Vivian Nereim, Farnaz Fassihi and Gaya Gupta, Patrick Kingsley, Rick Gladstone, Vivian Yee, Marlise Simons and Ephrat Livni, Patrick Kingsley, Ana Ionova and Paulo Motoryn
Here’s what we’re covering:
- The attack on the ship appeared to be one of the Houthis’ most damaging.
- Israel is discussing new limits on access to an important mosque in Jerusalem.
- The Aqsa Mosque site has long been a fuse in conflicts between Jews and Muslims.
- Israeli military operations reduce the functioning of two hospitals in southern Gaza to nearly nothing.
- Palestinians tell the International Court of Justice that Israeli policies amount to ‘colonialism and apartheid.’
- An attempt in the Israeli Parliament to expel an opposition lawmaker falls short.
- Lula recalls Brazil’s ambassador to Israel, escalating a dispute over his war critiques.
The Rubymar cargo ship at the Black Sea in 2022.
The crew of a cargo ship in the Red Sea was forced to abandon ship after it came under attack on Monday from the Houthi militia in Yemen, who have been firing missiles at ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in what the group says is a campaign to pressure Israel to end its war in the Gaza Strip.
The attack on the ship, the Rubymar, appeared to be one of the Houthis’ most damaging so far. Most of the armed group’s missile and drone assaults on ships have failed to inflict serious damage.
But the strike on Monday night, involving two anti-ship ballistic missiles launched from Yemen between 9:30 and 10:45 p.m., according to the U.S. military, was enough to drive the crew off the vessel. The military’s Central Command said that one of the missiles struck the Rubymar, “causing damage” and prompting the crew to make a distress call.
A warship that is part of a U.S.-led coalition, as well as another merchant ship, responded to the call, and the crew was taken “to a nearby port by the merchant vessel,” Central Command said in a statement.
A Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said in a statement on Monday that the militia had fired “a number of missiles” at the vessel, severely damaging it, bringing it to a “complete halt” and leaving it “at risk of sinking.” The New York Times could not verify those claims.
An employee who answered the phone at the Rubymar’s management office in Lebanon, GMZ Ship Management, confirmed that the attack had taken place and that the crew had abandoned ship, but said the company would not provide further information until the crew reaches a safe port.
A British government maritime agency also reported that a ship had come under attack about 30 nautical miles south of al-Mokha in Yemen, prompting the crew to abandon it. The agency did not identify the ship.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia that controls much of northwestern Yemen, have carried out dozens of attacks on ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden over the past few months, portraying the attacks as a campaign to pressure Israel to end its siege on Gaza.
Initially, they said they were attacking ships owned by Israelis or sailing to and from Israeli ports, but they have targeted ships unrelated to Israel and going to other destinations. In early January, the United States and Britain formed a military coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen in an attempt to deter the attacks, and since then the Houthis have vowed to target American and British ships as well.
The Rubymar, a bulk carrier, sails with a Belize flag, but its registered owner is based in Britain, according to Equasis, a maritime database.
Mr. Sarea, the Houthi military spokesman, said the Houthis “will not hesitate to take more military measures” against “all hostile targets in defense of beloved Yemen and in confirmation of the position of support for the Palestinian people.”
Though most of the group’s attacks have caused limited damage, they have still upended global shipping. Yemen overlooks the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping lane that leads to the Suez Canal. Hundreds of ships are now avoiding the Suez Canal and sailing an extra 4,000 miles around Africa, burning fuel, inflating costs and adding about 10 days of travel in each direction.
The U.S.-led coalition has repeatedly hit missiles and launchers in Yemen and intercepted drones and missiles, but so far it has failed to halt the attacks. The United States struck five Houthi targets, including an underwater drone, over the weekend.
On Monday, the European Union announced that it was launching its own operation to counter the threat posed by the Houthis, with plans to accompany vessels and protect them against attacks in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and nearby waterways.
“The European Union is responding swiftly to the necessity to restore maritime security and freedom of navigation in a highly strategic maritime corridor,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said in a statement.
