Pentagon meanwhile says a US warship and multiple commercial ships also came under attack, potentially marking a major escalation.
Yemen’s Houthi movement says it has targeted two Israeli ships with an armed drone and a naval missile, reports a spokesperson for the group’s military.
The spokesperson said the two ships, Unity Explorer and Number Nine, were targeted after they rejected warnings from the group’s navy, the Reuters news agency reported on Sunday.
British maritime security company Ambrey said a bulk carrier ship had been hit by at least two drones while sailing in the Red Sea. Another container ship reportedly suffered damage from a drone attack about 101km (63 miles) northwest of the northern Yemeni port of Hodeida, it added.
The Pentagon also said a US warship and multiple commercial ships came under attack in the Red Sea, potentially marking a major escalation in a series of maritime attacks since the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7.
“We are aware of reports regarding attacks on the USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available,” the Pentagon said.
The Carney is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. The Pentagon did not identify where it believed the fire came from.
The Houthi rebels have been launching drones and missiles targeting Israel as it bombs Gaza.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, told the Associated Press the attack began at about 10am in Sanaa, Yemen (07:00 GMT), and went on for about five hours.
Last month, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship also linked to Israel in the Red Sea off Yemen. The rebels still hold the vessel near the port city of Hodeida.
Missiles also landed near another US warship last week after it assisted a vessel linked to Israel that had briefly been seized by gunmen.
However, the Houthis had not directly targeted the Americans for some time, further raising the stakes in the growing maritime conflict.
In 2016, the US launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that destroyed three coastal radar sites in Houthi-controlled territory to retaliate for missiles being fired at US Navy ships, including the USS Mason, at the time.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Attackers seized a tanker linked to Israel off the coast of Aden, Yemen, on Sunday, authorities said. While no group immediately claimed responsibility, it comes as at least two other maritime attacks in recent days have been linked to the Israel-Hamas war.
The attackers seized the Liberian-flagged Central Park, managed by Zodiac Maritime, in the Gulf of Aden, the company and private intelligence firm Ambrey said. An American defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, also confirmed to The Associated Press that the attack took place.
Zodiac called the seizure “a suspected piracy incident.”
“Our priority is the safety of our 22 crew onboard,” Zodiac said in a statement. “The Turkish-captained vessel has a multinational crew consisting of a crew of Russian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Indian, Georgian and Filipino nationals. The vessel is carrying a full cargo of phosphoric acid.”
Zodiac described the vessel as being owned by Clumvez Shipping Inc., though other records directly linked Zodiac as the owner. London-based Zodiac Maritime is part of Israeli billionaire Eyal Ofer’s Zodiac Group. British corporate records listed two men with the last name Ofer as a current and former director of Clumvez Shipping, including Daniel Guy Ofer, who is also a director at Zodiac Maritime.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the attack. Aden is held by forces allied to Yemen’s internationally recognized government and a Saudi-led coalition that has battled Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels for years. That part of the Gulf of Aden in theory is under the control of those forces and is fairly distant from Houthi-controlled territory in the country. Somali pirates also are not known to operate in that area.
The U.S. defense official said that it appeared “an unknown number of unidentified armed individuals” seized the ship.
“U.S. and coalition forces are in the vicinity and we are closely monitoring the situation,” the official said.
Ambrey said that it appeared that “U.S. naval forces are engaged in the situation and have asked vessels to stay clear of the area.”
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, which provides warnings to sailors in the Middle East, had earlier issued a warning to sailors that “two black-and-white craft carrying eight persons in military-style clothing” had been seen in the area. It issued another warning saying that radio traffic suggested a possible attack had occurred.
The Central Park seizure comes after a container ship, CMA CGM Symi, owned by another Israeli billionaire came under attack Friday by a suspected Iranian drone in the Indian Ocean. Iran has not acknowledged carrying out the attack, nor did it respond to questions from the AP about that assault.
Both the Symi and the Central Park had been behaving as if they faced a threat in recent days.
The ships had switched off their Automatic Identification System trackers, according to data from MarineTraffic.com analyzed by the AP. Ships are supposed to keep their AIS active for safety reasons, but crews will turn them off if it appears they might be targeted. In the Central Park’s case, the vessel had last transmitted four days ago after it left the Suez Canal heading south into the Red Sea.
With the Israel-Hamas war — which began with the militant Palestinian group’s Oct. 7 attack — raging on, the Houthis seized a vehicle transport ship in the Red Sea off Yemen. The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge the seizure of the Central Park.
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Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League on Saturday condemned statements by Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-right politician who won this week’s election in the Netherlands, that Palestinians should be relocated to Jordan.
The Palestinian Authority labeled the statements as “a call to escalate the aggression against our people and a blatant interference in their affairs and future,” the Wafa news agency reported.
Jordan issued a separate condemnation and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Yemen, and the Arab League did the same, Arab News reported.
“Irresponsible statements made by Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders [are] considered interference in the internal affairs of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and [are] rejected and condemned,” the UAE embassy in the Netherlands wrote on X.
A populist and anti-Islam far-right politician, Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), is known for his firm support for Israel. Over the last few years, he has advocated for the right of Israel to set up settlements in the West Bank, and he often reiterated the idea that Jordan is Palestine, suggesting that the conflict between Palestinians and Israel could be resolved through the dislocation of Palestinian people to Jordan.
Yemen’s Houthis say they have taken control of an Israeli-owned ship in the southern Red Sea, with Israel describing the incident as an “Iranian act of terrorism” with consequences for international maritime security.
A Houthi military spokesman confirmed to Al Jazeera on Sunday that its fighters hijacked the British-owned and Japanese-operated cargo ship.
At least 22 people were onboard the Galaxy Leader – reported to be partly owned by an Israeli businessman – which was en route from Turkey to India.
“We have received confirmation from a Houthi official that they hijacked this ship. Earlier today [Sunday], they announced the beginning of operations to attack Israeli-flagged ships. They warned international sailors not to work for such companies,” said Al Jazeera’s Mohammed al-Attab, reporting from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.
“We are treating the crew in accordance with Islamic norms and principles,” said Yemen’s Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree in a statement later on Sunday.
He renewed the warning that any ship belonging to Israel or those who support it will be a legitimate target for Houthi forces.
“We confirm our continuation of military operations against [Israel] until the aggression and ugly crimes against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and the West Bank stop,” said Saree.
The Houthis, backed by Tehran, have launched several missile and drone attacks against Israel since the latest assault on the besieged Gaza Strip began on October 7, killing more than 12,300 Palestinians, including 5,000 children.
“The Houthis have carried out a number of attacks on Iranian targets. We are expecting more attacks in the coming days,” al-Attab said.
The Israeli government called the hijack “a very serious event on a global level”, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office saying Israel was not involved in the ship’s ownership, operation or the makeup of its international crew.
“This is another Iranian act of terrorism that represents an escalation in Iran’s belligerence against the citizens of the free world, with concomitant international ramifications vis-a-vis the security of global shipping routes,” said a statement released by the prime minister’s office.
“There were no Israelis on the ship,” it said, adding the 25 crew members are from Ukraine, Mexico, the Philippines and Bulgaria, among other countries.
