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World’s Top Shipping Companies Say Won’t Send Vessels Back to Red Sea

The Houthis threatened to resume their attacks in the Red Sea if the ceasefire in Gaza fails (EPA) 
The Houthis threatened to resume their attacks in the Red Sea if the ceasefire in Gaza fails (EPA) 
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World’s Top Shipping Companies Say Won’t Send Vessels Back to Red Sea

The Houthis threatened to resume their attacks in the Red Sea if the ceasefire in Gaza fails (EPA) 
The Houthis threatened to resume their attacks in the Red Sea if the ceasefire in Gaza fails (EPA) 

Despite a Houthi pledge not to attack ships in the Red Sea as long as a ceasefire in Gaza holds, big shipping companies said they won’t send vessels back to the area, given the unpredictable situation in Gaza and tensions in the Middle East.

The day after a ceasefire was declared in Gaza, the Houthi militant group said they will only attack Israeli-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.

But, despite those pledges, “The world’s top three container shippers, MSC Mediterranean Shipping, A.P. Moller-Maersk and CMA CGM, in recent days said they would stick with other routes given what they called the unpredictable situation in Gaza and broader tensions in the Middle East,” The Wall Street Journal wrote.

Nils Haupt, spokesman for Germany's biggest shipper, Hapag-Lloyd, said, “You don't want to send a gas carrier that will go up in flames. We don't know when we will be returning.”

The Houthis declared their commitment to stop attacks in the Red Sea after a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. But they vowed to strike ships if Israel continues its military operations in the West Bank.

The Iranian-backed militants, who control swathes of Yemen, have used an array of sophisticated weapons - including ballistic missiles and drones - in their 14-month attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea.

Ships were forced to divert to routes around Africa’s southern Cape of Good Hope.

The Sanaa-based Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOOC) which liaises between Houthi forces and commercial shipping operators and is associated with the Houthi military, said it was stopping “sanction” against vessels owned by US or British individuals or entities, as well as ships sailing under their flags.

In an email sent to shipping industry officials dated Jan. 19, HOOC said, “We affirm that, in the event of any aggression against Yemen by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, or the usurping Israeli entity, the sanctions will be reinstated against the aggressor.”

Last week, Dubai-owned ports and logistics firm DP World expected ships not linked to Israel to begin returning to the Red Sea in as little as two weeks.

Sea freight prices could drop “at least 20%, 25%” and that could happen over two to three months, DP World's deputy chief executive Yuvraj Narayan told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting taking place in Davos, Switzerland.

Last Wednesday, Houthis released 25 crew members from the Galaxy Leader car carrier seized in November 2023.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
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US Envoy Reaffirms Backing for Damascus, Rules Out ‘Plan B’

US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH
US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy for Syria, Thomas Barrack, arrives for a meeting with the Lebanese prime minister at the government palace in Beirut, Lebanon, 07 July 2025. EPA/WAEL HAMZEH

The United States will keep backing Syria’s government and has no “Plan B” to working with it to unite the war‑scarred country back together, still reeling from years of civil war and wracked by new sectarian violence, US envoy Tom Barrack said on Monday.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Barrack – Washington’s ambassador to Türkiye and special envoy for Syria, who is also on a short assignment in Lebanon – called last week’s Israeli strikes inside Syria “badly timed” and said they had “complicated efforts to stabilize the region.”

Barrack spoke in Beirut after more than a week of clashes in Sweida province between Druze militiamen and Sunni Bedouin tribes.

Over the weekend he brokered what he described as a limited ceasefire between Syria and Israel, aimed only at halting the fighting in Sweida. Syrian government troops have since redeployed in the area and evacuated civilians from both communities on Monday, he said.

Barrack told the AP that “the killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” are “intolerable,” but that “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together.”

Regarding Israel’s strikes on Syria, Barrack said: “The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States’ responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense.”

However, he said Israel’s intervention “creates another very confusing chapter” and “came at a very bad time.”

Prior to the violence in Sweida, Israel and Syria had been in talks over security matters, while the Trump administration had been pushing them to move toward full normalization of diplomatic relations.

When the latest fighting erupted, “Israel’s view was that south of Damascus was this questionable zone, so that whatever happened militarily in that zone needed to be agreed upon and discussed with them,” Barrack said. “The new government (in Syria) coming in was not exactly of that belief.”

The ceasefire announced Saturday between Syria and Israel is a limited agreement addressing only the conflict in Sweida, he said. It does not address broader issues including Israel’s contention that the area south of Damascus should be a demilitarized zone.

In the discussions leading up to the ceasefire, Barrack said “both sides did the best they can” to reach agreement on specific questions related to the movement of Syrian forces and equipment from Damascus to Sweida.

He suggested that Israel would prefer to see Syria fragmented and divided rather than a strong central state in control of the country.

Later Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X that Israel’s strikes “were the only way to stop the massacre of the Druze in Syria, the brothers of our brothers the Israeli Druze”.

Katz added: “Anyone who criticizes the attacks is unaware of the facts,” he continued. It was not clear if he was responding to Barrack’s comments.

Damascus has been negotiating with the Kurdish forces that control much of northeast Syria to implement an agreement that would merge the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces with the new national army.