Palestinian emergency service workers looking for survivors after an Israeli strike on a residential building in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Monday.
The United States is negotiating a U.N. Security Council resolution that proposes a temporary cease-fire “as soon as practicable” and warns Israel against invading an area of southern Gaza that many people have fled to, according to a copy of the draft obtained by The New York Times.
The draft resolution will be competing with one that Algeria is expected to present to the Security Council on Tuesday that calls for an immediate cease-fire.
Until now, the United States alone has publicly and consistently rejected demands for an outright cease-fire in U.N. resolutions on the war in Gaza, siding with Israel in its war against Hamas. This week, the United States said it would veto Algeria’s draft resolution.
Though it comes with several caveats, the word “cease-fire” does appear in the U.S. draft resolution, reflecting President Biden’s shift toward criticism of Israel’s prosecution of the war and of its planned offensive into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
Israel asserts that Rafah is one of the remaining strongholds of Hamas’s military arm. The draft resolution says that an invasion of Rafah “would have serious implications for regional peace and security” and should not take place “under current circumstances.” More than half of Gaza’s civilian population has been forced to move to the city because of the war, and most are crowded into temporary shelters and tent camps.
The draft says that a major ground offensive into Rafah would not only harm civilians, but could also displace them into neighboring countries. Egypt, which borders Rafah, has refused to let Palestinians flee into its territory, fearing that an influx of refugees would pose a security risk.
In the draft resolution, the United States’ support for a temporary cease-fire comes with conditions, including successful negotiations to release all hostages and the lifting of all barriers to the distribution of humanitarian assistance in Gaza.
On Sunday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that the United States would veto Algeria’s draft resolution, arguing that it would jeopardize continuing negotiations on a deal to return Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a pause in the fighting.
Talks for such a deal in Cairo last week among officials from several countries including Israel and the United States failed to reach a breakthrough. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel withdrew his negotiators and blamed Hamas for refusing to budge on what he called “ludicrous” demands.
On Tuesday, Hamas said that the group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was leading a delegation in Cairo for discussions with Egyptian officials about efforts to end the war.
The draft is the United States’ vision for what the Security Council could do to improve the situation on the ground in Gaza, said one U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations.
The official said that the new draft resolution’s use of the term “cease-fire” was a first for the United States, and that it was in line with the current efforts by the Biden administration to negotiate a deal.
The United States is the only member of the Security Council to have twice voted against resolutions calling for a cease-fire. Such resolutions are legally binding on members of the United Nations, though countries sometimes ignore them. The Council has no enforcement mechanism but can penalize violators with sanctions.
The United States abstained on a resolution that passed in late December, which called for “extended humanitarian pauses” but not for a permanent cessation of hostilities.
The Security Council was scheduled to vote on the Algerian resolution on Tuesday morning, but the timing could be delayed by further negotiations. The U.S. official said the U.S. proposal was still in the early stages of negotiations with other Council members.
Rawan Sheikh Ahmad and Cassandra Vinograd contributed reporting.
Israeli security forces look on as Palestinians pray near the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in October.
The Israeli government is discussing whether to increase restrictions on access to an important mosque in Jerusalem during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, leading to predictions of unrest if the additional limits are enforced.
Cabinet ministers discussed on Sunday whether to bar some members of Israel’s Arab minority from attending prayers at the Aqsa Mosque compound during Ramadan, according to two officials briefed on the deliberations, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a sensitive matter.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that a decision on the matter had already been reached, without saying what it was. But the two officials said a final decision would be made only after the government received recommendations from the security services in the coming days.
Israel has long limited access to Al Aqsa for Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and since the start of the Gaza war, it has imposed extra restrictions on Arabs in Israel. But some had hoped those limits would be largely lifted for Ramadan, which starts in early March.
The mosque complex is sacred to both Muslims and Jews, who call it the Temple Mount because it was the site of two Jewish temples in antiquity that remain central to Jewish identity. By Muslim tradition, it was the place from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, and tens of thousands of Muslims visit the mosque every day during Ramadan.