Israel’s military also denied the ship was Israeli. In a statement on X, it said: “The hijacking of a cargo ship by the Houthis near Yemen in the southern Red Sea is a very grave incident of global consequence.”
“The ship departed Turkey on its way to India, staffed by civilians of various nationalities, not including Israelis. It is not an Israeli ship,” the Israeli army said.
A United States defence official said the US is “aware of the situation and closely monitoring it”.
“What we understand is that the shipping company is partly owned by an Israeli businessman and this wouldn’t be the first time one of his ships was intercepted. In 2021, one of his vessels was also targeted,” said Al Jazeera’s Sara Khairat, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.
Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Tehran, said there has been no evidence put forth by Israel that Iran is behind the hijack.
“This is an accusation made by the Israeli prime minister’s office without any concrete evidence to support it,” she said.
The war in Gaza has sent tensions soaring in the region, with international organisations and political leaders warning of a potential wider regional conflict.
“Iran in the past has distanced itself from these various armed groups in the Middle East that are against Israel,” Jabbari said.
“But given Israel’s continuous bombardment of Gaza and what they call ‘genocide’ against the Palestinian population, the Iranians are saying the conflict could spread.”
ISRAEL made use of its Arrow 3 “missile-killer” for the first time as it downed a rocket allegedly launched by Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.
The lethal long-range air defence system is able to intercept ballistic missiles from thousands of miles away and blast them out of the sky.
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The Arrow 3 ‘missile killer’ was launched by Israel for the first timeCredit: IAI
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The long-range air defence system can target incoming missiles from thousands of miles awayCredit: Newsflash
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IDF said its troops are in ‘fierce battles’ with Hamas in GazaCredit: IDF
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The giant machine can down ballistic missiles in just three steps
Israel’s military said its forces “successfully intercepted” a “surface-to-surface missile” fired towards Israel from the area of the Red Sea using its Arrow 3 system.
It is thought to be the world’s first operational and stand-alone defence system that can be used against tactical ballistic missiles.
The powerful state-of-the-art piece of kit detects, tracks and then fires a hit-to-kill warhead to intercept the incoming missile.
It can cleanly blast the incoming warheads out of the sky, therefore preventing damage to buildings and civilians.
read more on israel-hamas
The fearsome anti-missile launcher can be used to defend Israel in conjunction with the “Iron Dome” – dubbed the “guardian of the skies” as well as the “Iron Sting” and “Iron Beam” weapons systems.
Today, the IDF said that Arrow intercepted the missile – believed to have been sent from Yemen – “at the most appropriate operational time and location.”
Footage showed a large trail of smoke after the Arrow was launched and residents reported hearing a large blast, The Times of Israel reports.
The IDF also claimed this morning to have used fighter jets to intercept “hostile targets” flying in from the Red Sea this morning.
“All the threats were intercepted outside the territory of the State of Israel. No intrusion into Israeli territory was detected,” the IDF added.
After Israel’s announcement, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels took responsibility for the aerial assault and claimed to have fired “a large number” of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel today.
In a video statement, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed it was the third attack they had launched at Israel and vowed there would be more to come.
He warned the attacks would continue until “Israeli aggression” stopped, referring to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
The Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, are part of the so-called “Axis of Resistance” which encompasses Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.
Last week, Israel accused the Houthi movement of sending drones that caused explosions in two Egyptian towns on the Red Sea, arguing they were intended to strike Israel.
And on October 19, a US warship was forced to fire its first shots in the defence of Israel when it downed a missile believed to have been launched by the Houthis.
An official said the USS Carney shot down15 drones and four cruise missiles fired by the militia group in a nine-hour onslaught.
The IDF claimed to have made “significant progress” in their ground offensive as they continued advancing deeper into the besieged enclave.
It said that ground and air forces hit Hamas positions and anti-tank guided missile squads, and footage revealed Israeli troops marching through Gaza after reportedly hitting 300 targets overnight.
It comes as:
IDF soldier Ori Megidish was rescued after she was taken hostage by Hamas terrorists
Israeli PM Netanyahu rejected all calls for a ceasefire saying “this is a time for war”
Gaza’s humanitarian crisis continues to worsen as aid trucks struggle to enter and Palestinian authorities claim thousands have been killed
Israel said today that troops attacked Hamas gunmen inside Gaza’s vast tunnel network – where the terror group is believed to be hiding hostages.
The tunnels are a key objective for Tel Aviv as it enters its ” “second stage of war,” inside Gaza to wipe out Hamas following the terrorist’s bloody October 7 attacks that saw 1,400 Israelis slaughtered.
Speaking to The Sun, the former British military commander Colonel Richard Kemp said that Israel has made “significant progress”.
He told The Sun: “I think the IDF moved into the Gaza strip in significant military strength, with tanks, infantry engineers supported by artillery attack, helicopters and UAVs.
“And they’re making quite significant progress, there have been reports today that they have destroyed a great deal of the Hamas infrastructure inside Gaza, killed around four senior Hamas leaders.
“As far as I’m aware, there have been either none or very limited Israeli casualties, but that hasn’t yet been confirmed. So I think it’s so far progressing pretty well.”
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Rows of Israeli tanks lined up as they are deployed into Gaza
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Israeli troops were pictured pushing deeper into Gaza after striking 300 targetsCredit: IDF
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USS Carney fired its first shot in defence of Israel as it downed a suspected missile launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on October 19Credit: AFP
The leader of the Hezbollah militant group has thrown his backing behind Palestinian militants and praised the attacks that killed more than a thousand Israeli civilians, in his first public appearance since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas last month.
In a televised speech broadcast on Friday from an unknown location, Hassan Nasrallah praised the “martyrs” who have died fighting Israeli troops, denied the Hamas attacks had been coordinated by Iran, and said fighters loyal to him were “prepared to make unlimited sacrifices” in supporting their cause.
“This operation is great; this sacred operation was 100 percent Palestinian, and was implemented by Palestinians,” he said.
However, he stopped short of explicitly declaring war on Israel and opening a second front in the conflict, despite predictions that he could seek to escalate tensions dramatically.
Nasrallah has led Hezbollah since 1992, when his predecessor was killed by Israeli forces. While the group maintains it is comprised of both a political party and a separate military wing, Hezbollah has been designated as a terrorist organization in its entirety by Israel, the U.S., the U.K., the Arab League and a number of EU member states. It has close ties to Iran, which also backs Hamas in the Gaza Strip, as well as the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and paramilitaries in Iraq and Yemen — all of which are vehemently opposed to Israel and its Western partners.
Hezbollah maintains a tight hold over southern Lebanon, effectively ruling the region independently from the Middle Eastern nation’s elected government. Its fighters have carried out attacks and drone strikes on Israeli positions across the line of contact in recent days amid a sharp spike in violence across the region, with Israeli officials ordering the evacuation of citizens from 42 communities in the surrounding area.
Ahead of Nasrallah’s speech, schools and government buildings throughout Lebanon closed and crowds gathered in the capital of Beirut as well as in other Middle Eastern countries to watch the address. While many in the tiny nation — home to just five and a half million people — fear a renewed conflict with Israel, Hezbollah is effectively able to operate entirely independently from the state and retains high levels of support from the Shia Muslim community.
