The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and took the crew as hostages. The group warned that it would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel’s campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
“All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said the 25 crew members had a range of nationalities, including Bulgarian, Filipino, Mexican and Ukrainian, but that no Israelis had been on board.
The ship is owned by a British firm, which apparently has some vague tie to someone Israeli. They’re really just making an excuse to commit piracy here.
Piracy is lucrative, because no-one takes it seriously nowadays. There is a 0% chance that ship or its personnel had any weapons to defend themselves with and a very high chance the company backing the ship will simply pay to ransom it and its crew, encouraging them to do it again. Functionally zero risk for very, very high reward.
Sort of. There was a lot of piracy in Somali waters a few years ago. But when it got bad, they did take it seriously, with multiple navies sending ships to patrol the area, and with private security on board the cargo ships.