Yemen’s Houthis: ‘Release detained crew of seized ship only if Hamas agrees’

The Yemeni Houthis announced on Sunday that they will only release the crew of the commercial ship Galaxy Leader, seized by the group in November, only if the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas agrees.

“Given that the crew was operating on a ship related to Israel, their governments may make a request to the brothers in the Hamas organisation, and if they accept, we have no objections,” posted Nasr Al-Din Amer, a Houthi media official on X.

Amer added that the Houthis have detained the commercial ship, which is linked to Israel, in support of Palestine and, therefore, the Palestinians are the ones entitled to decide.

The ship has appeared in a number of videos on social media platforms after the Houthi authorities turned it into a tourist attraction in Yemen’s Hudaydah Governorate.

The videos showed hundreds of citizens arriving daily on small boats to board the ship to take pictures and videos on board.

The Houthi fighters have raised the Yemeni flag alongside the Palestinian flag on the ship, with photos of Palestinian children killed as a result of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.

On 20 November, Houthi fighters published a video of their control of the Bahamas-flagged ship while travelling between Turkiye and India with a crew of 25 people on board.

The company that owns Galaxy Leader released a statement that “all communications with the ship have been lost”, adding that as a shipping company, it will not comment further on the political or geopolitical situation.

According to French newspaper Le Monde, the ship’s owner is Abraham Ungar, an Israeli businessman.

For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated at the time that the seizure amounted to “an Iranian attack on an international ship,” accusing the Houthis of carrying out the operation based on “Iranian instructions”.

After Israel launched its devastating war on the besieged Gaza Strip, the Houthis announced targeting Israeli-owned and Israel-bound ships in the Red Sea.

Read: Houthis insist on entry of aid into Gaza in exchange for salvaging sunken British ship