Israel: Iran is Committing Piracy

FILED - 07 January 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz, welcomes German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
FILED - 07 January 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz, welcomes German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
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Israel: Iran is Committing Piracy

FILED - 07 January 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz, welcomes German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa
FILED - 07 January 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz, welcomes German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa

Teheran is conducting piracy and should be sanctioned for it, Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday, after Iran's Revolutionary Guards seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

"The Ayatollah regime of Khamenei is a criminal regime that supports Hamas' crimes and is now conducting a pirate operation in violation of international law," Katz said. "I call on the European Union and the free world to immediately declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guards corps as a terrorist organization and to sanction Iran now."

Earlier, an Israeli military spokesperson said Iran will bear consequences if it escalates violence in the region.

"Iran will bear the consequences for choosing to escalate the situation any further," Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement. "Israel is on high alert. We have increased our readiness to protect Israel from further Iranian aggression. We are also prepared to respond."

The Iranian state-run IRNA news agency reported that a Guards helicopter had boarded and taken into Iranian waters the Portuguese flagged MSC Aries.

The Aries is leased by international shipping line MSC from Gortal Shipping, an affiliate of Zodiac Maritime, Zodiac said in a statement, adding that MSC is responsible for all vessel activities. Zodiac is partly owned by Israeli businessman Eyal Ofer.



10 Dead as Landslide Hits Passing Cars on Indonesia's Java Island

Rescuers search for victims after a rain-triggered landslide hit passing cars on a road in Mojokerto, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo)
Rescuers search for victims after a rain-triggered landslide hit passing cars on a road in Mojokerto, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo)
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10 Dead as Landslide Hits Passing Cars on Indonesia's Java Island

Rescuers search for victims after a rain-triggered landslide hit passing cars on a road in Mojokerto, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo)
Rescuers search for victims after a rain-triggered landslide hit passing cars on a road in Mojokerto, East Java, Indonesia, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo)

Indonesian rescuers recovered 10 bodies after a landslide struck vehicles on a hilly road on the country’s main island of Java, police said Friday.
Torrential rains pushed mud, rocks and trees down the mountainside road on Thursday, burying a van with seven people aboard and a pickup truck with three traders and full of vegetables near Watu Lumpang, a resort area in East Java’s Mojokerto district, said local police chief Andi Yudha Pranata.
According to The Associated Press, Pranata said rescuers pulled out the body of the van’s driver late Thursday and his six family members, including three children, wife and parents, were retrieved on Friday, together with the bodies of the three traders.
Footage released by East Java’s Search and Rescue Agency showed the road covered by thick mud, rocks and uprooted trees.
Seasonal rains from about October to April frequently cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, a vast archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.