10-03-2025
Houthi Deadline for Gaza Aid Puts Red Sea Shipping Security in Doubt
A return to the Red Sea for container shipping appears to be on thin ice.
On Friday, Yemen's Houthis gave Israel a four-day deadline to lift its blockade on humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. If Israel does not comply, the militant group will 'resume our naval operations against the Israeli enemy,' said leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in a televised statement.
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The Houthis had launched missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels traversing the Red Sea and neighboring Gulf of Aden throughout last year, forcing ocean carriers to avoid the trip through the Suez Canal and instead reroute ships around southern Africa's Cape of Good Hope.
The mass diversions ended up tacking on one-to-two weeks' worth of travel for any cargo going from Asia to Europe, or westward shipments from Asia to North and South America.
While a complex three-phase ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began last month, the uncertainty surrounding the relations between both parties has kept ocean carriers by and large away from the Red Sea.
Soren Toft and Vincent Clerc, the CEOs of Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and Maersk, respectively, have called out the lack of safety guarantees as the top reason for their hesitance to return.
Speaking at the TPM25 trade and logistics conference, Toft called the Red Sea situation 'unpredictable.'
'It has to be safe,' Toft said. 'And right now it's not safe, and we know it's all linked to a number of agreements in the Middle East that are still being discussed. So for us, there is no immediate return back to the to the Red Sea. But could it happen in two months, six months, next year? I don't know. I think eventually it will happen, and then we will follow suit.'
During a fourth-quarter earnings call in February, Clerc acknowledged that Maersk couldn't make a call to return to the Red Sea, only to go back on that decision later. He estimated that costs would rack up in the 'hundreds of millions of dollars' in such a scenario.
Clerc said that while customers are eager to go back, 'they all always have that caveat. We don't want to go and flip-flop back and forth. You get one shot at going through the Suez.'
At the time of the ceasefire, which includes the gradual release of hostages in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the Houthis announced a cessation of the attacks. Although the Suez Canal has been insistent that the trade artery is stabilizing, that hasn't driven traffic to the canal in the time since.
According to data from Lloyd's List Intelligence, transits through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Suez Canal did not grow across January and February, instead falling 11 percent and 21 percent, respectively.
Lloyd's List says 159 cargo-carrying ships have passed through the area since the Jan. 19 ceasefire, accounting for 186 of the 1,309 voyages recorded during this time. These vessels represent 16 percent of the total number of ships sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb over the past six weeks.
Since late 2023, when the major container shipping firms avoided the area, more than 130 Houthi attacks occurred throughout the region, according to crisis mapping and data collection firm Armed Conflict Location and Event Data.
But as a ceasefire grew closer, the Iran-backed, U.S.-designated terrorist organization slowed down its attacks on shipping. The last confirmed attempt was intercepted by the U.S. Navy in between Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.
Israel has banned food, medicine and aid from entering Gaza following a standoff with Hamas in ceasefire negotiations earlier in March over the return of Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. Israel also accused Hamas of stealing aid to support its military operations, a claim the group has denied.
The first 42-day stage of the ceasefire expired on Saturday night. Israel, Hamas and the U.S. will take part in more ceasefire talks in Qatar this week. Israel has largely held off on the second round of negotiations since 'phase two' of the deal would require the country to fully withdraw from Gaza—a concession Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thus far signaled he was unwilling to make until Hamas has been dismantled. Tensions have escalated
President Donald Trump's hostage affairs envoy Adam Boehler, who has held direct talks with Hamas, says the group has proposed a five-to-10-year truce with Israel.
Ahead of the initial ceasefire, the Israel-Hamas war had been ongoing since the terrorist organization's invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed.