The Israel Defense Forces earlier Friday said it was on “very, very high alert” along its northern border with Lebanon.
Southern Lebanon was effectively occupied by Israeli forces from 1985 until 2000, fighting a series of military offensives and running battles with militant groups during and after the country’s 15-year civil war. Hezbollah and Israel also fought a brief but bloody war in 2006, with hundreds killed on both sides and no decisive result.
French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu was in Beirut Friday afternoon, declaring that his country “will continue to provide support to the Lebanese Armed Forces … because the stability of Lebanon is key for the country and for the region.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel amid growing calls for a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting to allow Palestinian civilians to flee as Israel steps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip. Blinken reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself and said “no country would, or should, tolerate the slaughter of innocents.” However, he did call for greater protection for Palestinians amid the worsening military confrontation.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Israel amid growing calls for a “humanitarian pause” | Jonathan Ernst/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza claims that 9,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict last month, while Israeli troops have taken control of key strategic points in and around Gaza City, telling non-combatants to leave their homes and seek safety in southern Gaza — which has also been targeted by air strikes.
More than 1,400 people have been killed on the Israeli side of the border since Hamas launched its major offensive, with fighters infiltrating the country by land, air and sea.
Israel expanded ground operations in Gaza on Friday, nearly three weeks after Hamas launched an attack on the country. CBS News’ Charlie D’Agata, David Martin and Nancy Cordes have the latest.
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Israel said its ongoing airstrikes hit more Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip Friday, as it began evacuating a town near its northern border with Lebanon, where almost daily exchanges of fire with the other major Iran-backed group in the region, Hezbollah, have fueled fear of new fronts opening almost two weeks into the war sparked by Hamas’ deadly terror attack.
Israel’s military has accused Hamas of killing about 1,400 people in that attack and seizing at least 203 hostages during the rampage. The military said Hamas kidnapped Israeli soldiers, but also dozens of civilians, including as many as 20 people over the age of 60 and more than 20 under 18. One Israeli family shared their heartache with CBS News on Friday as they waited desperately for any word on a 10-month-old baby among the captives.
A senior Israeli military leader told soldiers Thursday they would soon “see Gaza from the inside,” suggesting a long-expected ground invasion was still looming, but fear the conflict could spread beyond Israel’s borders and the decimated Palestinian territory were only growing Friday.
Hezbollah has exchanged deadly fire with Israeli forces for more than a week, but it has so far been relatively limited cross-border shelling. The powerful Iran-backed group is based in Lebanon, and it has a large arsenal of long-range rockets.
With tension along the northern border soaring, Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced Friday that the roughly 20,000 residents of the town of Kiryat Shmona, near that Lebanese border, would be evacuated.
A map shows Israel, with Jerusalem and other major cities labeled, along with the Palestinian territories of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Getty/iStockphoto
Another militant force in the region that’s considered by the U.S. and Israel to be an Iranian proxy group is the Houthi movement, which has fought Yemen’s Western-backed government in a brutal civil war for almost a decade. On Thursday, the Pentagon said a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Red Sea had shot down cruise missiles and drones launched by the Houthis, which may have been aimed at Israel.
Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the U.S. was still completing its assessment of where the three intercepted ballistic missiles were headed, but if they were intended for Israel, it would be the first direct U.S. military intervention to protect Israel from its regional foes since Hamas’ unprecedented attack.
A U.S. defense official confirmed to CBS News, meanwhile, that an American military base near Baghdad, Iraq, was targeted in a new rocket attack. Reports of U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria being targeted by drones have increased since the Israel-Hamas war erupted, and Iran-backed militias in northern Iraq and Syria have long targeted American forces in the region.
President Biden has warned Iran and its regional allies repeatedly and clearly not to get involved in Israel’s war with Hamas.
Speaking Friday to journalists at the Iranian Embassy in London, charge d’affaires Mehdi Hosseini Matin said Iran’s “first priority is stopping the war, not escalation.”
He was dismissive of the level of influence Iran could exert over allied groups in the region, claiming the Islamic republic was “not in a position to control any group effectively in the Middle East or in border countries with Gaza.”
The Iranian regime has said Hamas’ brutal terror attack on southern Israel was a justifiable response to “the establishment of an open air prison in Gaza for more than two decades,” which Matin said Friday was “absolutelyunacceptable according to international law.”
Calling the situation in the region “very volatile and dangerous,” Matin said any further “escalation is not in the interest of anyone, including the United States.”
Anger in the West Bank and Egypt
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, clashes between Israelis and Palestinians had been increasing for a year even before Hamas’ terror attack. Palestinian officials in the Israeli-occupied territory, which is not controlled by Hamas like Gaza, say more than 70 people have died in confrontations with Israeli forces and armed Jewish settlers since Oct. 7.
Palestinian officials said a rare Israeli airstrike in the region, reportedly hitting a refugee camp near the West Bank-Israel border, killed 13 people on Friday, and anger was growing over that strike and the ongoing bombing of the Gaza Strip.
“It was horrible for all the Palestinians. Not just for Palestinians but I think for everybody in the world who saw this horror of what’s going on in the Gaza Strip,” Jamal Joumaa, a Palestinian activist who joined a demonstration in central Ramallah on Friday, told CBS News.
Hundreds protest against Israel’s airstrikes in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, in Ramallah, West Bank, Oct. 20, 2023.
CBS News/Haley Ott
The protest swelled as Palestinians poured out of mosques following Friday prayers, with many chanting support for Hamas. Palestinian and Hamas flags could be seen in the crowd of a few hundred people.
“Give me a two state solution tomorrow, I will accept it. But this became impossible because of the American policies, because of the American backing of the colonial state,” Joumaa told CBS News, referring to Israel.
“I want the Americans first to know that they are supporting a crime of genocide in Gaza,” he said, adding that the leaders of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, based in Ramallah, had failed the people.
Another protester, 18-year-old Abeer Iyad Hassan al-Bezzary, told CBS News she was angry, “but what can we do here? We just pray for them [Gazans] to be safe.”
“We feel President Biden is taking one side… the ones who have force, the power. They [Israelis] have the weapons, they have everything,” Ahmad abu Dukhan told CBS News at the protest.
In Egypt, the only country to share a border with Gaza apart from Israel, the authoritarian government has made protests of any kind illegal, but there was a significant one Friday in the very heart of Cairo, in Tahrir Square. Elsewhere in the city, the government has not only allowed pro-Palestinian protests, it’s encouraging them, journalist and opposition activist Khaled Dawoud told CBS News on Friday.
“The anger is like, so widespread,” he said. “You can’t control it… We see the pictures, we see the Palestinian children, we identify with them… So, we get angry, and we go in the street and demonstrate and protest.”
People march from Tahrir Square to the downtown district of Cairo, Oct. 20, 2023, during a protest supporting the Palestinian people following Friday Noon prayers.
KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty
Asked if he believed the Egyptian government, by allowing the protests, was trying to send a warning that the Hamas-Israel could spread, Dawoud acknowledged that the demonstrations could help leaders in Cairo, who worry an escalation could send thousands of Palestinian refugees pouring over the Gaza border.
