Latest news with #MiddleEastEye
Middle East Eye
11 hours ago
- Business
- Middle East Eye
Houthi attacks scramble Saudi Arabia's Red Sea port ambitions
Saudi Arabia has bet billions of dollars on the Red Sea ports as part of its bid to diversify its economy away from relying on energy, but the Houthis' maritime attacks have dealt a blow to those ambitions. Container ship traffic at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Port dropped nearly 70 percent from 188 ship calls in 2023 to 59 in 2024, according to data shared with Middle East Eye by Marine Traffic, a ship tracking and maritime analytics provider. This year has seen just a slight uptick with 51 container ships arriving to date. When King Abdullah Port opened in 2014, it had two purposes. The kingdom believed the port was well-placed on Red Sea trade routes to profit off transshipment, where goods are unloaded from big vessels and reloaded onto smaller ones for their final journey. Saudi Arabia also wants the port to serve as the entry and exit point for its King Abdullah Economic City, where it is trying to entice foreign companies to open up factories. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The huge drop in traffic mostly reflects a drop in transshipment business, as international shipping companies avoid the Red Sea in response to the Houthis' attacks, two port executives in the region told Middle East Eye. 'Business at King Abdullah Port is so bad the owners couldn't sell the container terminal if they wanted to,' one port executive in the region told MEE. The port is owned by a company linked to the Emirati property developer Emaar and Huta Marine Works. The kingdom's Public Investment Fund (PIF) in 2021 purchased a 25 percent stake in Emaar The Economic City. 'The Red Sea is the most important dimension of the Vision 2030 plan' - Robert Mogielnicki, Arab Gulf States Institute Saudi Arabia's Jeddah Islamic Port also saw a drop in traffic, which the two port executives attributed to the Houthi attacks, albeit with much less impact than at King Abdullah Port. The port saw a 14 percent drop in container ship traffic, down from 400 vessels in 2023 to 344 in 2024, according to Marine Traffic data. The executives say business has held up better at Jeddah Islamic Port because it is a primary gateway to the western half of the kingdom for imports, as opposed to transshipment. But executives say that container ships avoiding Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast, particularly those arriving from Asia, are making port calls at King Abdul Aziz Port in Dammam on Saudi Arabia's Eastern coast instead. 'BYD vehicles destined for Saudi Arabia are going to Dammam. Not the Red Sea Ports. It's safer,' one executive told MEE, referring to the Chinese electric car maker that is capturing market share in the Gulf. The Houthis began targeting ships in the Red Sea in November 2023, in what they say is solidarity with besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Egypt has borne the brunt of the Houthi attacks economically. The Suez Canal is a critical source of foreign exchange revenue for the cash-strapped government in Cairo. Traffic has dried up as vessels plying trade between Asia and Europe reroute around Africa's Cape of Good Hope to avoid encountering the Houthis. Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast The rewiring of Saudi Arabia's port business underscores how the Houthi attacks are having unintended knock-on effects for Riyadh as well. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 aims to reduce the country's reliance on energy by tapping into tourism and manufacturing. The plan has a geographic component that intends to focus the weight of Saudi Arabia's non-oil dependent economy on the Red Sea coast, for both luxury hotels and factories. How BlackRock and an Italian shipping dynasty are upending Middle East's port business Read More » 'The Red Sea is the most important dimension of the plan for developing untapped potential - especially non-oil and gas related,' Robert Mogielnicki, a resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told MEE. "In terms of the countrywide transformation, the Red Sea coast is extremely important,' he said. As far as ports go, Saudi Arabia's bid to be a new trade stop on the Red Sea faced headwinds from overcapacity. In recent years, it joined the UAE and Egypt in a port-building boom, hoping to make easy money off transshipment. Executives say there is simply not enough trade to match the infrastructure. More seriously for Saudi Arabia, projects like Neom are being scaled back amid weak foreign investor interest and lower oil prices. The Houthis' attacks have become another irritant. The Houthis stopped attacking vessels in January when a short-lived truce between Hamas and Israel was in effect in the war in Gaza. Israel unilaterally withdrew from the ceasefire in March, and the Yemeni group started firing missiles at Israel, although they refrained from maritime attacks. But the group resumed their operations earlier this summer, dramatically attacking and sinking two Greek-owned ships. Vessel owners, who make more money when their ships travel on longer journeys around Africa, have been reluctant to return to the Red Sea. US President Donald Trump began a widespread bombing campaign against the Houthis earlier this year. Saudi Arabia lobbied him to stop the attacks before his visit to the Gulf in May, MEE revealed at the time. In a visit to Washington, DC, earlier this summer, an Egyptian intelligence delegation told US counterparts the only way to stop the Houthi attacks is to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, and that there was no appetite to resume military operations, an Arab diplomat told MEE.
