Middle East latest: UK warns of Iranian attempts to force ships into its waters

A warning has gone out to seafarers in the Persian Gulf over what appear to be attempts by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to compel ships to enter Iranian waters.

While Iran has a history of harassing and impounding vessels, it hasn’t directly launched many such attacks recently. Instead, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been attacking ships since November 2023, a campaign that now appears to be winding down after the ceasefire in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Palestinians displaced from the war-battered north are facing an agonizing wait before the days-old ceasefire allows them to see what remains of their homes.

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Here’s the latest:

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — For Palestinians in central and southern Gaza hoping to return to what remains of their homes in the war-battered north, the terms of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas has forced an agonizing wait.

The agreement allows Palestinian civilians in the south to take the coastal Rashid road to northern Gaza starting on Saturday, when Israeli troops are expected to withdraw from the key route and Hamas is set to release four Israeli hostages in exchange for dozens of Palestinian prisoners.

After 15 months of Israel’s invasion and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, residents will enjoy more freedom of movement from the north to the south of the enclave.

As Palestinians in other parts of the strip reunite with scattered family members, pick their way through vast swaths of rubble and try to salvage what remains of their homes and their belongings, people seeking to return to the north have in limbo, their hopes and worries building.

“The first thing I’ll do, I’ll kiss the dirt of the land on which I was born and raised,” said Nadia Al-Debs, one of the many people gathered in makeshift tents in Gaza’s central city of Deir al-Balah preparing to set out for home in Gaza City the next day. “We’ll return so my children can see their father.”

Nafouz al-Rabai, displaced from the urban al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, said the day she gets home will be a “day of joy for us.”

But she acknowledged it would be painful to absorb the scale of damage to the home and the coastal area she knew and loved.

“God knows if I’ll find (my house) standing or not,” she said. “It’s a very bad life.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A warning has gone out to seafarers in the Persian Gulf over what appear to be attempts by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to compel ships to enter Iranian waters.

A notice from the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center on Friday said that there had been “several incidents involving VHF radio challenges to vessels.”

“It is assessed that these are most likely part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ large-scale exercise, Great Prophet XVIII,” the UKMTO said.

Iran has been engaged in an extraordinary two-month-long military exercise across the country after being twice hit by Israel in retaliation for attacks against it during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

While Iran has a history of harassing and impounding vessels, it hasn’t directly launched many such attacks recently. Instead, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been attacking ships since November 2023, a campaign that now appears to be winding down after the ceasefire in Gaza.

Iranian media reported a likely Guard exercise in the Persian Gulf coming this weekend as well.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to redesignate their group as a “foreign terrorist organization.”

President Joe Biden lifted the designation during his presidency, in part to aid a de facto ceasefire in Yemen’s decadelong war.

A statement Thursday from the group’s diplomats said the potential reclassification “targets the Yemeni people as a whole and their honorable position supporting the injustice of the Palestinian people and reflects the extent of the bias of the current U.S. administration towards the usurping Zionist entity.

“Those who should be included on international terrorism lists are those whose hands are stained with the blood of civilians in Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and other countries,” the statement said.

The Houthis have begun to deescalate their campaign targeting shipping through the Red Sea corridor since a ceasefire was reached in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The group said it would limit targeting ships, and finally released the 25-member crew of the Galaxy Leader, a ship the rebels seized back in November 2023.

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