But, he stressed that he and the other protesters were “not acting by remote control. These feelings are genuine.”
Gaza airstrikes and the Rafah border crossing
The Israeli military said Friday that it had struck more than 100 Hamas targets in Gaza overnight, including command centers, warehouses full of weapons and an underground tunnel.
Palestinians in Gaza reported airstrikes in the south, where many civilians have relocated after being told by Israel’s military that the northern part of the small, densely populated enclave would not be safe. The United Nations has said more than one million people have been displaced within Gaza since Israel started striking the region in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
Nobody has been able to flee Gaza, however, and there are as many as 600 U.S. nationals among the roughly 2.3 million people trapped there under a complete Israeli blockade of the strip.
That blockade has cut off supplies of food, energy and medicine to the decimated Palestinian territory, fueling an already monumental humanitarian crisis amid the shelling and drawing warnings from experts that Israel could be answering Hamas’ war crimes with war crimes of its own.
Israeli leaders have consistently dismissed such warnings, insisting the country is only targeting Hamas militants and blaming the group itself — which has long been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Israel and most European nations — for all deaths in the Palestinian territory that it controls and that it used as a launch pad for its brutal attack.
President Biden, during his visit earlier in the week, got Israel to commit to halting its strikes near the only border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, at Rafah, to enable aid to get in, but it remained unclear Friday when the gates might actually open. Crews were working to repair the Rafah crossing, with about 20 trucks full of humanitarian aid waiting on the Egyptian side.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing Friday and, surrounded by food and medical supplies waiting to be shipped out, he urged all sides to open humanitarian routes into Gaza.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (center) inspects aid materials waiting to be moved across the Rafah crossing from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, Oct. 20, 2023.
Handout/UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe
“On this side, we have seen so many trucks loaded with water, with fuel, with medicines, with food. They are a lifeline. They are the difference between life and death for so many people in Gaza,” Guterres said. “What we need is to make them move, to make them move to the other side of this wall, to make them move as quickly as possible and as many as possible.”
The Egyptian Sinai for Human Rights group posted video of what it said were aid workers lined up Friday with vehicles on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing, saying in a tweet that they were, “awaiting the opening of the crossing in the coming hours to bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip for the first time since the beginning of the war.”
What is Israel’s plan in Gaza?
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of his country’s legislature, the Knesset, on Friday that the war Hamas started with its Oct. 7 terror attack would end with group’s destruction.
“We are at war, we have been left no choice. October 7th will be remembered as the day that started the destruction of Hamas,” Gallant told the lawmakers, laying out for the first time a vague outline of Israel’s planned military operation — which leaders have said could take months or even years.
He said the objectives of Israel’s three-phase operation included the elimination of Hamas as a power in Gaza, with both its military and governing capabilities destroyed, followed eventually by the establishment of a new “security reality” in the Palestinian territory.
Gallant said Israel was still in the first of the three stages: “A military campaign that currently includes strikes, and will later include maneuvering, with the objective of neutralizing terrorists and destroying Hamas infrastructure,” which he said would be followed by a second phase focused on “eliminating pockets of resistance” in Gaza.
“The third phase,” Gallant said, “will require the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip, and the establishment of a new security reality for the citizens of Israel.”
In an interview with 60 Minutes last week, President Biden said “Israel has to respond. They have to go after Hamas,” but the U.S. leader warned that an Israeli occupation of Gaza would be “a big mistake.”
NOTE: The original version of this article incorrectly described Hezbollah is a Palestinian group. It has been updated to reflect that it is a Shiite Muslim group based in Lebanon.
CBS News’ Pamela Falk at the United Nations and Emmet Lyons in London contributed to this report.
A U.S. Navy warship in the Red Sea intercepted several missiles and drones launched from Yemen, sparking concerns the U.S. could get pulled into a wider war in the Middle East. David Martin reports.
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Tens of thousands of Muslims demonstrated Friday across the Middle East in support of the Palestinians and against the intensifying Israeli bombardment of Gaza, underscoring the risk of a wider regional conflict as Israel prepares for a possible ground invasion.
From the typically sedate streets of downtown Amman in Jordan, to Yemen’s war-scarred capital of Sanaa, crowds of Muslim worshippers poured into the streets after weekly Friday prayers, angered by devastating Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that began after the militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise attack on Israel last Saturday.
At the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli police were permitting only certain older men, women and children to enter the sprawling hilltop compound for prayers, trying to limit the potential for violence. Only 5,000 worshippers made it into the site, the Islamic endowment that manages the mosque said. On a typical Friday, some 50,000 perform the prayers.
An Associated Press reporter watched police allow just a Palestinian teenage girl and her mother into the compound out of 20 worshippers who tried to get in, some of them even over the age of 50. Young Palestinian men who were refused entry gathered at the steps near Lion’s Gate, eyes downcast, until police shouted at them and shepherded them outside the Old City ramparts altogether.
“We can’t live, we can’t breathe, they are killing everything that is good within us,” said Ahmad Barbour, a 57-year-old cleaner, red-faced and seething after police blocked him from entering for prayers.
“Everything that is forbidden to us is allowed to them,” he added, referring to the Israelis.
The mosque sits in a hilltop compound sacred to both Jews and Muslims, and conflicting claims over it have spilled into violence before. Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam and stands in a spot known to Jews as the Temple Mount, which is the holiest site in Judaism.
Hundreds of young Palestinian worshippers who had been turned away from the Old City threw down small prayer rugs on the street in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi Joz and prayed in the open. When some of the men started shouting, Israeli police charged into the crowd with batons and fired rounds of tear gas at the worshippers, wounding at least six people, said the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Thousands demonstrated in Amman in neighboring Jordan, some crying out: “We are going to Jerusalem as millions of martyrs!”
“What do they want from Palestine? Do they expect them to leave?” asked protester Omar Abu-Sundos. “For what remains of Palestine to leave? They won’t leave.”
Jordanians march from Grand Husseini Mosque to Al-Nahl Square after Friday prayer in Amman, Jordan on Oct. 13, 2023.
Laith Al-jnaidi/Anadolu via Getty Images
In Beirut, thousands of supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group waved Lebanese, Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, chanting slogans in support of Gaza and calling for “death to Israel.” The Iranian-backed militant group in neighboring Lebanon has launched sporadic attacks since the Hamas assault, but largely stayed on the sidelines of the war.
However, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general warned that it would be “on the lookout” for the United States and British naval vessels heading to the Mediterranean Sea. U.S. officials, including President Biden, have repeatedly warned Iran and the regional militias Tehran backs to stay out of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
“Your battleships do not interest us, nor do your statements frighten us,” Naim Kassim said at a rally in a southern suburb of Beirut. “When the time is right to take action, we will do so.”
In Baghdad, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Tahrir Square — the protest hub of Iraq’s capital — for rallies called by the influential Shiite cleric and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
Thousands of followers of influential Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr take part in a rally at Tahrir Square in a show of support for Palestinians against retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, Oct. 13, 2023.