Israeli police raids at the site, riots there by young Palestinians and visits by far-right Jewish activists have often been a catalyst for wider violence, including a brief war between Israel and Hamas in 2021.
The move to further restrict access was promoted in the Israeli cabinet by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister for national security, who has long pushed for greater Jewish control over the site and less Muslim access to it. In recent days, he had warned that Muslim worshipers might use access to the mosque to display support for Hamas, the armed group whose Oct. 7 terrorist attack prompted Israel to launch airstrikes and a ground invasion in Gaza.
Analysts say that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wary of angering Mr. Ben-Gvir because his ruling coalition depends on Mr. Ben-Gvir’s support. But Arab leaders as well as some Jewish Israelis have warned that by allowing Mr. Ben-Gvir to dictate policy at the mosque, Mr. Netanyahu could inflame an already volatile situation, as well as undermine freedom of worship.
The move would be “liable to pour unnecessary oil on the fire of violence,” Waleed Alhwashla, an Arab Israeli lawmaker, wrote on social media.
Dan Harel, a former deputy chief of staff in the Israeli military, said in a radio interview that the move would be “unnecessary, foolish and senseless” and might “ignite the entire Muslim world.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s office declined to comment.
A view of Al Aqsa Mosque, and the Old City, from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.
If the Israeli government moves to restrict access for some of its Arab citizens to Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Arab leaders warn of potential conflict. The mosque is one of the holiest structures in the Islamic faith, and is a chronic flashpoint in tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.
The 35-acre site that encloses the mosque is known by Muslims as Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, and by Jews as the Temple Mount. The site is part of the Old City of Jerusalem, and is sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims.
In Arabic, “aqsa” translates as farthest, and in this case it is a reference to Islamic scripture and its account of the Prophet Muhammad traveling from Mecca to the mosque in one night to pray and then ascending to heaven.
The mosque, which can hold 5,000 worshipers, is believed to have been completed early in the eighth century and faces the Dome of the Rock, the golden-domed Islamic shrine that is a widely recognized symbol of Jerusalem. Muslims consider the whole compound to be holy, with crowds of worshipers filling its courtyards to pray on holidays.
For Jews, the Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as Har Habayit, is the holiest place because it was the site of two ancient temples — the first was built by King Solomon, according to the Bible, and was later destroyed by the Babylonians; and the second stood for nearly 600 years before the Roman Empire destroyed it in the first century.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, has classified the Old City of Jerusalem and its walls as a World Heritage Site, meaning it is regarded as “being of outstanding international importance and therefore as deserving special protection.”
Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, then annexed the area. Israel later declared a unified Jerusalem to be its capital, though that move has never been internationally recognized.
Under a delicate status quo arrangement, an Islamic trust known as the Waqf, funded and controlled by Jordan, continued to administer Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, as it had done for decades, a special role reaffirmed in Israel’s 1994 peace treaty with Jordan.
Israeli security forces maintain a presence on the site and they coordinate with the Waqf. Jews and Christians are allowed to visit, but unlike Muslims, are prohibited from praying on the grounds under the status quo arrangement. (Jews pray just below the sacred plateau at the Western Wall, the remnants of a retaining wall that once surrounded the Temple Mount.)
Tensions over what critics call the arrangement’s discrimination against non-Muslims have periodically boiled over into violence.
An Israeli raid last week has reduced one of Gaza’s biggest hospitals to little more than a shelter for a small, terrified crew of patients and medical staff, while health officials warned on Monday that food and fuel supplies were almost gone at another hospital that has endured a nearly monthlong siege in the same city, Khan Younis.
Israel says it is rooting out Hamas activity at the medical centers, which it says Hamas has used to hide military operations — accusations it has made about multiple hospitals in Gaza, backing up some claims with evidence of Hamas tunnels. Hamas and health officials deny those charges, and aid groups have called on Israel to respect international laws protecting hospitals from attack.
It was not possible to verify statements made by either the Israeli military or the health ministry.
