The Israeli plan to establish an alternative route for the delivery of goods comes as the Red Sea continues to be a high-tension zone between the Houthis and Israel as well as its Western allies.
Israel is planning on transporting goods from India through the United Arab Emirates in a “Houthi bypass axis” to avoid passing from the Red Sea, Tel Aviv’s Transport Minister Miri Regev said on X.
“I have established professional teams that will work to enable the overland transportation of goods from Abu Dhabi to Israel. The overland transportation of the goods will shorten the time by 12 days and greatly reduce the existing waiting time due to the wire problem,” Regev said.
The UAE and India share strong diplomatic and economic ties with Israel despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has prompted some countries to take a harder stance towards Tel Aviv. Since October 7, Israel has killed 25,490 Palestinians and wounded 63,354 others in Gaza.
The Israeli plan to establish an alternative route for the delivery of goods comes as the Red Sea continues to be a high-tension zone between the Houthis and Israel as well as its Western allies.
The Houthi’s capture of the Galaxy Leadership on November 19, which is partially owned by an Israeli businessman, marked the first such attack on an Israel-linked vessel. Yemen’s Houthis have since vowed to include American ships in the ongoing Red Sea attacks.
Every Israel-linked vessel moving from the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat to Asia, Australia or East Africa would be subjected to an attack. Instead, the ships would have to take a longer path and manoeuvre the Bab El-Mandeb Strait, consequently paying a heavy additional fee.
The move prompted the U.S. to launch Operation Prosperity Guardian on December 18, 2023, a coalition aimed at addressing “security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.”
The operation includes the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain.
The U.S. and the UK launched their latest round of joint strikes against what they labelled as “eight Houthi targets” in Yemen on Monday. The attack marked the eighth to be carried out by the U.S. in Yemen since January 11 and the UK’s second.
On January 17, Washington re-listed the Houthis as terrorists after they were de-listed in February 2021, when U.S. President Joe Biden came to office.
“The Houthis must be held accountable for their actions, but it should not be at the expense of Yemeni civilians. As the Department of State moves forward with this designation, we are taking significant steps to mitigate any adverse impacts this designation may have on the people of Yemen,” Washington said after relisting the Houthis.
The regional escalations came as the Yemeni file gained momentum for the first time since the beginning of the war in 2015 between the Saudi-led military coalition and the Houthi rebels.
The United Nations Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen (OSESGY) announced a peace roadmap last month following talks with Saudi Arabia and Oman.
It came after Yemen witnessed its first period of peace in April 2022 following a UN-brokered ceasefire that expired in October of the same year when all sides failed to agree on an extension.
Yemen has since experienced a period of relative calm despite the expiration of the ceasefire, especially amid talks between Saudi and Omani delegations with Houthi rebel officials.
The developments came after a China-brokered deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year, which led to the resumption of relations between the former regional rivals.
A Houthi delegation visited the Saudi capital of Riyadh in late September 2023 for five days of talks, marking the first such official visit to the kingdom since the war broke out.
