ATHENS: The towing of an abandoned tanker struck by Yemen’s Houthis in August, threatening environmental disaster, is proceeding slowly for a second day, a Greek military source told AFP Sunday.
The operation to tow the Greek-flagged Sounion which began Saturday “is proceeding at a very slow pace,” the source said, adding that it was “initially headed north” without revealing a destination.
The tanker was hit on August 21 by Iran-backed Houthis with missiles off the coast of Hodeida while carrying 150,000 tons of crude oil.
After the initial strike, the Houthis returned and detonated charges on the ship’s deck, setting off new fires.
Damage to the vessel had threatened a Red Sea oil spill four times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.
The operation is being overseen by the European Union’s Red Sea naval mission, Aspides, which Sunday said the tanker was being towed to a “safe location.”
“The salvage of the MV SOUNION is a complex operation and consists of various phases,” the mission said on X, formerly Twitter.
It added aerial shots of the tanker escorted by two warships, one dated Sunday, in which it is still emitting smoke.
Greek state news agency ANA said the tugboat was escorted by three frigates, helicopters and a special forces team, without disclosing the states of origin.
Fires were still visible on board in Aspides pictures on X dated Saturday.
“When it reaches safe mooring there will be an attempt to put out the fire and preliminary steps will be taken to secure the cargo from leaking,” the Greek source said Sunday.
The ships’ radars have been turned off for security reasons.
The tanker had been anchored west of the militia-held port city of Hodeida, midway between Yemen and Eritrea.
The Sounion’s crew — made up of 23 Filipinos and two Russians — was rescued the day after the attack by a French frigate serving with the EU mission.
The EU naval force was formed in February to protect merchant vessels in the Red Sea from attacks by the Houthi militia, who have waged a campaign against international shipping that they say is intended to show solidarity with Hamas in its war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Since November, the Houthi attacks have caused the sinking of two ships and deaths of at least four crew members.
The Houthis have been firing drones and missiles at ships in the vital commercial route, saying they are targeting vessels linked to Israel, the US and Britain in solidarity with Palestinians over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Stricken Red Sea tanker salvage makes ‘slow’ progress: Greek military
https://arab.news/vy84z
Stricken Red Sea tanker salvage makes ‘slow’ progress: Greek military
- The operation is being overseen by the European Union’s Red Sea naval mission Aspides
- Damage to the vessel had threatened a Red Sea oil spill four times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska
GHF aid distribution sites in Gaza becoming ‘laboratories of cruelty,’ says medical charity
- Scathing new report claims locations centers of ‘orchestrated killing’
LONDON: Doctors Without Borders has accused a controversial aid initiative in Gaza of enabling the systematic targeting and killing of civilians, it was reported on Thursday.
In a scathing new report, the medical charity — also known by its French acronym MSF— said aid distribution centers run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation had become sites of “orchestrated killing.”
Raquel Ayora, one of the charity’s general directors, said: “In MSF’s nearly 54 years of operations, rarely have we seen such levels of systematic violence against unarmed civilians.
“The GHF distribution sites masquerading as ‘aid’ have morphed into a laboratory of cruelty. This must stop now.”
The group is calling for GHF’s operations to be scrapped immediately and replaced with a UN-led system. It has urged governments and donors to “suspend all financial and political support for the GHF.”
In a report by Sky News, the channel contacted both the GHF and the Israel Defense Forces for comment. In an interview on Wednesday, IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani dismissed the allegations, claiming: “I think that is completely false,” and described some reports of shootings as “fake news.”
Between June 7 and July 24, MSF says it treated 1,380 people wounded near GHF aid sites at two of its clinics.
Among the injured were 71 children, 25 of them under the age of 15. The charity said 28 people were dead on arrival.
Among the cases were an 8-year-old girl shot in the chest, and a 12-year-old boy hit in the abdomen. The charity described several injuries as precise and deliberate.
“The distinct patterns and anatomical precision of these injuries strongly suggests the intentional targeting of people within and around the distribution sites, rather than accidental or indiscriminate fire,” the report stated.
Gunshot wounds recorded at MSF’s Al-Mawasi Clinic showed 11 percent struck victims in the head or neck, while 19 percent were to the torso. In Khan Younis, injuries to the lower limbs were more common.
One patient, Mohammed Riad Tabasi, said: “We’re being slaughtered. I’ve been injured maybe 10 times. I saw it with my own eyes, about 20 corpses around me; all of them shot in the head (and) in the stomach.”
The report also documented 196 injuries caused by stampedes or chaos during aid distribution. One woman died of likely asphyxiation in a crush. Others, MSF said, were beaten or robbed after receiving food.
The GHF took over much of Gaza’s aid provision in May after Israel ended an 11-week blockade. But the operation has drawn mounting international criticism. A previous Sky News investigation linked GHF-led aid drops to spikes in fatalities, and UN officials have condemned the system as “death traps.”
UN experts this week called the program “an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law.”
They reiterated calls for Israel to restore access for UN agencies and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations.
MSF echoed the demand and directly urged the US to end its support.
“Despite the condemnations and calls for dismantling it, the global inaction to stop GHF is baffling,” said Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF’s emergency coordinator.
The IDF maintains that humanitarian access is not being obstructed. “There is no limit of aid getting into Gaza,” Shoshani said. “Every day, hundreds of trucks go into Gaza.”
Israeli officials argue the GHF model prevents supplies being stolen by Hamas and ensures they reach civilians directly. Steve Witkoff, the US’ special envoy to the Middle East, last week toured one of the sites.
“We’re putting up money to get the people fed,” US President Donald Trump declared at the same time.
