A missile hit a Greek-owned ship off Yemen, Ambrey, a maritime risk management company, said on Tuesday. Ambrey released a statement confirming the incident. "A Malta-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carrier was targeted and impacted with a missile while transiting the southern Red Sea northbound." Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the Yemeni naval forces launched a number of missiles on Tuesday, directly hitting a ship that was bound for Israel. He said the crew of the ship refused to respond to the warning messages of the Yemeni naval forces. Saree vowed that the Houthi operations will continue as long as the Israeli war on Gaza is ongoing.
The U.S. seized "advanced conventional weapons" bound for Yemen's Houthis last week, the U.S. military said on Tuesday."On 11 January 2024, while conducting a flag verification, U.S. forces conducted a night-time seizure of a dhow conducting illegal transport of advanced lethal aid from Iran to resupply Houthi forces, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X. It pointed out that LEWIS B PULLER (ESB 3), supported by helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), executed a complex boarding of the dhow near the coast of Somalia in international waters of the Arabian Sea, seizing Iranian-made ballistic missile and cruise missiles components. The U.S. military said this is the first seizure of Iranian-supplied "advanced conventional weapons" to the Houthis since the group started attacking merchant ships in the Red Sea in November 2023.
Iran's permanent ambassador to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani dismissed Western allegations about Tehran's involvement in strikes by Yemeni forces in the Red Sea, stating that such claims are meant to deviate the world public opinion from Israeli atrocities in the besieged Gaza Strip. In two letters addressed to U.N. Security Council António Guterres and rotating President of the U.N. Security Council Nicolas de Rivière on Monday, the Iranian diplomat noted that any attempt to attribute Yemeni retaliatory strikes to his country is a "mere diversion from the reality on the ground in Yemen, as well as a distraction from the brutalities being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza."
Israeli tanks stormed back into parts of the northern Gaza Strip they had left last week, residents said on Tuesday. Massive explosions could be seen over northern areas of Gaza from across the border with Israel — a rarity over the past two weeks after Israel announced a draw-down of forces in the north as part of a transition to smaller, targeted operations. Gaza health authorities said the last 24 hours of Israeli bombing had killed 158 people in the enclave, raising their toll for the war since October last year to 24,285, with thousands of bodies under the rubble.