Ameer Al-Mohammedawi/picture alliance via Getty Images
“We, as Iraqis, know the pain of having an occupier on our land,” said protester Alaa al-Arabyia, referring to the U.S. occupation of Iraq following its 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. “Palestinian women have husbands, loved ones and sons fighting the occupation. We stand with them in their struggle.”
Across Iran, a supporter of Hamas and Israel’s regional archenemy, demonstrators also streamed into the streets after prayers. In Tehran, they burned Israeli and American flags, chanting: “Death to Israel,” “Death to America,” “Israel will be doomed” and “Palestine will be the conqueror.”
“The Palestinian people are fed up, now your idea is to destroy Gaza, the houses of the people,” Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi said in a speech in the country’s southern Fars province. “The people of the world and Palestine will cause trouble for you.”
Iranian girls hold Palestinian flags as they attend a pro-Palestinian rally before the Friday prayer in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 13, 2023.
AP
In the Syrian capital of Damascus, protesters — including Palestinians from the Yarmouk refugee camp formed after the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation — also rallied.
“I tell the people not to leave their homes otherwise they will be like our grandparents who left Palestine and came to Syria but never returned,” Ahmad Saeed, a 23-year-old Palestinian living in Syria, said, referring to the 1948 war.
In Yemen’s Sanaa, held by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels still at war with a Saudi-led coalition, demonstrators crowded the streets waving Yemeni and Palestinian flags. The rebels’ slogan long has been: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse of the Jews; victory to Islam.”
“We are ready to participate actively and send hundreds of thousands of mujahedeen … .to defend Palestine, the Palestinian people and the holy sites,” the Houthi government said in a statement Friday.
After Friday prayers, Egyptian demonstrators ringed the historic Al-Azhar Mosque in downtown Cairo, the Sunni Muslim world’s foremost religious institution, chanting that Israel remained their enemy “generation after generation.” They repeated the traditionally nationalistic slogan, “We give our souls and blood to Al-Aqsa.”
Muslims shout out slogans as they protest Israel’s retaliation against Gaza after Hamas’ attack on Israel at Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Egypt on Oct. 13, 2023.
Mohamed Elshahed/Anadolu via Getty Images
In Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad, some worshippers trampled on American and Israeli flags.
“International media and international courts turn a blind eye to the injustices with the Palestinians. But they only notice the actions that the Palestinians take to defend themselves,” said Faheem Ahmed, a worshipper in Karachi. “They call it terrorism.”
Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee, producing about one-third of global supply.
Coffee is one of the most widely consumed beverages in the world with an estimated two billion cups consumed each day.
To recognise the work of millions of coffee farmers, producers and baristas from all over the world, every year on October 1, the world celebrates International Coffee Day.
This year’s theme is “promoting the right to a safe and healthy working environment in the coffee supply chain”.
In this infographic series, Al Jazeera visually presents the coffee production process, outlines the various types of coffee and showcases the top coffee-producing nations around the world.
How is coffee produced?
Coffee consumption is thought to have its origins dating back as far as the ninth century in the region that is now Ethiopia in East Africa, where wild coffee plants grew naturally.
The invigorating drink then spread to other regions across the Arabian Peninsula, such as Yemen and by the 15th century, coffee cultivation and preparation methods had developed to become an integral part of the culture.
Coffee trade expanded across the Middle East and made its way to Europe by the 17th century through trade routes across Italy.
Although they may resemble beans, “coffee beans” are actually the seeds of the coffee fruit which are found in pairs inside a red coffee cherry. It takes about three to four years for a coffee plant to bear its first harvest.
The infographic below breaks down the coffee production process:
(Al Jazeera)
What are the different types of coffee?
There are two main types of coffee beans used in commercial coffee production – Arabica and Robusta.
Arabica is the most widely consumed form of coffee beans accounting for between 60 to 70 percent of global coffee production. Arabica is known for its fine, mild aromatic properties and is generally considered a higher-quality coffee bean compared to Robusta coffee.
Robusta is known for its bold, strong and often bitter taste. Robusta beans have a higher caffeine content compared to Arabica and are usually cheaper to cultivate. Robusta is named after its robust properties and resistance to spoilage which makes it ideal for use in instant coffees.
(Al Jazeera)
The top coffee-producing countries
In 2020, the world produced about 10.7 million metric tonnes of coffee beans according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization.
Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee, producing about one-third (3.7 million tonnes) of global production. The South American country’s vast and diverse landscape provides an ideal environment for coffee cultivation allowing it to grow both Arabica and Robusta coffee varieties.
Vietnam, with 1.8 million tonnes, is the world’s second-largest coffee producer followed by Colombia (830,000 tonnes), Indonesia (770,000 tonnes) and Ethiopia (580,000 tonnes).
Combined, these five countries account for nearly 75 percent of the world’s coffee production.
The animation below shows the top coffee-producing countries in 2000-2020.
The Houthis have not yet acknowledged carrying out drone attack, while the Saudi Arabian-led coalition said it reserves right to respond.
Bahrain’s military command has accused Yemen’s Houthi fighters of killing two Bahraini soldiers in a drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen.
A number of Bahraini soldiers were also wounded in the attack, Bahrain’s military said in a statement, which was carried by the official Bahrain News Agency on Monday. The exact number of soldiers wounded was not released.
“This terrorist attack was carried out by the Houthis, who sent aircraft targeting the position of the Bahraini guards on the southern border of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia despite the halt of military operations between the warring sides in Yemen,” the Bahraini military statement said.
The island nation of Bahrain is a close ally of Saudi Arabia, which has been at war with Iran-aligned Houthi fighters in Yemen for several years.
The Houthis did not immediately acknowledge carrying out the attack. There was also no mention of an attack on the media and social media operations run by the Houthis, whose negotiators earlier this month held talks with Saudi Arabian officials on a potential agreement paving the way to an end to the conflict in Yemen.
It was unclear if the drone attack and killing of the Bahraini soldiers would derail the peace talks.
The Saudi Arabian-led coalition warned Houthi fighters that “such repeated hostile and provocative actions are not consistent with the positive efforts being made… to end the crisis and reach a comprehensive political solution”.
The coalition said it “reserves the right to respond at the appropriate time and place”.
Nabeel Khoury, a former chief of the United States mission to Yemen, told Al Jazeera that the attack appeared to be the result of “normal tensions” on a front line.
“I would think, unless there is somebody trying to provoke something, that it is an incident which will pass and not have too many consequences,” Khoury said.
Yemen’s internationally-recognised government condemned the drone attack on Monday.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Bin Mubarak said he spoke by phone with Bahrain’s chief diplomat, Abdullatif al-Zayani, offering his condolences and solidarity with Bahrain.
The Houthis have been fighting against a Saudi Arabian-led military alliance since 2015 in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and left 80 percent of Yemen’s population dependent on humanitarian aid.
Yemen’s war began in 2014, when the Houthis swept down from their northern stronghold and seized the capital, Sanaa, along with much of the country’s north. In response, a Saudi Arabian-led coalition intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally-recognised government to power.
The fighting soon devolved into a stalemated proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, causing widespread hunger and misery in Yemen, which even before the conflict had been the Arab world’s poorest country.
Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations earlier this year in a deal brokered by China, further raising hopes for an end to Yemen’s conflict. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia welcomed a Houthi delegation for peace talks, saying the negotiations had “positive results”.
A UN-brokered ceasefire had already largely halted the violence and Yemen has seen only sporadic clashes since the truce expired nearly a year ago. But diplomats have warned that the situation remains volatile.
A US warship that intercepted drones and missiles near the coast of Yemen on Thursday encountered a larger and more sustained barrage than was previously known, shooting down 4 cruise missiles and 15 drones over a period of 9 hours, according to a US official familiar with the situation.
The USS Carney, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer that traversed the Suez Canal heading south on Wednesday, intercepted the missiles and drones as they were heading north along the Red Sea. Their trajectory left little doubt that the projectiles were headed for Israel, the official said, a clearer assessment than the Pentagon’s initial take.
A sustained barrage of drones and missiles targeting Israel from far outside the Gaza conflict is one of a series of worrying signs that the war risks escalating beyond the borders of the coastal enclave.
In addition to protests at US embassies across the Middle East, US and coalition forces in Syria and Iraq have come under repeated attack over the past several days.
On Thursday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the missiles were fired by Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen and were launched “potentially towards targets in Israel.” At the briefing, Ryder said three land-attack cruise missiles and “several” drones.
Some of the projectiles were traveling at altitudes that made them a potential risk to commercial aviation when they were intercepted, the US official said. The drones and missiles were intercepted with SM-2 surface-to-air missiles launched from the USS Carney.
US interceptions of Houthi launches are exceedingly rare, making the timing of this incident, as tensions rise in Israel, more significant. In October 2016, the USS Mason deployed countermeasures to stop an attempted attack in the Red Sea targeting the Navy destroyer and other ships nearby. In response, the US fired sea-launched cruise missiles at Houthi radar facilities in Yemen.
On Wednesday, one-way attack drones targeted two different US positions in Iraq, according to US Central Command. One of the attacks resulted in minor injuries. One day later, the At-Tanf garrison in Syria, which houses US and coalition forces, was targeted by two drones, which also caused minor injuries.
Early Friday morning in Iraq, two rockets targeted the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center near the airport, which houses US military, diplomatic and civilian personnel, according to another US defense official. One rocket was intercepted by a counter-rocket system, while the second hit an empty storage facility, the official said. No one was injured as a result of the rocket attack.
The US has not assigned attribution for any of the recent attacks in Iraq and Syria, though Iranian proxies have carried out similar drone and rocket attacks against US forces in both countries in the past.
The US military has carried out strikes on Iranian-backed militias as a response to previous such attacks against US forces, but the Pentagon would not say anything yet about its intentions.
“While I’m not going to forecast any potential response to these attacks, I will say that we will take all necessary actions to defend US and coalition forces against any threat,” said Ryder. “Any response, should one occur, will come at a time and a manner of our choosing.”
Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.
CNN
—
Moored five miles off the coast of Yemen for more than 30 years, a decaying supertanker carrying a million barrels of oil is finally being offloaded by a United Nations-led mission, hoping to avert what threatened to be one of the world’s worst ecological disasters in decades.
Experts are now delicately handling the 47-year-old vessel – called the FSO Safer – working to remove the crude without the tanker falling apart, the oil exploding, or a massive spill taking place.
Sitting atop The Endeavor, the salvage UN ship supervising the offloading, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen David Gressly said that the operation is estimated to cost $141 million, and is using the expertise of SMIT, the dredging and offshore contractor that helped dislodge the Ever Given ship that blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week in 2021.
How to remove one million barrels of oil from a tanker
Twenty-three UN member states are funding the mission, with another $16 million coming from the private sector contributors. Donors include Yemen’s largest private company, HSA Group, which pledged $1.2 million in August 2022. The UN also engaged in a unique crowdfunding effort, contributing to the pool which took a year to raise, according to Gressly.
The team is pumping between 4,000 and 5,000 barrels of oil every hour, and has so far transferred more than 120,000 barrels to the replacement vessel carrying the offloaded oil, Gressly said. The full transfer is expected to take 19 days.
The tanker was carrying a million barrels of oil. That would be enough to power up to 83,333 cars or 50,000 US homes for an entire year. The crude on board is worth around $80 million, and who gets that remains a controversial matter.
Here’s what we know so far:
The ship has been abandoned in the Red Sea since 2015 and the UN has regularly warned that the “ticking time bomb” could break apart given its age and condition, or the oil it holds could explode due to the highly flammable compounds in it.
The FSO Safer held four times the amount of oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez off Alaska in 1989 which resulted in a slick that covered 1,300 miles of coastline. A potential spill from this vessel would be enough to make it the fifth largest oil spill from a tanker in history, a UN website said. The cost of cleanup of such an incident is estimated at $20 billion.
The Red Sea is a vital strategic waterway for global trade. At its southern end lies the Bab el-Mandeb strait, where nearly 9% of total seaborne-traded petroleum passes. And at its north is the Suez Canal that separates Africa from Asia. The majority of petroleum and natural gas exports from the Persian Gulf that transit the Suez Canal pass through the Bab el-Mandeb, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
The sea is also a popular diving hotspot that boasts an impressive underwater eco-system. In places its banks are dotted with tourist resorts, and its eastern shore is the site of ambitious Saudi development projects worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
The first step of the mission was to stabilize and secure the vessel to avoid it collapsing, Gressly said. That has already been achieved in the past few weeks.
“There are a number of things that had to be done to secure the oil from exploding,” Gressly told CNN, including pumping out gases in each of the 13 compartments holding the oil. Systems for pumping were rebuilt, and some lighting was repaired.
Booms, which are temporary floating barriers used to contain marine spills, were dispersed around the vessel to capture any potential leaks.
The second step is to transfer the oil onto the replacement vessel, which is now underway.
Oil being removed from tanker near Yemen in Red Sea
After The Safer is emptied, it must then be cleaned to ensure no oil residue is left, Gressly said. The team will then attach a giant buoy to the replacement vessel until a decision about what to do with the oil has been made.
“The transfer of the oil to (the replacement vessel) will prevent the worst-case scenario of a catastrophic spill in the Red Sea, but it is not the end of the operation,” Gressly said.
While the hardest part of the operation would then be over, a spill could still occur. And even after the transfer, the tanker will “continue to pose an environmental threat resulting from the sticky oil residue inside the tank, especially since the tanker remains vulnerable to collapse,” the UN said, stressing that to finish the job, an extra $22 million is urgently needed.
A spill would shut the Yemeni ports that its impoverished people rely on for food aid and fuel, impacting 17 million people during an ongoing humanitarian crisis caused by the country’s civil war and a Saudi-led military assault on the country. Oil could bleed all the way to the African coast, damaging fish stocks for 25 years and affect up to 200,000 jobs, according to the UN.
A potential spill would cause “catastrophic” public health ramifications in Yemen and surrounding countries, according to a study by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine. Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Eritrea would bear the brunt.
