U.N. Pauses Work on Yemen Decaying Tanker Amid Red Sea Escalation
The U.N. has paused the final stage of the scrapping of the Safer — a decaying floating storage and offloading tanker (FSO) — off Yemen because of increasing security risk in the Red Sea, the organization said on Thursday. "Regional developments have resulted in unforeseen operational and financial challenges," a spokesperson for the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) said. "After much consideration, the U.N. had no option but to pause the project at this time and has informed the authorities accordingly." Regular vessel attacks by Yemen's Houthis in the Red Sea are posing a security risk, and tensions have grown since the U.S. and the U.K. started to target Houthi military facilities. In August last year, the UNDP completed the transfer of 1.1mn bl of the Safer's 1.14mn bl crude cargo, potentially averting an ecological, humanitarian and economic catastrophe. The tanker had been operating as an FSO unit offshore Yemen since 1988. It had not been maintained from 2015 onwards because of the conflict in Yemen between the Saudi-backed government and the Houthi group.
The targeting of ships linked to Israel will continue until aid reaches the Palestinian people in Gaza, Yemen's Houthis leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said on Thursday in a televised speech. "Our country will continue its operations until food and medicine reach the people of Gaza," he said. The group's leader added that the latest U.S. and British escalation would be counterproductive and would not affect "our will and determination." The U.S. and U.K. have launched dozens of airstrikes on Houthi sites in Yemen since January 12.
Maersk said explosions nearby forced two ships operated by its U.S. subsidiary and carrying U.S. military supplies to turn around when they were transiting the Bab al-Mandab Strait northbound accompanied by the U.S. Navy. "While en route, both ships reported seeing explosions close by and the U.S. Navy accompaniment also intercepted multiple projectiles," Maersk said in a statement, adding it was suspending Red Sea transits by vessels of the U.S. subsidiary. Both vessels are operated by Maersk Line, Limited (MLL), its U.S. subsidiary that carries cargo for the Department of Defence, Department of State, USAID, and other U.S. government agencies.
Israel faces a growing risk of damaging its peace with neighboring Egypt as its military pushes the offensive against Hamas further south in the Gaza Strip. The two sides are already in a dispute over a narrow strip of land between Egypt and Gaza. Israeli leaders say that to complete their destruction of Hamas, they must eventually widen their offensive to Gaza's southernmost town, Rafah, and take control of the Philadelphi Corridor, a tiny buffer zone on the border with Egypt that is demilitarized under the two countries' 1979 peace accord. Egyp warned that deploying Israeli troops in the zone, known in Egypt as the Salaheddin Corridor, will violate the peace deal.
