Satellite images show a ship hijacked by Houthis near Yemen’s port
A ship seized by Yemen’s Houthi militia in the Red Sea on Sunday was anchored just outside a busy Yemeni port on Tuesday, an analysis of satellite images by The New York Times shows.
A satellite image captured Tuesday morning local time showed the ship, the Galaxy Leader, anchored among other ships off the Red Sea port of Al-Hudaydah, about 700 kilometers southeast of the location broadcast in the last received broadcast of the weekend.
Based on another satellite image, The Times was able to determine that the Galaxy Leader had arrived in port on Monday. The ship was first spotted on satellite images by Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, which monitors global shipping.
The Times previously verified a video released by the Houthi militia on Monday showing its forces seizing the Galaxy Leader. The video shows a military helicopter depositing at least ten armed men on the deck of the approximately 180-meter-long ship and taking over the ship’s bridge. The video ends with the ship, now carrying the Houthi flag, as well as a Palestinian flag, surrounded by smaller Houthi boats.
The video also contained clues to when and where the ship was hijacked, including a clock and a navigation computer screen, showing the difficult time and location when Houthi fighters took over the ship on Sunday, near the coast of Yemen.
Hours before the hijacking, the Houthi militia – part of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, along with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and armed groups in Iraq – had threatened to attack Israeli-owned and operated-flagged ships that crossed the Red Sea. After the ship was seized, a Houthi spokesman announced that the hijacking was a demonstration of support for “the oppressed Palestinian people.”
The Israeli military said the ship was bound for India from Turkey and had an “international crew, with no Israelis.”
According to the Paradise Papers, the ultimate owner of the company – that is, the person who controls it, owns more than a quarter of the company, or derives substantial economic benefit from it – appears to have been an Israeli billionaire at one point, Rami Ungar. , a major leak of confidential documents that exposed a hidden world of wealth and ownership in 2017.
The Houthis took over the Yemeni capital Sana in 2014 and now rule much of northern Yemen, despite attempts by a Saudi-led military coalition to rout them. They have long expressed support for the Palestinian cause and hostility toward Israel, and have repeatedly threatened to initiate conflict between Israel and Hamas. Last month, the Houthis claimed an attempted rocket and drone attack on southern Israel.