Air pollution from a spill of this magnitude would increase the risk of hospitalization for cardiovascular or respiratory disease for those very directly exposed by 530%, according to the study, which said it could cause an array of other health problems, from psychiatric to neurological issues.
“Given the scarcity of water and food in this region, it could be one of the most disastrous oil spills ever known in terms of impacts on human life,” David Rehkopf, a professor at Stanford University and senior author of the study, told CNN.
Up to 10 million people would struggle to obtain clean water, and 8 million would have their access to food supplies threatened. The Red Sea fisheries in Yemen could be “almost completely wiped out,” Rehkopf added.
The tanker has been an issue for many people in Yemen over the past few years, Gressly said. Sentiment on social media surrounding the removal of oil is very positive, as many in Yemen feel like the tanker is a “threat that’s been over their heads,” he said.
The tanker issue remains a point of dispute between the Houthi rebels that control the north of Yemen and the internationally recognized government, the two main warring sides in the country’s civil conflict.
While the war, which saw hundreds of thousands of people killed or injured, and Yemen left in ruins, has eased of late, it is far from resolved.
Ahmed Nagi, a senior analyst for Yemen at the International Crisis Group think tank in Brussels, sees the Safer tanker issue as “an embodiment of the conflict in Yemen as a whole.”
“The government sees the Houthi militias as an illegitimate group controlling the tanker, and the Houthis do not recognize (the government),” Nagi told CNN.
The vessel was abandoned after the outbreak of the Yemeni civil war in 2015. The majority of the oil is owned by Yemeni state firm SEPOC, experts say, and there are some reports that it may be sold.
“From a technical point of view, the owner of the tanker and the oil inside it is SEPOC,” Nagi said, adding that other energy companies working in Yemen may also share ownership of the oil.
U.N. begins high-risk operation to prevent catastrophic oil spill from Yemen tanker
The main issue, Nagi added, is that the Safer’s headquarters are in the government-controlled Marib city, while the tanker is in an area controlled by the Houthis. The Safer is moored off the coast of the western Hodeidah province.
Discussions to determine the ownership of the oil are underway, Gressly said. The rights to the oil are unclear and there are legal issues that need to be addressed.
The UN coordinator hopes that the days needed to offload the oil will buy some time for “political and legal discussions that need to take place before the oil can be sold.”
While the UN may manage to resolve half of the issue, Nagi said, there still needs to be an understanding of the oil’s status.
“It still poses a danger if we keep it near a conflict zone,” he said.
LOS ANGELES—Announcing their first major theatrically released project, the production company launched by Barack and Michelle Obama greenlit an action film Friday about a badass drone seeking revenge on a Yemeni wedding. “The film follows a retired ex-military drone who just wants to be left alone, until Uncle Sam comes knocking to call it in for one last mission to take out the Yemeni wedding that wronged the drone in the past,” said former President Barack Obama, describing how excited he felt from the moment he read the “kick-ass” script, noting that he had never seen anything so hardcore. “The drone takes no prisoners, eviscerating every civilian wedding in its path to get to the Yemeni bride, groom, and wedding party that had killed its drone wife back in the day. The movie is just a bunch of fun; audiences are going to go crazy for the rooftop chase scene in which the drone pursues a 7-year-old flower girl and vaporizes her at the last second. It’s incredible to be producing a film that is so bombastic and crazy, but still reveals a truth about life.” At press time, Obama revealed that Bradley Cooper would be voicing the drone.
CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations has secured an insurance coverage to start a ship-to-ship transfer of 1.1 million barrels of crude from a rusting tanker moored off the coast of war-torn Yemen — oil that could cause a major environmental disaster.
The United Nations Development Program described the insurance is “a pivotal milestone” in a yearslong effort to evacuate the cargo of the FSO Safer, which is at risk of rupture or exploding.
The UNDP has been trying to start a salvage operation to avert what it says could amount to “one of the world’s largest, man-made disasters in history.” It secured tens of millions of dollars in pledges for the operation, which started late in May with experts pumping inert gas to remove atmospheric oxygen from the oil chambers of the vessel.
“Insurance became a critical element of enabling this salvage operation to proceed. Without it, the mission could not go forward,” said Achim Steiner, a UNDP administrator.
Transferring the stored oil is expected to start later this month, according to David Gressly, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. After completing the transfer of oil, Safer would eventually be towed away and scrapped, he has said.
“Work is progressing well,” Gressly told the Yemen International Forum on Monday at The Hague.
The tanker was built in Japan in 1980, and the Yemeni government purchased it in 1980s to store up to 3 million barrels of oil pumped from fields in Marib, a province in the Arabian Peninsula country’s east.
Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished country, has been engulfed in civil war since 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.
The following year, a Saudi-led coalition entered the war to fight the Houthis and try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.
The Safer is 360 meters (1,181 feet) long with 34 storage tanks. It has not been maintained since 2015, and in recent years, seawater entered its engine compartment, causing damage to pipes and increasing the risk of sinking.
Rust has covered parts of the tanker and the inert gas that prevents the tanks from gathering inflammable gases has leaked out.
The United Nations officially launched its mission this week to prevent what it says could be an “environmental catastrophe” on the Red Sea. Sitting off the coast of Yemen lies a nearly half-century-old ship with roughly 1.14 million barrels of crude oil on board, the global agency said – and it’s “deteriorating rapidly.”
The massive 47-year-old supertanker, FSO Safer, rests just about 5 1/2 miles off of Yemen’s coast, where it has gone without maintenance for seven years.
“Its structural integrity is compromised, and it is deteriorating rapidly,” the U.N. says. “There is a serious risk the vessel could be struck by a floating mine, spontaneously explode or break apart at any moment.”
First photos of the FSO Safer taken from the salvage vessel Ndeavor which arrived alongside the Safer on May 30, 2023.
Coen de Jong/Boskalis/United Nations
Officials have been pushing for the situation to be addressed for years. In 2020, the U.N.’s Environment executive director Inger Andersen warned that if the oil on that ship was to leak into the water, it could unleash four times more oil than what was released in Alaska’s Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989, which affected more than 1,300 miles of shoreline and killed thousands of birds and sea otters, hundreds of seals and nearly two dozen killer whales.
To this day, several species are still considered not to have recovered from the incident, according to NOAA, and the spill was one of the nation’s biggest environmental disasters in recent history.
And it would only be an added strain on the continent’s environment. On Africa’s West Coast, millions of barrels of oil have been spilled in the Niger Delta for decades, leading to environmental damage, lawsuits and protests.
If this tanker were to burst open, the U.N. estimates it would cost $20 billion to clean up and could affect 17 million people while destroying coral reefs, mangroves and other forms of sea life, making it “one of the worst oil spills in human history.”
“Coastal communities would be hit hardest. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in the fishing industry would be lost almost overnight,” the U.N. says. “It would take 25 years for fish stocks to recover.”
The FSO Safer is located a few miles off the coast of Yemen.
United Nations
How did FSO Safer get stuck in the Red Sea?
The current situation is rooted in the Yemen civil war, which has been ongoing since 2014. When that war began between the country’s government and Houthi rebels, the ship became a bargaining trip for the two sides. The back-and-forth ended up putting a halt to all operations on the ship in 2015.