At Nasser Medical Complex, Gaza’s second-largest hospital, 14 patients were evacuated in a United Nations mission on Sunday, the World Health Organization said. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said 18 more were evacuated on Monday. The United Nations said negotiations were continuing for the Israeli military to allow the remaining patients — numbering more than 150, according to the World Health Organization — to be evacuated.
The exodus was prompted by a raid on Thursday by Israeli troops who entered the hospital and detained what Israel said was hundreds of people, including some it said had taken part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Thousands of displaced Palestinians sheltering there evacuated before and during the raid.
Caring for the remaining patients are 15 health care workers, with no tap water, little food and oxygen, few medical supplies and no electricity except a backup generator that maintains some lifesaving equipment, the W.H.O. said. The W.H.O.’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Sunday that Nasser was no longer functional.
The Gaza health ministry said that Israeli forces had arrested 70 medical personnel, including the director of surgery, and that eight patients had died at Nasser for lack of oxygen.
Israel has emphasized that it raided the hospital to stop Hamas activity. It said that, along with detaining the people it accused of participating in the Oct. 7 attack, it had discovered weapons in the medical complex and evidence tied to the attack.
The Red Crescent said on Monday that the situation at the other hospital in Khan Younis, Al-Amal, was “highly dangerous” after 28 days of siege, with food nearly exhausted and the fuel powering lifesaving equipment running low. It said the hospital had been attacked repeatedly and was shelled by Israeli forces on Sunday, and that Israeli troops had arrested 12 medical and administrative staff members.
A spokesman for the Israeli military referred a request for comment about Al-Amal to Israel’s agency overseeing relations with Gaza, which did not immediately comment.
On Monday, Nebal Farsakh, a spokeswoman for the Red Crescent, said the Israeli military had bombed the area around Al-Amal multiple times, damaging the hospital building and terrifying those inside. She said Israeli troops had shot at the hospital’s water desalination station, disabling it and leaving Al-Amal with less than three days’ supply of drinking water. About 180 people are inside, including patients, medical staff and displaced people, she said.
Video the Red Crescent posted on social media on Monday showed people in the group’s uniforms moving through the darkened hospital, using flashlights as they walked past beds in the hallways. In another video posted on Instagram on Sunday, a young man in medical scrubs described conditions at the hospital, saying Al-Amal had been under siege for so long that he had stopped counting.
“Our biggest dream is to just be able to stand by the windows. To see the sun, the streets. But, unfortunately, we can’t do that,” said the man, Saleem Aburas, whose Instagram account identifies him as a relief coordinator with the Red Crescent. “Because standing by the window means death. The occupation’s snipers are shooting at anything that moves inside the hospital.”
Eight times in a row, the Red Crescent said on Sunday, aid groups had asked Israeli forces for safe passage to deliver food, medical supplies, fuel and generator fuel to Al-Amal. Eight times, it said, they had failed to get that guarantee.
The state of the two hospitals was compounding an already dire situation for the territory’s health system, which the United Nations and aid groups have said is collapsing after Israel’s repeated attacks on hospitals.
Nada Rashwan and Ameera Harouda contributed reporting.
Representatives of the Palestinians argued at the United Nations’ top court on Monday that Israel’s decades-long occupation had violated international law and subjected Palestinians to what one said was a choice among “displacement, subjugation or death.”
The arguments began six days of hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories beginning in 1967, including East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The proceedings, which were scheduled months before the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7, have gained added urgency amid that conflict, the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian war.
The court is scheduled to hear from representatives of more than 50 nations, including some of Israel’s allies, such as the United States and Britain, as well as critics, including China and Russia.
Israel is not participating in the oral arguments. It has said it does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction over its activities in the West Bank.
The Israeli prime minister’s office put out a statement on Monday calling the proceedings “an effort designed to infringe on Israel’s right to defend itself against existential threats.” The statement also said the hearing is “part of the Palestinian attempt to dictate the results of the diplomatic settlement without negotiations.”
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, opened the proceedings by telling the court that Israel had subjected Palestinians to decades of “colonialism and apartheid.”