Middle East Eye
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
'No Other Land' murder: Women in Awdah Hathaleen's village launch hunger strike
More than 70 women in the village where Awdah Hathaleen was killed on Monday have launched a hunger strike, calling for Israeli police to return his body and release residents arrested in the wake of his murder. Their protest comes as they say Israeli forces have raided family homes in the village each night since the killing, arresting their husbands and brothers and beating other family members. "A woman would be not properly dressed, lying in bed, and they would come in and open the door and say, 'We want your husband, we want your brother'," Ikhlas Hazalin, Hathaleen's sister-in-law, told Middle East Eye on Thursday. "Whenever they didn't find whom they were looking for, other family members would be beaten – his brother, or one of his family members – until the wanted person was brought in." Hazalin added: "I've never seen such brutality." New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Awdah Hathaleen was a 31-year-old English teacher and peaceful anti-settlement activist. He was allegedly shot by an Israeli settler, previously sanctioned by the US, in a confrontation captured on video. A consultant for the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, Hathaleen's murder has made global headlines and drawn international condemnation. He is one of 16 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli civilians in the West Bank since the 7 October 2023 attacks, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). Ten more Palestinians have been killed in circumstances in which the UN could not determine whether the perpetrator was a member of the Israeli forces or a settler. Israeli authorities are holding his body, preventing residents in Umm al-Khair – one of a string of communities in the South Hebron Hills – and his family from holding a funeral. 'By God, we won't eat until he arrives' - Ikhlas Hazalin, Awdah Hathaleen's sister-in-law For three days, his wife and nieces have been on hunger strike, saying they will refuse to eat until Hathaleen's body is returned. At midnight on Thursday, dozens of women in the village, including teenagers and those in their 70s, joined the protest, according to local reports and Hathaleen's sister-in-law. The women were compelled to participate after Israeli authorities offered to return Hathaleen's body on Wednesday evening, but under conditions: he would be handed over at 1am and only 15 people could attend his funeral. 'We saw that they were stubborn about not releasing him and wouldn't hand him over to us except on their terms,' Hazalin said. 'These are terms we will never accept. We, the people of Umm al-Khair, will never accept them.' Escalating violence Hathaleen's killing comes as observers and human rights organisations warn of state-backed settler violence displacing Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank, which has escalated dramatically following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023. At least 2,894 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence since January 2023, with 740 settler violence incidents recorded between January and June of this year, according to Ocha. Allegra Pacheco, head of the West Bank Protection Consortium, a group of international NGOs focused on protecting vulnerable Palestinian communities in the West Bank from forced displacement and attacks, said settler violence in the West Bank is 'completely connected' to Gaza. "The inhumanity and impunity in the West Bank are spillovers from the Gaza genocide,' Pacheco told MEE. 'What the soldiers and settlers are allowed to do, what the politicians are allowed to say… The call for destroying Gaza, for settling Gaza - all of that and the lack of public rejection of that. This is what you hear all the time on Israeli media. That's what reigns in the West Bank too.' 'The inhumanity and impunity in the West Bank are spillovers from the Gaza genocide' - Allegra Pacheco, West Bank Protection Consortium The current residents in Umm al-Khair are refugees from the Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 which led to the creation of Israel, and have been living in the village on land they purchased for over 50 years. The neighbouring Israeli settlement of Carmel was built in the 1980s on land belonging to residents. Pacheco, who was in Umm al-Khair on Thursday morning, said the residents have been facing a 'coercive environment' for years. 'No planning, water restrictions, no building, 16 rounds of house demolitions. Everything has a demolition order,' she said. 'But they've stayed. And they committed today firmly: we will stay until the last martyr.' In addition to their hunger strike, the women in the village also told Pacheco that they guarded their homes and land by themselves on Wednesday evening because there were so few men left to do it. "The Israelis arrested community members every night. They effectively were emptying the community of men and the women, in the last few nights, were on their own more and more,' she said. 