{"id":1334,"date":"2024-02-14T17:38:44","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T17:38:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/?p=1334"},"modified":"2024-02-17T17:44:33","modified_gmt":"2024-02-17T17:44:33","slug":"houthi-us-uk-failed-to-secure-passage-of-any-ship-heading-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/houthi-us-uk-failed-to-secure-passage-of-any-ship-heading-to-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Houthi: US, UK failed to secure passage of any ship heading to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"swift-in-viewport\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Leader of the Ansar Allah (Houthi) group in Yemen, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, said yesterday that the group prevented ships associated with Israel from passing through the Gulf of Aden over the past week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"swift-in-viewport\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">In a speech broadcast on TV, Al-Houthi said: \u201cThe Americans and the British have failed to secure the passage of any ship heading to Israel. They were unable to protect these ships. They can no longer protect even American, British ships, and this is a real and major victory for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"swift-in-viewport\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Ansar Allah fighters have repeatedly attacked Israel linked commercial ships since mid-November. Sources in the shipping and insurance sector say that since then, the Houthis have targeted ships that have commercial ties to the US, UK, or Israel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"swift-in-viewport\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">Al-Houthi added: \u201cThe Israeli, American and British programme seeks to liquidate and end the Palestinian issue. Our operations in the Red Sea are legitimate operations to support the people of Gaza and lift the siege and starvation imposed on them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"swift-in-viewport\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Houthi group says it targeted the ships in solidarity with the Palestinians due to the genocidal war waged by Israel on the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n<p class=\"swift-in-viewport\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The attacks prompted many companies to stop crossing through the Red Sea and instead take a longer and more expensive route around Africa, through the Cape of Good Hope. US and UK warplanes have carried out strikes on Yemen in response to the Houthis\u2019 actions.<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"2qg0ZGaDQDg\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Red Sea Tensions LIVE: Yemen Houthi leader: No ships linked to Israel passed during last week | WION\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2qg0ZGaDQDg?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">The rise and rise of the Houthis<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Formally known as Ansar Allah, the Houthi rebels have risen from a small and obscure group founded by a former member of the Yemeni parliament into a military force that now claims nearly two thirds of Yemen, including the Red Sea coast and the capital Sanaa. At sea they control the area from the Gulf of Aden to the northern part of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the entryway to the Red Sea and to the Suez Canal, a pivotal waterway where between 12 and 15 per cent of global trade and about 20 per cent of container shipments transit every year.<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col-md-7\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Houthi militias were initially seen by both Yemeni rivals and regional powers as a negligible lightly armed group confined to caves and mountaintops. But the group\u2019s leadership began to capitalise on flimsy links to Shiitism and align themselves with predominately Shiite Iran, a regional military heavyweight readily cultivating proxies to counterbalance a US-led alliance in the area.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">From 2004 onwards, the group\u2019s fighters have been gaining in military prowess, beginning with their involvement in a protracted struggle with the previous secular Yemeni regime and later against a well-funded military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi-led campaign began in spring 2015 and mostly relied on US weapons shipments. In 2019, the Houthis launched daring attacks \u2013 using more advanced weapons and drones \u2013 on Saudi oil facilities. These assaults forced Riyadh to shut down two of its main oil facilities and remove five per cent of the country\u2019s oil production from the market.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The war failed to oust the Houthis and the Saudis began to de-escalate in 2023. The botched adventure instead strengthened the Houthis\u2019 hand and pushed them further into the arms of Iran.<\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"1bqvRLZFHVE\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Houthis Mock Israel, US-UK Attacks, Issue Warning of Non-Stop Strikes on Vessels with Israel Connect\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1bqvRLZFHVE?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Houthis have placed themselves on the international agenda again by inserting themselves into the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. Since November, the group has targeted ships passing through the narrow waters of Bab el-Mandeb towards the Suez Canal. The Houthis lack a navy or an air force, and instead use drones and anti-ship missiles to launch their attacks. In one instance, they filmed themselves using a helicopter to board and capture an Israeli cargo ship, later turning it into a local tourist destination.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The group claims to target only those vessels heading to Israeli ports because, they say, Israel prevents food and medicine entering Gaza. In response, the US and the UK, with support from allies, launched airstrikes against Yemeni targets at sea and later on land. This in turn has intensified fears of an escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, which is responsible for 31 per cent of the world\u2019s oil supply, while the Middle East and North Africa region produces 29 per cent of the world\u2019s liquefied natural gas (LNG). The US maintains that it is defending freedom of navigation and is working to \u2018restore America\u2019s deterrence\u2019 in the region.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u2018Without a formal declaration of war, various legal issues are left in a grey area, particularly from a contractual perspective,\u2019 says Wesley Wood, Regional Representative Middle East on the IBA Maritime and Transport Law Committee and a partner at Al Tamimi &amp; Company in Dubai, who refers to the situation as an \u2018unusual\u2019 conflict. \u2018Whilst much of the conflict is being carried out at sea, it is customary international law, including, inter alia, the UN Charter and the Geneva Convention, which will regulate the parties\u2019 actions, particularly those of the state actors involved.\u2019<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Houthis have not backed down and still insist that only a credible Israel-Gaza ceasefire would resolve frictions in the Red Sea. The UK and the US have imposed sanctions on leaders of the group while, in mid-January, the latter relisted the group as a terrorist organisation. This has prompted the Houthi authorities in Yemen to order UN and other humanitarian staff holding US and UK passports to leave the country within a month.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">Supply chain pain<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The biggest impact has been on trade traffic in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Commercial vessels are now mostly bypassing the route altogether, preferring to take the more costly and much longer passage around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. A statement made in late January by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated that weekly Suez Canal transits had dropped by 42 per cent over the previous two months.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Oil and gas exporters in the Middle East have also been affected. The US Energy Information Administration says that 12 per cent of seaborne oil trade and eight per cent of LNG trade to the US and Europe passed through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the first half of 2023. Prior to the crisis, two or three gas carriers would sail through the region daily, according to UNCTAD. As of mid-January, LNG carriers have almost entirely ceased using the Red Sea.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leader of the Ansar Allah (Houthi) group in Yemen, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, said yesterday that the group prevented ships associated with Israel from passing through the Gulf of Aden over the past week. In a speech broadcast on TV, Al-Houthi said: \u201cThe Americans and the British have failed to secure the passage of any ship [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-middle-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1336,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1334\/revisions\/1336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}