Yemen’s Houthi rebels said on Wednesday that they would free the crew of a commercial vessel, the Galaxy Leader, that they hijacked 14 months ago as part of their campaign of attacks in the Red Sea to support Hamas in its war against Israel.
The decision is consistent with an announcement made on Sunday by the rebel group, which is backed by Iran, to scale back its attacks, given a cease-fire in the conflict in Gaza that went into effect over the weekend.
The Houthis took the Galaxy Leader to the Yemeni port of Al-Hudaydah and since then have held its crew hostage. The World Cargo News website reported in November that its 25-member crew included nationals of the Philippines, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Mexico and Romania.
A senior Houthi official, Nasser Al-Din Amer, said on social media that the detained crew members would be freed on Wednesday. The Yemeni television channel Al-Masirah, which is affiliated with the rebels, said that the decision had been ordered by the Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and was coordinated with Hamas and mediated by Oman.
It was not possible to confirm the release independently.
The Galaxy Leader, which is designed to carry vehicles, sails under the flag of the Bahamas and was shown on Wednesday as “stopped” in the Red Sea and out of range of satellite navigation, according to MarineTraffic, a ship tracking app and website that provides real-time information about vessels around the world.
The capture of the vessel, which had been en route to India from Turkey, was one of the most audacious maritime operations by the Houthis and came at the start of their campaign in support of Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering the war in Gaza.
At the time, the Houthis had threatened to target ships traversing the Red Sea that were flagged, owned and operated by Israel. After the Galaxy Leader was seized, a Houthi spokesman announced that the hijacking was a demonstration of support for “the oppressed Palestinian people.”
While Israel’s military said the Galaxy Leader’s crew had no Israelis, it appears that an Israeli billionaire, Rami Ungar, was at one point the beneficial owner of the company that owns the ship, according to the Paradise Papers, a major leak of confidential documents that in 2017 exposed a hidden world of wealth and ownership. A beneficial owner of a company is a person who exercises control over it, owns more than a quarter of it or receives substantial economic benefit from it.
The Houthi campaign against Israel disrupted maritime traffic in one of the world’s most important shipping routes, forcing many vessels to take a much longer journey around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip.
In recent months, the group has also launched a series of missile attacks at Israel. Most of the missiles have been intercepted before reaching Israeli territory, but Israel’s military has responded with a series of airstrikes against targets in Yemen linked to the rebels.
The Houthis’ spokesman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said on social media on Sunday that supporting the Palestinian cause would remain a top priority even after the cease-fire. The Houthis have said they would stop targeting all ships “upon the full implementation of all phases” of the cease-fire agreement.” But they said they would continue to target vessels owned by Israeli individuals or entities or sailing under the Israeli flag.
But in an email dated Sunday and sent by a Houthi-linked group that communicates with the shipping industry, the Houthis warned that if the United States or Britain directly attacked Yemen, they would resume their assaults on vessels associated with those countries.
