been patrolling the Red Sea to, in Mr. Blinken’s words, “preserve freedom of navigation” and “freedom of shipping.”
Bahrain is the only Middle Eastern country that has agreed to participate. Although many countries in the region depend on the industry across the Red Sea, many do not need to be linked to the United States, Israel’s closest ally, analysts say.
U. S. and British warships intercepted some Houthi missiles and drones before they reached their targets. On Wednesday, U. S. fighter jets from U. S. Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with 4 warships, intercepted 18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and one anti-ship missile. ship ballistic missile, Central Command said in a statement.
On December 31, US Navy helicopters sank three Houthi ships attacking an advertising transport ship.
Ben Hubbard, Peter Eavis, Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt and Keith Bradsher contributed reporting.
-Gaya Gupta
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