Dherar Al-Tayyib – Al-Khabar Al-Yemeni:
The recovery of shipping traffic in the Red Sea has become a reality with the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza and the consequent halt of Yemeni naval operations. However, this recovery has occurred within the framework of the new reality imposed by the unprecedented Yemeni blockade on navigation linked to Israel for two years, not outside of it. This keeps the shipping sector seemingly divided between the choices of resuming transit or waiting. But in reality, the division is about adapting to the rules of regional sovereignty that Yemen imposes on the Red Sea to ensure the security, stability, and interests of the region, or waiting for the return of the old hegemonic system.
Although renewed Israeli violations keep uncertainty high about the durability of the ceasefire in Gaza and thus the situation in the Red Sea, this has not stopped the increasing improvement in shipping traffic through the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait and the Suez Canal. Even shipping companies have launched new shipping services via the waterway to capitalize on the demand.
However, Israeli shipping companies and those closely linked to Israel remain practically outside the context of this return so far. This creates a significant segregation that warrants study, as it pertains not to a transient period but to the future of shipping traffic through this passage for years to come, amidst a conflict that is clearly set to continue.
In notable remarks, the CEO of the Israeli shipping company (ZIM), Eli Glickman, recently said that the company “is looking forward to returning to the Red Sea as soon as possible” but is waiting for the green light from the marine insurance sector, noting that the ceasefire in Gaza represents “progress,” but there is a need for “further guarantees regarding its continuity.” He added that “a return in the near future now seems more likely.”
ZIM’s stance can be considered a benchmark for the positions of other companies like (Maersk), (MSC), and (Hapag-Lloyd), not because the former is larger in the market, but because it is the closest to the circle of risks that existed, being a fully Israeli company (and one of the first companies to receive a direct warning from the Yemeni Armed Forces and leave the Red Sea). Therefore, the likelihood of its return to the Red Sea significantly influences the assessments of other companies that left the area due to their partial links to Israel.
However, Glickman’s “optimistic” statements do not actually indicate that the risks of transiting the Red Sea have completely ended for enemy-linked shipping but rather reflect at most the existence of assessments within the Israeli company about the durability of the ceasefire in Gaza. Nevertheless, linking the return to the stance of the insurance sector confirms that these assessments are not definitive. Thus, ZIM’s position does not differ from Maersk’s hesitant stance except in the tone of optimism.
The question raised by Glickman’s statements is, how does the marine insurance sector view the situation in the Red Sea? This is a question that will not have a single answer, because insurance premiums for transiting the Red Sea rose during the past two years to 2% of the ship’s value, but not for all ships—only for those linked to Israel (and the US and Britain at some point)—while insurance prices for other ships remained low. This is what exists today. While many reports indicate that insurance prices remain high, they ignore the category of ships associated with this increase and overlook the fact that traffic through the Bab Al-Mandeb has actually increased, including the movement of giant container ships whose owners certainly don’t lack caution for safety.
The ambiguity regarding the situation in the Red Sea is due solely to the disregard for the Yemeni maritime sanctions regime. Once guided by this system, the situation becomes clear. While companies linked to Israel today act as if the problem is general, the rest of the shipping sector is already adapting to the boundaries of this system in everything, including risk assessments. Even the information center of the Combined Maritime Forces, supervised by the US Navy, reiterates weekly that high risks are concentrated on shipping traffic linked to Israel, while assessing the threat against other ships as “medium.”
Applying this segregation, the “green light” that ZIM and other Israel-linked companies are waiting for from the marine insurance sector will not be like “the crisis is over” but will be specific and conditional. This is because these companies have linked their movement in the Red Sea to “the most turbulent file in the Middle East,” in the words of Dutch security and trade analyst Cyril Widdershoven, who says, “If fighting resumes, it could easily reopen the gates of hell.”
In this sense, the Bab Al-Mandeb has now become structurally priced for risk: “Even in calm periods, insurance companies and shipowners will add a geopolitical premium to transport operations, just as they do in the Strait of Hormuz,” considering that “in the coming years, there will be no return to the status quo before 2023, but to a new normal.”
Widdershoven adds that “assessments should be based on a situation where the Suez Canal is available but not guaranteed, the Bab Al-Mandeb is open but temporary, and naval patrols and risk fees are a permanent feature, not an emergency measure, where shippers and fleet planners will have a system and schedules between the Suez Canal and the Cape of Good Hope.”
Accordingly, it can be said that the hesitation experienced by Israel-linked companies today regarding a return to the Red Sea relates not only to the durability of the ceasefire in Gaza but also to dealing with the new situation in the long term. This will become clearer if the ceasefire continues for a longer period. While fears of a drop in shipping prices if there is a rapid return to the Red Sea currently reinforce the option of waiting, the expected significant drop in shipping prices soon will make continued waiting pointless. With the ongoing increase in Red Sea transit traffic, these companies will find themselves increasingly isolated.
For example, for Maersk, which still insists that its return to the Red Sea must be complete and not gradual or partial, the “new normal” poses a major complication for its operations, as its relationship with Israel will continue to expose it to high insurance premiums and high-risk assessments linked to escalation possibilities, because achieving the condition of “comprehensive and sustainable regional peace” that guarantees a return to the pre-Al-Aqsa Flood situation is not foreseeable anyway. Therefore, it will either have to abandon its relationship with Israel, abandon the advantage of transiting the Red Sea, or find a kind of flexibility that suits periods of calm and escalation—which is difficult.
The US and Israel have tried to internationalize the situation in the Red Sea over the past two years to get rid of this new reality that this shipping lane has become subject to strict regional sovereignty that imposes inevitable sanctions on those linked to the enemy during times of escalation. Although American and Western efforts to militarize this passage did expand the scope of damage at some stage, the criteria of this regional sovereignty ultimately managed to impose themselves, confirming that the Red Sea is not experiencing a “navigation crisis” but is witnessing the crystallization of a new system that reshapes the balances of power and influence to be morally and legally compatible with considerations of the security, stability, and rights of the peoples of the region, and not with considerations of American hegemony.
The truth is that the situation of navigation linked to Israel today is not the only witness of the new geopolitical situation created by Yemen through the unprecedented maritime sanctions regime against the forces of genocide. The details of the US Navy’s defeat in the Red Sea all confirm that what happened was not transient but the beginning of a new era.
جميع الحقوق محفوظة للخبر اليمني 2025م