The VLCC Nautica is a very large crude carrier secured by UNDP to sail to the FSO Safer just off the coast of Yemen, and take on the oil from Safer.
UNDP
What is the U.N.’s plan to address the problem?
The official launch of the mission to prevent such a disaster comes a year after the U.N. started an online crowdfunding campaign to raise the money to do so. They have estimated it will cost about $144 million to complete the mission, and while the U.N. has much of that on hand, they say they still need $24 million to fully fund the effort.
But even with that gap, this week they commenced the “high-risk,” two-part operation.
The initial step, dubbed the “emergency phase,” entails transferring the oil from the tanker to a new vessel, named Nautica. The crew that will be inspecting the aging vessel arrived on-site on May 30. As of Friday morning Eastern Time, Nautica was situated off the coast of Djibouti, East Africa, where officials say it will remain until Safer is deemed ready to transfer its oil.
In the second phase, Nautica – with the oil onboard – will be connected to a catenary anchor leg mooring buoy, which is designed to handle large vessels such as this, to take the ship’s place in its spot in the Red Sea. FSO Safer, which even though emptied will still have “a considerable amount of residual oil and pose a significant environmental threat,” will then be towed to a scrap yard.
While the U.N. has been raising money for this mission, officials say $29 million is still needed.
“This is a great milestone,” U.N. humanitarian coordinator David Gressly said, “but we will not rest easy until the operation is completed.”
Sanaa, Yemen — A crowd apparently panicked by gunfire and an electrical explosion stampeded at an event to distribute financial aid during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Yemen’s capital late Wednesday, killing about 80 people and injuring scores more, according to witnesses and officials from the Houthi rebel group which controls the city. It was the deadliest incident in Yemen in years that was not related directly to the country’s long-running civil war, and it came ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan later this week.
An image released by the Ansar Allah Houthi Media Office shows the aftermath of a deadly stampede in Sanna, Yemen, April 19, 2023.
ANSAR ALLAH HOUTHI MEDIA OFFICE/AP
Armed Houthis fired into the air in an attempt at crowd control, apparently striking an electrical wire and causing it to explode, according to two witnesses, Abdel-Rahman Ahmed and Yahia Mohsen. That sparked a panic, and people, including many women and children, began stampeding, they said.
Motaher al-Marouni, a senior health official, said Thursday that at least 87 people were killed, according to the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite TV channel, but that figure was later retracted amid conflicting information from Houthi officials. The head of the Houthi-controlled Ministry of Health was quoted as saying at least 80 were dead, and al-Marouni had earlier put the death toll at 78. At least 73 others were injured and taken to a Sanaa hospital, according to the hospital’s deputy director Hamdan Bagheri.
Video posted on social media showed dozens of bodies, some motionless, and others screaming as people tried to help. Separate video of the aftermath released by Houthi officials showed bloodstains, shoes and victims’ clothing scattered on the ground. Investigators were seen examining the area.
The crush took place in the Old City in the center of Sanaa, where hundreds of poor people had gathered for a charity event organized by merchants, according to the Houthi-run Interior Ministry. People had gathered to receive less than $10 each from a charity funded by local businessmen, witnesses said. Wealthy people and businessmen often hand out cash and food, especially to the poor, during Ramadan.
Interior Ministry spokesperson Brig. Abdel-Khaleq al-Aghri, blamed the crush on the “random distribution” of funds without coordination with local authorities.
Yemenis wait outside a hospital in Sanaa, early on April 20, 2023, after a stampede during a Ramadan charity event left about 80 people dead and dozens more injured.
AFP/Getty
The political leader of the Houthi rebels, who have controlled much of the country since a civil war broke out almost a decade ago, Prime Minister Abdulaziz bin Habtour, said the group’s interior, health and prosecutorial authorities would “examine this unfortunate event to find a serious solution for this to never happen again.”
“We are experiencing a great tragedy, a large number of our citizens have died during this stampede,” Habtour told people at the scene on Wednesday evening.
The rebels quickly sealed off a school where the event was being held and barred people, including journalists, from approaching. The Interior Ministry said it had detained two organizers and confirmed that an investigation was under way.
The Houthis said they would pay some $2,000 in compensation to each family who lost a relative, while the injured would get around $400.
Yemen’s capital has been under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthis since they descended from their northern stronghold in 2014 and removed the internationally recognized government. That prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 to try to restore the government.
The conflict has left more than two-thirds of Yemen’s population — or about 21 million people — in need of help and protection, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Among those in need, more than 17 million are considered particularly vulnerable.
In February the United Nations said it had raised only $1.2 billion out of a target of $4.3 billion at a conference aimed at generating funds to ease the humanitarian crisis.
Dozens of people were killed in a crowd surge in Yemen’s capital on Wednesday as needy residents flocked to receive charity handouts from local merchants during the holy month of Ramadan, officials have confirmed.
Video of the tragedy in Sanaa showed a chaotic scene with dozens of people packed tightly together, unable to move and shouting for help.
Those trapped form a wall of bodies with some desperately stretching out their arms for help. A couple of men who are free can be seen attempting to pull others out of the crush.
“What happened tonight is a tragic and painful accident, as dozens of people were killed due to a large stampede of a number of citizens caused by a random distribution of sums of money by some merchants and without coordination with the Ministry of Interior,” the spokesman of the Houthi-run Ministry of Interior, Abdul-Khaleq al-Ajri, said in the statement.
At least 78 people were killed in the crush and dozens injured, Mutahar al-Marouni, the director of the Houthi-run Health office in Sanaa, told the Houthi-run Al-Masirah news agency.
According to Reuters, hundreds of people had crowded into a school to receive donations of 5,000 Yemeni Riyal (about $9).
The incident came just a few days ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. During this time of the month, people start giving away Zakat al-Fitr, or the Zakat of Breaking the Fast of Ramadan, to people who are in need.
Police and rescue teams rushed to the scene, according to the Interior Ministry statement.
“The dead and injured people were transferred to hospitals, and two merchants in charge of the matter were arrested,” the statement added.
The head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi Al-Mashat, ordered an investigation into the incident on Thursday.
The Houthi-run General Authority for Zakat announced in a statement it would give one million Yemeni Riyal ( about $4,000) to each family of the crowd surge victims.
It also said it would take care of the treatment of those injured and pay 200,000 Yemeni Riyal ( about $800) to each injured person.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
Optimism is running high about reaching a peace agreement between Yemen’s warring rivals.
Talks in Yemen are offering hope of a political resolution to one of the worst conflicts since World War II.
Hundreds of thousands have been killed, and millions face starvation after years of war between a Saudi and UAE-led coalition, backed by the West, and Houthi forces supported by Iran.
Now the two sides are talking.
Could peace be on the horizon? And what would a settlement mean for the region?
Presenter: Folly Bah Thibault
Guests:
Ibrahim Fraihat – Associate professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies and author of the book Iran and Saudi Arabia: Taming the Chaotic Conflict
Afrah Nasser – Non-resident fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC and former Yemen researcher at Human Rights Watch
Trita Parsi – Executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and specialist in Iranian foreign policy
