Houthis seize 2 Red Sea islands, tightening grip on oil route

Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized the strategic islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea, tightening their grip on a key maritime shipping route for oil shipments. The takeover comes as Saudi-backed government forces tried to claw back territory from the rebels’ advances around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

Houthi officials said Monday they had taken over the two islands. The move follows the seizure of the Red Sea port of Mokha and a strategic island last week.

Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in the opening days of the war. A fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas transits through the strait in peacetime. The Saudis have since used the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which leads out of the Red Sea, for crude oil exports.

Greater control over the Hanish islands puts more pressure on Saudi shipments and, in turn, global oil supplies and prices. It could also give Iran additional leverage in its war with the United States.

China, a major Middle East oil importer, called the Houthi attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure “unacceptable” and said it was “deeply concerned” about further escalations.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said “attacks on civilian infrastructure that is important to people’s livelihoods are unacceptable.”

He called on all sides to exercise restraint and resolve disputes through dialogue.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Saudi Arabia had “demanded” that a meeting bringing together Iran with other regional countries to discuss the Strait of Hormuz be scrapped “for the time being.” Oman was to host the meeting.

Baghaei called the meeting a “proper opportunity” to restore security in the region. The spokesman said an agreement between Iran and Oman on the Strait of Hormuz has been finalized and will be announced later.

Saudi Arabia had submitted amendments to the agreement, citing concerns it could have lasting implications for the Strait of Hormuz, negatively impacting other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, according to a Gulf official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly.

Iran also condemned Austria’s refusal to issue visas to the Iranian nuclear chief and other delegation members for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s General Conference in Vienna, calling the decision “completely unjustified.”

Baghaei said Tehran summoned the Austrian chargé d’affaires, saying Austria was obligated as the host country to issue the visas. He accused Western countries of denying Iran an opportunity to defend itself and blamed the U.S. for pressuring Austria to deny the visas.

The refusal is part of U.N. sanctions on Iran, reinstated last year, that include a travel ban on Iranian officials. Last week, the U.N. atomic watchdog’s board reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council for the first time in 20 years, citing failure to cooperate in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at undeclared sites.

The B’Tselem human rights group said Israel is carrying out a systematic and accelerated project aimed at “dismantling the foundations of Palestinian existence” in the occupied West Bank.

The group made the accusation in a new report that claims Israeli actions against Palestinians in the West Bank by settlers and the military are designed to undermine Palestinian collective life “while entrenching a permanent system of Jewish supremacy” across the territory.

The report also claims that Israeli actions rely heavily on open cooperation between state authorities and armed settlers who attack Palestinian communities using weapons and vehicles supplied by the state while the military either fails to prevent the violence or, in some cases, participates in it.

As of July, Israel had taken control of more than 264,402 acres, nearly a fifth of the West Bank, through “armed settler militias,” according to the report.

In Iraq, an ammonia gas leak at a fertilizer plant in the southern province of Basra killed two people and injured 114 others, the country’s health ministry said Monday. Health Ministry spokesman Saif al-Badr said most of the injuries were minor, but 21 people remain hospitalized.