Yemen’s Houthi rebels captured an Israeli-linked cargo
ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route on Sunday, said Israel.
The incident raised fears that regional tensions escalated
over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front.
There was no immediate comment from the Houthis, an
Iran-backed rebel movement in Yemen that threatened earlier to target
Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea. Last month, Houthi rebels were suspected
of sending missiles and drones over the crucial shipping lane of the sea.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office
said 25 crew members of various nationalities, including Bulgarians, Filipinos,
Mexicans and Ukrainians but no Israelis, had been on board the hijacked
Bahamas-flagged ship.
Netanyahu’s office condemned the seizure of the Galaxy
Leader, a vehicle carrier, as an “Iranian act of terror.” The Israeli military
called the hijacking a “very grave incident of global consequence.”
Satellite tracking data from MarineTraffic.com
analyzed by the AP showed the Galaxy Leader traveling in the Red Sea southwest
of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, more than a day ago. The vessel had been in Korfez,
Turkey, and was on its way to Pipavav, India, at the time of the seizure
reported by Israel.
Israeli officials asserted the ship was British-owned
and Japanese-operated. However, ownership details in public shipping databases
associated the ship’s owners with Ray Car Carriers, which was founded by
Abraham “Rami” Ungar, who is known as one of the richest men in Israel.
Ungar said he was aware of the incident but couldn’t
comment as he awaited details.
The complex world of international shipping often
involves a series of management companies, flags and owners stretching across
the globe in a single vessel.
A ship linked to Ungar experienced an explosion in
2021 in the Gulf of Oman. Israeli media blamed it on Iran at the time.
It had its Automatic Identification System tracker, or
AIS, switched off, the data showed. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active
for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be
targeted or to smuggle contraband, which there was no immediate evidence to
suggest was the case with the Galaxy Leader.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade
Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Persian Gulf and the
wider region, put the hijacking as having occurred some 150 kilometres off the
coast of Yemen’s port city of Hodeida, near the coast of Eritrea.
The Red Sea, stretching from Egypt’s Suez Canal to the
narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait separating the Arabian Peninsula from Africa,
remains a key trade route for global shipping and energy supplies. That’s why
the US Navy has stationed multiple ships in the sea since the start of the
Israel-Hamas war on October 7.
An American defense official, who spoke on condition
of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said US military
officials were tracking an incident involving the Galaxy Leader after its
alleged hijacking.
Since 2019, a series of ships have come under attack
at sea as Iran began breaking all the limits of its tattered nuclear deal with
world powers.
As Israel expands its devastating campaign against
Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip following the militant group’s unprecedented
attack on southern Israel, fears have grown that the military operations could
escalate into a wider regional conflict.
The Houthis have repeatedly threatened to target
Israeli ships in the waters off Yemen.
AP