'Every night, the men have this guard shift where they guard the houses from settlers. Last night, there were so few men that the women decided as a group [that] we have to do one of these shifts because there are no men left.' She added: 'I said to them, 'What would you have done if a settler had come?' A woman said, 'I don't know, but God gave me this sense of power that I could do anything and I just did it.'' West Bank 'emergency' Yinon Levi, the settler accused of killing Hathaleen, was previously sanctioned by the US under the Biden administration, but sanctions were lifted by President Donald Trump in January. The UK and the EU still have sanctions on Levi in place. On Tuesday, a court in Jerusalem released Levi from custody and placed him under house arrest. Israeli settler accused of killing No Other Land activist released under house arrest Read More » "This is the perversion of justice and of the narrative,' Pacheco said. 'The people who were injured are in prison. The people who tried to prevent this are in prison. The people who acted in self-defence are in prison. And the guy with the smoking gun - the guy who shot the gun on video - is sitting at home and drinking coffee.' She called on international leaders to provide a protection force for Palestinians in the West Bank immediately and not wait until September, when France, the UK, Canada and others are set to formally recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly. 'People will be dead by then. We are in an emergency in the West Bank,' she said. In Umm al-Khair, the women say they hope their hunger strike will be effective for this moment. "Perhaps, God willing, we can pressure them and there will be pressure to hand him over to us. The men also supported us and said they would join us within 24 hours if they don't hand him over," Hazalin said. "By God, we won't eat until he arrives."
Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Yoseph Haddad, pro-Israel advocate, arrested for firing gun during argument
Yoseph Haddad, a well known pro-Israel advocate and online personality, has been arrested by Israeli police after firing a gun during an argument. Israeli media reported that Haddad had been taken in for questioning after firing his weapon during an altercation with a motorist on a road in Jaffa. The other person was also arrested following the incident. According to the newspaper Maariv, it was alleged that one of the two individuals spat at the other. Police are investigating the incident. Haddad's lawyer, cited by Maariv, said that while some media had stated that the incident resulted from a 'roadside argument', it was actually 'based on racism and hatred against Yosef Haddad by an Arab man who recognised him and began to curse, threaten his life, and even spit on and physically attack him'. The lawyer stated that his client's car was overtaken by 'an Arab resident of Jaffa', who noticed that it was Haddad, made a u-turn, 'approached Haddad, attacked and cursed at him'. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Haddad then felt threatened, and so took out his gun to deter the attacker, at which point he shot at a nearby wall, causing no injuries. Middle East Eye could not independently verify the lawyer's account. 'Broader phenomenon' Haddad, who describes himself as an Arab-Israeli, has worked as a journalist and an advocate for several pro-Israel organisations. Last year, he was ejected from a fiery Oxford Union debate by two security officers after being accused of insulting a Palestinian student. He served in the Israeli military during the 2006 war with Lebanon, during which he was seriously wounded and had his foot amputated. Israeli settler accused of killing No Other Land activist released under house arrest Read More » 'The incident we saw today with Yosef Haddad is indicative of a much broader phenomenon concerning the chaos in the country,' Abed Abu Shahada, a Palestinian activist and writer from Jaffa, told Middle East Eye. 'Unfortunately, it's only when people start dying that the media begins to sound the alarm about the ongoing violence - whether in the West Bank or within Israel itself. Specifically, within Israel in the past two years, there have been hundreds of cases of assaults against Palestinian citizens.' Abu Shahada said that such incidents were taking place in the absence of functioning police institutions protecting personal safety. 'I'm not surprised that some in Israeli society see this chaos as an opportunity - an opportunity to take revenge on Arabs, to attack Arabs, to shoot at Arabs,' he said. 'This is part of the broader public atmosphere - starting with the genocide, and even a little before - but especially after the genocide in Gaza, cases of chaos and violence have only become more frequent and more intense, driven by a sense of power.'
Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
'If Egypt is free, Gaza will be free,' says activist who locked Cairo embassy
An Egyptian activist who chained shut the gates of Egypt's embassy in The Hague has told Middle East Eye that he did so in protest against Cairo's 'complicity' in Israel's genocide in Gaza. Last week, Anas Habib filmed himself attaching a bicycle lock around the gates of the embassy in the Netherlands, as a symbolic gesture in solidarity with Palestinians besieged by Israel and Egypt in Gaza. He went on to do the same act at the Jordanian embassy in response to the kingdom's response to Israel's war. The action went viral on Arabic social media, prompting similar demonstrations in other countries, including Turkey and the UK, where activists also chained shut the gates of Egyptian embassies. 'I know for 100 percent sure that the Egyptian regime is complicit in the genocide,' Habib told MEE's live show on Tuesday. 'This is just not an accusation; it's a fact.' New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters He said that in the first two months of Israel's war, in late 2023, before Israeli forces had occupied the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, Cairo had the ability to allow aid and food into the enclave but refused to do so. 'After it got occupied by the [Israeli military], now they are saying: 'No, it's closed',' said Habib. He added that the late former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's role in ending a previous Israeli war on Gaza in 2012 showed what the country was capable of achieving. 'It's something that we can do. Egypt is capable of stopping this genocide, stopping this war very easily, but he does not want that to happen,' Habib added, referring to President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. At the age of 15, Habib was detained by Egyptian authorities for two years as a political prisoner. He said that if he were to return there now, he would be arrested or killed. Around 60,000 political prisoners are currently being held in Egyptian jails. As further evidence of Egyptian complicity, Habib questioned why Egyptians were being arrested for showing solidarity with Palestinians. 'Why do you arrest the people trying to send money to Gaza?' he asked. 'Why, if anyone tries to hold [the] Palestinian flag in Egypt, will [they] be vanished?' 'If you really love Palestine so much, why are you doing this to your people?' 'Hurts me so much as an Egyptian' The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), the largest humanitarian provider in Gaza, has had 6,000 trucks loaded with food and medical supplies waiting in Egypt and Jordan for four and a half months. Israel has yet to allow them entry. Hundreds of international activists attempting to march to the Gaza Strip through Egypt have been violently attacked, detained and deported since the beginning of the conflict. They were among 4,000 activists from 80 countries who sought to break Israel's total siege. Habib said he holds Jordan and Egypt accountable for Israeli crimes in Gaza. 'If it was not for Sisi, if it was not for the king of Jordan… this genocide wouldn't last for two years,' he said. 'I'm Egyptian. It hurts me so much to see that my country is doing this to Palestine.' He said that freedom within Egypt from autocratic rule would ensure that 'Gaza will never face this type of genocide'. 'If it was not for Sisi, if it was not for the king of Jordan… this genocide wouldn't last for two years' - Anas Habib, activist 'If Egyptian people are free, Gaza also will be free,' Habib said. 'That's why [Israel and the US] want someone like Sisi in power.' Nearly 150 Palestinian children and adults in Gaza have died from starvation since Israel's onslaught on Gaza began in October 2023. The blockade on the Palestinian enclave has fluctuated in intensity. However, since 2 March, Israel has prevented all food and aid from reaching starving Palestinians. Last week, more than 100 international human rights and humanitarian organisations called for an end to the siege, citing widespread starvation affecting their staff. Unrwa communications director Juliette Touma also told MEE last week that several of the organisation's staff fainted on duty due to malnutrition. More than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed as a result of Israel's war on Gaza, which several countries, as well as many international rights groups and experts, now classify as genocide.
Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Exclusive: Spain and Ireland to join more than 30 states to declare ‘concrete measures' against Israel
More than 30 countries are convening in Bogota next week to declare 'concrete measures against Israel's violations of international law', diplomats told Middle East Eye. The 'emergency summit' is due to be held on 15-16 July, co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and South Africa as co-chairs of The Hague Group, to coordinate diplomatic and legal action to counter what they describe as 'a climate of impunity' enabled by Israel and its powerful allies. The Hague Group is a bloc of currently eight states, launched on 31 January in the eponymous Dutch city with the stated goal of holding Israel accountable under international law. 'The Hague Group's formation in January marked a turning point in the global response to exceptionalism and the broader erosion of international law,' Roland Lamola, South Africa's minister of international relations and cooperation, told Middle East Eye. 'That same spirit will animate this Bogota conference, where the assembled states will send a clear message: no nation is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered,' he added. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters 'Together, we will work to introduce concrete legal, diplomatic and economic measures that can urgently halt Israel's destruction of the Palestinians.' 'The assembled states will not only reaffirm our commitment to resist the genocide, but devise a series of specific measures to move from words to collective action' - Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir, Colombia's vice-minister of multilateral affairs Israel's war on Gaza, increasingly condemned by experts and governments as a genocide, has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians and displaced almost the entire population since October 2023. The onslaught has left the Palestinian enclave barely habitable and left two million people starving. 'The Palestinian genocide threatens our entire multilateral system,' Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir, Colombia's vice-minister of multilateral affairs, told MEE. 'Colombia cannot be indifferent in the face of apartheid and ethnic cleansing. "In Bogota, the assembled states will not only reaffirm our commitment to resist the genocide, but devise a series of specific measures to move from words to collective action.' The founding members of the group included Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa. UN urged to take legal action at ICJ to uphold Francesca Albanese's immunity Read More » In addition to Colombia and South Africa as co-chairs, states due to take part in the summit include Algeria, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iraq, Ireland, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Namibia, Nicaragua, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Portugal, Spain, Qatar, Turkey, Slovenia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Officials attending include UN special rapporteur for Palestine Francesca Albanese; the head of the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees Philippe Lazzarini; UN special rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng; the chair of the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls, Laura Nyirinkindi; and Andres Macias Tolosa, UN working group on mercenaries mandate holder. Speaking to Middle East Eye ahead of the summit, Albanese, who was sanctioned on Wednesday by the US for her work documenting human rights abuses in Palestine, welcomed the summit as "the most important thing that we can do right now politically." "We need to focus on the emergency measures, how to break the blockade, and how to create the conditions to disable the system that is strangling the Palestinians." 'The Bogotá conference will go down as the moment in history that states finally stood up to do the right thing,' she said. Concrete steps Members of The Hague Group have already taken major steps over the past 20 months to defend and enforce international law. Holding Israel accountable: What is The Hague Group? Read More » South Africa, for example, brought a landmark case against Israel at the International Court of Justice for alleged violations of the Genocide Convention in Gaza. Several states in the coalition later joined South Africa's case at the ICJ, including Bolivia, Colombia and Namibia. Additionally, Namibia and Malaysia blocked ships carrying arms to Israel from docking at their ports, while Colombia has cut diplomatic ties with the Israeli government. Since these efforts have been taken independently, The Hague Group aims to coordinate action amongst its member states and supporters for a stronger impact. According to the group's coordinator Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the group has been formed in part as a reaction to the non-compliance of states with binding international legal obligations. This is a reference to the pushback by a number of western states against the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024, and Israel's failure to comply with multiple orders by the ICJ to ensure the Genocide Convention is not violated in Gaza.
