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Yemen's Houthis Target Ship in the Bab El-Mandeb Strait Off Red Sea

A handout screenshot of footage made available on 03 October 2024 by the Houthis media center shows flames and smoke rising from an explosion at the British oil ship Cordelia Moon after an attack by an unmanned Houthi exploding boat in the Red Sea, 01 October 2024. EPA/HOUTHIS MEDIA CENTER / HANDOUT
A handout screenshot of footage made available on 03 October 2024 by the Houthis media center shows flames and smoke rising from an explosion at the British oil ship Cordelia Moon after an attack by an unmanned Houthi exploding boat in the Red Sea, 01 October 2024. EPA/HOUTHIS MEDIA CENTER / HANDOUT
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Yemen's Houthis Target Ship in the Bab El-Mandeb Strait Off Red Sea

A handout screenshot of footage made available on 03 October 2024 by the Houthis media center shows flames and smoke rising from an explosion at the British oil ship Cordelia Moon after an attack by an unmanned Houthi exploding boat in the Red Sea, 01 October 2024. EPA/HOUTHIS MEDIA CENTER / HANDOUT
A handout screenshot of footage made available on 03 October 2024 by the Houthis media center shows flames and smoke rising from an explosion at the British oil ship Cordelia Moon after an attack by an unmanned Houthi exploding boat in the Red Sea, 01 October 2024. EPA/HOUTHIS MEDIA CENTER / HANDOUT

Yemen's Houthi militants targeted a ship traveling through the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Red Sea on Monday, though it escaped undamaged, authorities said.
The attack ended an 18-day lull in reported assaults attributed to the Houthis, who have been attacking ships traveling through the Red Sea corridor for nearly a year now over the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. The violence has disrupted international shipping through the region, once valued at $1 trillion in goods annually.
The vessel passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Peninsula from East Africa, reported the attack, the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.
The ship's captain reported two explosions near the ship, though “the vessel and all crew are reported as safe,” the UKMTO added.
The private security firm Ambrey also described the attack as involving “two close proximity explosions.” It said the vessel wasn't transmitting its position at the time, and it had a private armed security force on board, which many ships have chosen to do amid the Houthi attacks, The Associated Press said.
Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the attack late Monday night. He identified the ship as the Liberian-flagged bulk carrier Motaro and claimed without offering evidence the group hit the vessel. He also claimed two other unreported attacks in the Arabian Sea, but offered no evidence they took place.
The Iranian-backed Houthis routinely exaggerate their claims.
The last Houthi attack came Oct. 10, targeting the Liberian-flagged chemical tanker Olympic Spirit. It's unclear what led to the pause, which has happened multiple times in the Houthi campaign. On Oct. 17, the US military unleashed B-2 stealth bombers to target underground bunkers used by the militants.
The Houthis have targeted more than 90 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October last year. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign which also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The militants maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
The Houthis have shot down multiple American MQ-9 Reaper drones as well.

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A Lebanese Family Planning for a Daughter's Wedding is Killed in an Israeli Strike on Their Home

A photo of Reda Gharib’s family, from left: Racha, Nour, Hanan, and Maya Gharib who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their house in al- Housh, in the southern town of Tyre, on September 23 at the onset of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. (AP)
A photo of Reda Gharib’s family, from left: Racha, Nour, Hanan, and Maya Gharib who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their house in al- Housh, in the southern town of Tyre, on September 23 at the onset of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. (AP)
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A Lebanese Family Planning for a Daughter's Wedding is Killed in an Israeli Strike on Their Home

A photo of Reda Gharib’s family, from left: Racha, Nour, Hanan, and Maya Gharib who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their house in al- Housh, in the southern town of Tyre, on September 23 at the onset of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. (AP)
A photo of Reda Gharib’s family, from left: Racha, Nour, Hanan, and Maya Gharib who were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their house in al- Housh, in the southern town of Tyre, on September 23 at the onset of the Israeli-Hezbollah war. (AP)

The family WhatsApp group chat buzzed with constant messages. Israel was escalating its airstrikes on villages and towns in southern Lebanon. Everyone was glued to the news.
Reda Gharib woke up uncharacteristically early that day, Sept. 23. Living a continent away in Senegal, he scrolled through videos and pictures shared by his sisters and aunts of explosions around their neighborhood in Tyre, Lebanon’s ancient coastal city.
His aunts decided to leave for Beirut. His father, mother and three sisters had no such plans, The Associated Press reported.
Then his father announced to the group that he had received a call from the Israeli military to evacuate or risk their lives. After that, the chat fell silent. Ten minutes later, Gharib called his father. There was no answer.
The Gharibs’ apartment had been directly hit by an Israeli airstrike. The family had no time to get out. Gharib’s father, Ahmed, a retired Lebanese army officer, his mother, Hanan, and his three sisters were all killed.
“The whole apartment was gone. It is back to bare bones. As if there was nothing there,” said Gharib, speaking from the Senegalese capital, Dakar, where he has been living since 2020.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hezbollah site hiding rocket launchers and missiles.
Gharib said his family had no connection to Hezbollah. The direct hit gutted their apartment, while those above and below suffered only damage, suggesting a specific part of the building was targeted. Gharib said it was his family's home.
The strike was one of more than 1,600 Israel said it carried out on Sept. 23, the first day of an intensified bombardment of Lebanon it has waged for the past month. More than 500 people were killed that day, a casualty figure not observed in Gaza on a single day until the second week, said Emily Tripp, director of London-based Airwars, a conflict monitoring group.
Israel has vowed to cripple Hezbollah to put an end to more than a year of cross-border fire by the Iranian-backed militant group that began the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered the war in Gaza. It says its strikes are targeting Hezbollah’s members and infrastructure. But there are also hundreds of civilians among the more than 2,000 people killed in the bombardment over the past month — often entire families killed in their homes.
Since then, the street where the Gharib family lived — an area of shops, residential buildings and offices of international agencies in Tyre’s al-Housh district — has been battered with repeated airstrikes and is now deserted.
Gharib, 27, a pilot and entrepreneur, moved to Senegal in search of a better future but always planned to return to Lebanon to start a family.
He was close to his three sisters, the keeper of their secrets and best friend, he said. Growing up, their father was often away, so he and his mother took charge of family affairs.
The last time he visited his family was in May 2023, when his sister Maya, an engineering student, got engaged. She had planned to marry on Oct. 12. But as tensions with Israel grew in September, Gharib's plans to come home for the wedding were uncertain. She told him she would put it off until he could get there.
After the strike, her fiancé, also an army officer, found her body and those of the rest of her family in a hospital morgue in Tyre.
“She was not destined to have her wedding. We paraded her as a bride to paradise instead,” Gharib said. On the day the wedding was to have taken place he posted pictures of his sister, including her wedding dress.
His sister Racha, 24, was about to graduate as a dentist and planned to open her own clinic. “She loved life,” he said.
His youngest sister, Nour, 20, was studying to be a dietitian and prepping to be a personal trainer. Gharib called her the “laughter of the house.”
There is nothing left of his family now except for a few pictures on his phone and on social media posts.
“I am so hurt. But I know the hurt will be hardest when I come to Lebanon,” Gharib said. “Not even a picture of them remains hanging on the walls. Their clothes are not there. Their smell is no longer in the house. The house is totally gone."
"They took my family and the memories of them.”