Entering 2024, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is still ongoing, and the Red Sea is not peaceful. Because the Houthis in Yemen threatened and made a move to attack merchant ships traveling with Israel, making Western countries feel like they were facing a great enemy, the US military not only sank three Houthi warships, but also issued an "ultimatum" with the British army, otherwise it would "start a war" against the Houthis. On the other hand, 11 senior Iranian officials were killed in Israeli airstrikes, just as Iran executed several members of Israeli intelligence agencies, and the two sides were also in a state of tension.
According to the Observer, on December 31, 2023, the merchant ship "Maersk Hangzhou" was attacked by Yemen's Houthi rebels in the Red Sea region, and the U.S. Navy responded to the merchant ship's distress signal and sank three Houthi ships, killing 10 Houthi fighters, which may lead to further escalation of the situation in the Red Sea.
The United States wants to defend its so-called "freedom of navigation" interests in the Red Sea, and Britain seems to want to join in the fun. The British military is planning to launch missile strikes against Houthi targets at sea or in Yemen, in conjunction with the United States, The Times reported on December 31, 2023. The UK and the US are expected to issue an "unprecedented ultimatum" warning the Houthis to stop attacking merchant ships or else Western military forces will act, according to a British government source.
Why is Britain so anxious to get involved in the Red Sea affair? It also plans to issue an "ultimatum" with the United States, and the Houthis will "go to war" if they do not rein in their words. Of course, the United States and Britain may not have time to take care of the Red Sea, so they still think of "more people and more courage" and are ready to pull European countries together to carry out escort operations.
Since the outbreak of the current round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Yemen's Houthi rebels have announced that they will crack down on "Israeli-related" ships in the Red Sea region, and have successively launched attacks in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, first detaining the "Galaxy Leader" steamer that has business dealings with Israeli shipping companies on November 19, 2023, and transforming it into a marine park, which has become an Internet celebrity check-in point for Yemenis. Within a month of that, the Houthis used suicide drones and anti-ship missiles to attack four cargo ships, and even leaked a decent video of the landing and arrest, which caused an international outcry and prevented the United States and Britain from coming to power.
This is not a trivial problem, the Houthis are engaged in "broken battles" and "ship raids" in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, attacking merchant ships that have no defensive capabilities, and the result can only be to deter passing ships in the Red Sea. Sure enough, a number of international shipping companies, including the four major European shipping giants, have announced the suspension of navigation in the Red Sea.
This is a terrible situation, you know, bypassing the Red Sea or suspending sailing can cause huge losses to global shipping. The passage from the Suez Canal through the Red Sea out of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is an important shipping route for global shipping, with about 20,000 cargo ships passing through it every year, and 30% of the world's containers passing through here, which is directly related to a large number of international trade and maritime oil transportation, compared with the Panama Canal accounting for only about 5%.
Take the world-famous Suez Canal blockage in 2021, for example, which is estimated to cost the world between $6 billion and $10 billion per week in global trade. Another example is the June 2019 Iranian attack on two oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which led to a 4% increase in international oil prices, as well as an increase in insurance premiums for international shipping vessels.
Therefore, the U.S. side is very impatient, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also announced the formation of a multinational maritime coalition to carry out the "Prosperity Guardian" escort operation to protect merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in his speech on December 18, 2023. The "Red Sea Operation" has brought together 10 countries, including the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, and Italy. However, although Yemen's Houthi attacks are aimed at Israel, even if the U.S. Navy has a crushing advantage over Yemen's Houthis, it is unlikely that the U.S. military will unilaterally send more warships to defend the Red Sea shipping lanes.
Embarrassingly, just a day after the U.S. announced the move, the global shipping giant Denmark's Maersk Group said it would continue to suspend all routes through the Red Sea. Since then, a number of international shipping companies have decided to bypass the Red Sea. It can be seen that the US military is engaged in multinational patrols in an attempt to find a step down for itself, but this has not lifted the "alarm" in the Red Sea, and has wantonly rallied a group of allies to escort the ship. According to the Russian Satellite News Agency on January 2, a US warship and Houthi vessels had a "fierce clashes" in the Red Sea.
It can be said that the recent instability in the Red Sea is still the "spillover" effect of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the United States has been accusing Iran of being the "mastermind" behind many recent incidents in the Red Sea. According to Iran's Tasnim news agency, on January 1, the Iranian destroyer "Alborz" entered the Red Sea through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This will certainly be hyped up by the Western media, who believe that Iran has been supporting the Houthis behind the scenes.
In addition, Iran and Israel have been at odds for a long time, and recently the Western media revealed that Israeli airstrikes killed 11 senior Iranian officials. On the night of December 28, an Israeli airstrike on Syria's Damascus airport killed 11 senior Iranian military officers, Fox News reported. The 11 officers, members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, were in the air to meet a "high-level delegation" at Damascus International Airport when they were attacked, the report said. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, however, dismissed the claim, calling the report "baseless." The IDF told Business Insider that they had "nothing to comment" on the reports.
In the face of Israel's aggressiveness, the Iranian side is not a vegetarian, and it also uses saber-rattling methods to warn and retaliate against Israel. On December 29, 2023, Iran's judiciary announced the execution of four members of a sabotage team linked to Israel's intelligence and secret service Mossad for "carrying out many actions that endanger Iran's national security under the guidance of the Mossad," and several others were sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to Iran's Noor News Network.
As a matter of fact, the United States wants to be the "world's policeman," and since shipping in the Red Sea involves such a wide range of interests, it is not wrong to say that the current problem facing the Red Sea is an "international problem." However, the thinking and way of thinking and solving problems in the United States is unilateral and one-way, and "a headache and a pain in the feet" are one-sided. As for the "Red Sea Escort Alliance" that the United States wants to form, many countries do not buy it, and besides, Arab countries will not approve of allowing the war to continue to spread in the Middle East, the Spanish Ministry of Defense has made it clear that it will not participate, and the Netherlands, Italy, and Norway are all in a rather ambiguous state.
In short, the Houthis demand is for Israel to stop its military operations in Gaza, otherwise there is "room for bargaining", and Iran and Israel have recently targeted each other with "assassinations" and "trial executions". It can be seen that the incident in the Red Sea is actually a spillover of the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and in order to fundamentally solve the current problem, it is still necessary to greatly ease the Palestinian-Israeli situation and better handle the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.