Trump: Important that Middle Eastern countries join Abraham Accords
- Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by a soaring death toll and starvation in Gaza
- The war in Gaza has provoked global anger
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said on Thursday it was important that Middle Eastern countries join the Abraham Accords, which aim to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, saying it will ensure peace in the region.
“Now that the nuclear arsenal being ‘created’ by Iran has been totally OBLITERATED, it is very important to me that all Middle Eastern Countries join the Abraham Accords,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
As part of the Abraham Accords, signed during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Efforts to expand the accords have been complicated by a soaring death toll and starvation in Gaza.
The war in Gaza, where local authorities say more than 60,000 people have died, has provoked global anger. Canada, France and the United Kingdom have announced plans in recent days to recognize an independent Palestinian state.
Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
Greece may extend North Africa asylum ban if migrant flow resurges
- In July, the government stopped processing asylum requests from migrants arriving from North Africa by sea for three months in an effort to curb arrivals from Libya to Crete
- Plevris said he could not rule out an extension to the suspension if there was a “new crisis“
ATHENS: Greece could extend a suspension on examining asylum applications passed by parliament last month if migrant flows from Libya start rising again, Migration Minister Thanos Plevris said on Thursday.
In July, the center-right government stopped processing asylum requests from migrants arriving from North Africa by sea for at least three months in an effort to curb arrivals from Libya to the Greek island of Crete.
In an interview with public broadcaster ERT, Plevris said he could not rule out an extension to the suspension if there was a “new crisis.”
Arrivals of irregular migrants in Crete declined rapidly after the new legislation took effect from 2,642 in the first week of July to 900 in the whole period since then.
New legislation is being prepared that will clearly define that “whoever comes into the country illegally will face a jail term of up to five years,” Plevris said, referring to those who are not fleeing armed conflict, who could qualify for asylum.
Human rights groups accuse Greece of turning back asylum-seekers by force on its sea and land borders. This year, the European Union border agency said it was reviewing 12 cases of potential human rights violations by Greece.
The government denies wrongdoing.
“All European countries now understand that it is not possible to have open borders, it’s not possible to welcome illegal migrants with flowers,” Plevris said.
“There should be a clear message that countries have borders, (that) Europe has exceeded its capabilities and will not accept any more illegal migrants.”
Greece has sent two frigates to patrol off Libya and has started training Libyan coast guard officers on Crete as part of a plan to strengthen cooperation and help the two countries stem migrant arrivals.
Greece was on the European front line of a migration crisis in 2015-16 when hundreds of thousands from the Middle East, Asia and Africa passed through its islands and mainland.
Since then, flows have dropped off dramatically. While there has been a rise in arrivals to the outlying islands of Crete and Gavdos, sea arrivals to Greece as a whole dropped by 5.5 percent to 17,000 in the first half of this year, UN data show.
Lebanon cabinet meeting again on Hezbollah disarmament
- Amid fears Israel could expand its strikes in Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by the end of 2025
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s cabinet is set to meet again on Thursday to discuss the thorny task of disarming Hezbollah, a day after the Iran-backed group rejected the government’s decision to take away its weapons.
With Washington pressing Lebanon to take action on the matter, US envoy Tom Barrack has made several visits to Beirut in recent weeks, presenting officials with a proposal that includes a timetable for Hezbollah’s disarmament.
Amid the US pressure and fears Israel could expand its strikes in Lebanon, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Tuesday that the government had tasked the army with developing a plan to restrict weapons to government forces by the end of 2025.
The decision is unprecedented since the end of Lebanon’s civil war more than three decades ago, when the country’s armed factions — with the exception of Hezbollah — agreed to surrender their weapons.
The government said the new disarmament push was part of implementing a November ceasefire that sought to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah.
That conflict culminated last year in two months of full-blown war that left the group badly weakened, both politically and militarily.
Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it would treat the government’s decision to disarm it “as if it did not exist,” accusing the cabinet of committing a “grave sin.”
It added that the move “undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty and gives Israel a free hand to tamper with its security, geography, politics and future existence.”
The Amal movement, Hezbollah’s main ally headed by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, also criticized the move and called Thursday’s cabinet meeting “an opportunity for correction.”
Iran, Hezbollah’s military and financial backer, said on Wednesday that any decision on disarmament “will ultimately rest with Hezbollah itself.”
“We support it from afar, but we do not intervene in its decisions,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi added, saying the group had “rebuilt itself” after the war with Israel.
Two ministers affiliated with Hezbollah and the Amal movement walked out of Tuesday’s meeting on disarmament in protest.
Hezbollah described the walkout as a rejection of the government’s “decision to subject Lebanon to American tutelage and Israeli occupation.”
Citing “political sources” with knowledge of the matter, pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al Akhbar said the group and its Amal allies could choose to withdraw their four ministers from the government or trigger a no-confidence vote in parliament by the Shiite bloc, which comprises 27 of Lebanon’s 128 lawmakers.
Israel — which routinely carries out air strikes in Lebanon despite the ceasefire, saying it is targeting Hezbollah fighters and infrastructure — has already signalled it would not hesitate to launch destructive military operations if Beirut failed to disarm the group.
Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed two people on Wednesday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed arrives in Moscow
- Sheikh Mohamed is accompanied by a high-level delegation
DUBAI: UAE President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan arrived in Moscow on Thursday for an official visit to the Russian Federation.
As the President's plane entered Russian airspace, it was greeted and escorted by Russian military jets.
An official reception was held at Vnukovo Airport, where the national anthems of the UAE and Russia were played. An honor guard was present as Sheikh Mohamed was greeted by senior Russian officials.
Sheikh Mohamed is accompanied by a high-level delegation that includes a number of senior UAE officials.
