The decision to sink ships in the Red Sea… Why now?

Over the past few hours, Yemen has escalated the pace of its naval operations in support of Gaza, even though its decision to ban navigation to Israeli ports was old, so why now?

Exclusive – Al-Khabar Al-Yemeni:

According to official confirmations, within 24 hours the Yemeni armed forces have sunk a ship called Magic Seas, while the second, called “Eternity-C,” was on its way to sinking, while British reports mention a third. This statistic is the largest and fastest in the history of the ongoing Yemeni operations since they began in November 2023. In terms of timing, it carries strong messages not only to the Israeli occupation but also to its allies, so what are its dimensions?

On May 19th of last year, Yemen officially announced, through its military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the ban on navigation to the occupation’s ports on the Mediterranean Sea, particularly the port of Haifa, and it has carried out several operations on the port as part of the support operations for Gaza, which take a parallel nature with the escalation of the occupation in Gaza and were accompanied at the time by its announcement of the start of the “Gideon Chariots” operation, through which it sought to fully occupy Gaza and displace its population.

The signal was clear to international shipping companies that any attempt to violate the ban would face dire consequences, and Yemen had previously sunk ships, burned others, and damaged a third during the first five stages of the Gaza support operations due to attempts to violate the Yemeni decision to the Red Sea, but some companies did not comply, and the punishment followed.

Practically, the Yemeni’s harsh strikes against the cargo ships involved in violating the Yemeni decision are a strong message that they will not be lenient with any ship that does not abide by the Yemeni decision, and it is a new confirmation of the need for these companies to respect the Yemeni decisions and Yemen’s ability to reach all the ships that violate the decision.

These operations also indicate that Yemen has been monitoring and tracking all violations over the past months and preparing a wide target bank to discipline them.

Politically, the new operations come at a sensitive and important time, as they coincide with Netanyahu and Trump’s meetings, and their intensification is not only related to pressuring the Israeli occupation but also its main ally, the US, and a signal that Yemen will not allow the continued genocide crimes in Gaza and the policy of starvation, and that the continuation of the war on the Strip will increase the pace of escalation in the region.

Furthermore, Yemen is paving the way with these operations to be a guarantor of any prospective agreement in Gaza, which may prevent the occupation from attempting to violate it or maneuver escalation again.

Yemen’s decision to ban navigation to Israeli ports may have been in place for more than a year, but the timing of the implementation of the sinking operations again carries many messages to the occupation and its allies and may push America, burdened by the burden of the battle in the Red Sea, to pressure Netanyahu to accept a formula that gets everyone out of the confrontation quagmire.