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Shippers mask positions, weigh options amid Red Sea attacks

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A number of container ships are anchored in the Red Sea and others have turned off tracking systems as traders adjust routes and prices in response to maritime attacks by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on the world’s main East-West trade route.

Attacks in recent days on ships in the major Red Sea shipping route have raised the specter of another bout of disruption to international commerce following the upheaval of the COVID pandemic, and prompted a U.S.-led international force to patrol waters near Yemen, Reuters reported.

The Red Sea is linked to the Mediterranean by the Suez Canal, which creates the shortest shipping route between Europe and Asia. About 12% of world shipping traffic transits the canal.

Major shippers including Hapag Lloyd (HLAG.DE), MSC and Maersk (MAERSKb.CO), oil major BP (BP.L) and oil tanker group Frontline (FRO.OL) have said they will be avoiding the Red Sea route and re-routing via southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

But many ships are still plying the waterway. Several ships underway have armed guards on board, LSEG data showed.

At least 11 container ships which had passed through Suez and were approaching Yemen carrying consumer goods and grains bound for countries including Singapore, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, are now anchored in the Red Sea between Sudan and Saudi Arabia, LSEG shiptracking data showed.

Four MSC container ships in the Red Sea have had their transponders turned off since Dec. 17, the data showed, likely to avoid detection.

Some vessels are attempting to mask their positions by pinging on other locations, as a safety precaution when entering the Yemen coastline, said Ioannis Papadimitriou, senior freight analyst at Vortexa.

Denmark’s Maersk on Friday paused all container shipments through the Red Sea following a “near-miss incident” involving its vessel Maersk Gibraltar a day earlier. A number of the ships at anchor in the Red Sea are Maersk vessels, LSEG data showed.

On Tuesday it said vessels previously paused and due to sail through the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden would be rerouted around Africa.

The Iran-backed Houthis, who say they are supporting Palestinians under siege by Israel in the Gaza Strip, have waded into the Israel-Hamas conflict by attacking vessels in vital shipping lanes and even firing drones and missiles at Israel, more than 1,000 miles from the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

Houthis attacked two commercial shipping vessels in the southern Red Sea on Monday.

Industry sources say the impact on global trade will depend on how long the crisis persists, but insurance premiums and longer routes would be immediate burdens.

Vortexa’s Papadimitriou on Tuesday said the price of a Suezmax to carry crude from the Middle East to Europe has risen 25% in a week.

The disruption to energy flows in the Red Sea is unlikely to have large effects on crude and liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices, Goldman Sachs said on Monday, as vessels can be redirected.

“We do estimate that a hypothetical prolonged redirection of all 7 million barrels per day of gross (Northbound and Southbound) oil flows would raise spot crude prices relative to long-dated prices by $3-4/per barrel

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Three Israeli hostages freed in Gaza, Israel begins releasing 369 Palestinians in exchange

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Israeli hostages Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel-Chen and Sasha (Alexander) Troufanov were freed in Gaza on Saturday and Israel began releasing some 369 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange, after mediators helped avert a ceasefire collapse.

The three Israelis were led onto a stage with Palestinian Hamas militants armed with automatic rifles standing on each side of them at the site in Khan Younis, live footage showed, before they were taken into Israel by Israeli forces, Reuters reported.

Shortly afterwards, the first bus carrying freed Palestinian prisoners and detainees departed Israel’s Ofer jail in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, live footage showed. The bus arrived in Ramallah to a cheering crowd, some waving Palestinian flags.

The swap of the three Israelis for the 369 Palestinians eased fears that the ceasefire agreement could collapse before the end of the 42-day first stage of a ceasefire deal in effect since January 19.

In what has become known as Hostage Square in Tel Aviv, people broke into cheers and tears when they heard the Red Cross was on its way to deliver the three to Israeli military forces in the Gaza Strip.

They appeared relieved to see that the trio was in apparently better physical condition than another three freed last week who appeared emaciated and weak.

Residents of Israeli kibbutz communities near the Gaza border lined the road cheering and waving Israeli flags as the vehicles carrying the hostages out of Gaza passed by.

Dekel-Chen, a U.S.-Israeli, Troufanov, a Russian Israeli, and Horn, whose brother Eitan was also abducted, were seized in Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the communities around the Gaza Strip that was overrun by Hamas gunmen on October 7, 2023.

Some of the dozens of masked Hamas fighters deployed at the handover site carried rifles seized from the Israeli military during the October attack, Hamas sources said.

On the handover stage in Khan Younis, the hostages were made to give short statements in Hebrew and militants presented one of them, Iair Horn, with an hourglass and photo of another Israeli hostage still in Gaza and his mother, reading “time is running out (for the hostages still in Gaza)”.

Troufanov was abducted with his mother, grandmother and girlfriend – all of whom were released in the brief November 2023 truce. His father was killed in the attack on Nir Oz, one of the worst-hit communities, where one in four people either died or were taken hostage.

On October 7, Dekel-Chen, 36, left his pregnant wife and two little daughters in the family safe room to go out and fight the gunmen rampaging through the kibbutz. With his release, he will meet his youngest daughter for the first time.

Argentina-born Horn, 46, who managed the Nir Oz pub, was taken captive together with his younger brother Eitan who was visiting that day. Horn appeared to have lost considerable weight in captivity.

“Now, we can breathe a little. Our Iair is home after surviving hell in Gaza. Now, we need to bring Eitan back so our family can truly breathe,” Horn’s family said in a statement.

Nineteen Israeli and five Thai hostages have been released so far, with 73 still in captivity, around half of whom have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.

THREATS

Hamas had earlier threatened not to release more hostages after it accused Israel of violating the terms of the ceasefire by blocking aid from entering Gaza, drawing counterthreats of a resumption of fighting from Israel, which called up reservists and placed its forces on high alert.

The emaciated appearance of the three hostages freed last week and accounts of abuse by other hostages released since January 19 when the truce took effect have set off Israeli protests demanding the government stick to the ceasefire and pursue the next stage to bring all remaining hostages home.

In an apparent effort to head off some of the criticism of hostage mistreatment, Islamic Jihad, the militant group that is allied with Hamas and held Troufanov, released a video of him on Friday, showing him eating and fishing at the Gaza beach.

Prospects for the ceasefire surviving have also been clouded by U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for Palestinians to be moved permanently out of Gaza, and for the enclave to be turned over to the U.S. to be redeveloped. That call was flatly rejected by Palestinian groups, Arab states and Western allies.

Hamas agreed last month to hand over 33 Israeli hostages, including women, children and sick, wounded and older men, in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, during a six-week truce during which Israeli forces would pull back from some of their positions in Gaza.

Before Saturday, 16 of the 33 Israeli hostages had been returned, along with five Thais who were handed over in an unscheduled release. That left 76 hostages still in Gaza, only around half of whom are thought to be alive.

The truce was intended to open the way for a second phase of negotiations to return remaining hostages and complete the withdrawal of Israeli forces before a final end to the war and the rebuilding of Gaza, which now lies largely in ruins, facing shortages of food, running water and electricity.

Israel invaded the coastal enclave after the Hamas-led attack on communities in Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and taking 251 as hostages.

The Israeli military campaign that followed has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to Palestinian health ministry figures, destroyed many of its buildings and left most of the population homeless.

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Iran’s Khamenei cites need to further develop Iran’s military after Trump threats

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday questioned U.S. sincerity in seeking talks with Tehran while imposing tougher sanctions echoing those Trump implemented during his first, 2017-21 term in office.

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Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Iran should further develop its military, including its missiles, after U.S. President Donald Trump made threats of force against Tehran if it refused to negotiate over its nuclear programme, Reuters reported.

Khamenei spoke a day after Iran’s U.N. ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, condemned what he called “reckless and inflammatory statements” by Trump in interviews with the New York Post and Fox News in which he said he preferred doing a deal to prevent Tehran developing a nuclear weapon to bombing the country.

“Progress should not be stopped, we cannot be satisfied (with our current level). Say that we previously set a limit for the accuracy of our missiles, but we now feel this limit is no longer enough. We have to go forward,” Khamenei said, citing a need to focus on innovation in the Iranian military.

“Today, our defensive power is well-known, our enemies are afraid of this. This is very important for our country,” he added after visiting a Tehran exhibition showcasing the latest developments in Iran’s defence sector.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that during the exhibition a jet-powered “suicide drone” – loitering munitions that hover over targets – was unveiled with imagery of a submarine-launched kamikaze drone displayed for the first time, read the report.

Tehran insists its ballistic missile programme is purely defensive but it is seen in the West as a destabilising factor in a volatile, conflict-ridden region.

Khamenei, who said on Friday that talks with the United States were “not smart, wise or honourable”, made no mention of Trump in his remarks on Wednesday

Trump last week restored his “maximum pressure”, policy towards Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero to push the Islamic Republic into a deal that would severely constrain its disputed nuclear programme.

Western powers have long suspected that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme is a disguised project to develop nuclear bomb material. Iran denies this, saying it seeks nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday questioned U.S. sincerity in seeking talks with Tehran while imposing tougher sanctions echoing those Trump implemented during his first, 2017-21 term in office.

Iravani, Tehran’s United Nations ambassador, wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council that the Trump administration’s policy “reinforces unlawful, unilateral coercive measures and escalates hostility against Iran.”

Though Iran has long denied nuclear weapon ambitions, it is “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to 60% fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December, Reuters reported.

Tehran has in recent months announced new additions to its conventional weaponry, such as its first drone carrier and an underground naval base amid rising tensions with the U.S. and its regional arch-enemy Israel.

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Iran alerts UN to Trump threat of force, says it will defend itself

Iravani urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn Trump’s brazen rhetoric.

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Iran alerted the United Nations on Tuesday to what it described as “reckless and inflammatory statements” by U.S. President Donald Trump threatening the use of force, and warned that “any act of aggression will have severe consequences.”

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, seen by Reuters, Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani referenced remarks made by Trump in interviews with the New York Post and Fox News, in which he spoke of a preference to do a deal to stop Tehran getting a nuclear weapon over bombing the country, Reuters reported.

“These reckless and inflammatory statements flagrantly violate international law and the U.N. Charter,” Iravani wrote to the 15-member council.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran warns that any act of aggression will have severe consequences, for which the U.S. will bear full responsibility,” he said. “Iran will resolutely defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national interests against any hostile action.”

Trump last week restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero in order to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He also said he was open to a deal and expressed a willingness to talk to Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, read the report.

Pezeshkian on Monday questioned the United States’ sincerity, while Iravani wrote in his letter that the U.S. policy “reinforces unlawful, unilateral coercive measures and escalates hostility against Iran.”

Iravani urged the U.N. Security Council to condemn Trump’s “brazen rhetoric.”

Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the U.N. nuclear watchdog chief told Reuters in December.

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