“There are those who are enraged by these words,” he said. “They should be enraged by the reality we are suffering.”
Members of the large Palestinian team, which included prominent American, British and French lawyers, laid out a panoply of what they said were violations of international law over the past six decades. They said that 139 countries had recognized the state of Palestine, yet the continuing occupation and annexation of those territories was met with silence and impunity.
“Silence is not an option,” Paul Reichler, an American lawyer on the team, told the 15-judge bench. The court had the power to bring change “by upholding the law, which is all the state of Palestine asks you to do,” he said.
Riyad Mansour, a Palestinian-American diplomat, addressed the judges through tears, his voice breaking several times. He said that with the war in Gaza, Israeli breaches of international law had reached their most inhuman level, “in which no town, no village, no sanctity had been spared” from destruction.
“It is so painful to be a Palestinian today,” he said.
The court, the United Nations’ highest judicial body, is expected to issue an advisory opinion after the hearings, although it could take weeks to reach one. It will not be legally binding, and Israel has ignored opinions from the court before. But the proceeding this time comes amid growing international pressure on Israel to halt fighting in Gaza, which began after Hamas-led attacks on Israel last October.
The proceedings this week are separate from a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, a charge Israel denies. Last month, the court ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide in the territory, without ruling on whether genocide was occurring.
Still, the timing of this week’s hearings could contribute to an uncomfortable spotlight on Israel’s policies when questions about Palestinian statehood are top of mind for diplomats internationally as negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza continue.
The U.N. General Assembly first asked the court to consider Israel’s activities in Palestinian territories more than two decades ago. In 2004, the court concluded in an advisory opinion that a wall that Israel was building around the territories violated international law, although Israel ignored the finding.
Human rights groups view the proceedings this week as a long-delayed opportunity to address questions about the Israeli occupation, what they consider discriminatory practices that violate international law and Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
“Governments that are presenting their arguments to the court should seize these landmark hearings to highlight the grave abuses Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians,” said Clive Baldwin, the senior legal adviser at Human Rights Watch, which says it has documented abuses amounting to illegal persecution and apartheid.
Ofer Cassif, an Israeli lawmaker, during the debate over his impeachment in the Knesset on Monday.
A far-left Israeli lawmaker, Ofer Cassif, has narrowly avoided being expelled from Parliament after he backed efforts to charge Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice.
Of Israel’s 120 lawmakers, 85 voted to expel Mr. Cassif — just short of the 90 required to oust a member of the Knesset, as the Parliament is known in Hebrew. Eleven lawmakers voted against the motion, and the remaining did not vote.
Right-wing lawmakers began proceedings against Mr. Cassif, a Jewish member of Hadash, a predominantly Arab political alliance, after he signed an online petition in January that accused Israel of taking “systematic and thorough steps to wipe out the population of Gaza.”
Oded Forer, a right-wing opposition lawmaker, called Mr. Cassif’s efforts “treasonous,” accusing him of endangering Israel’s security and of backing Hamas’s attacks on Israel. Mr. Forer then led efforts to expel Mr. Cassif through a law enacted in 2016 — and never previously enforced — that allows for the impeachment of lawmakers who back “armed struggle” against Israel.
Mr. Cassif was suspended from Parliament in October for 45 days after criticizing the government’s conduct of the war.
Though he survived permanent expulsion on Monday, supporters had said the effort to oust him had already highlighted the shrinking space for dissent in wartime Israel.
“The attempt to oust him is simply political persecution,” Haaretz, the main left-leaning newspaper in Israel, said in an editorial published the day before the vote. The editorial also called the effort “an antidemocratic act meant to serve as a precedent for ousting all of the Knesset’s Arab lawmakers.”
Several prominent Arab Israeli politicians were detained by the police for several hours in November as they prepared to hold a rally to protest Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
The Brazilian ambassador to Israel, Frederico Meyer, foreground right, with Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, on Monday.
President Luiz Inรกcio Lula da Silva of Brazil recalled his ambassador to Israel on Monday, as tensions escalated between the countries over the Brazilian leader’s sharp remarks against Israel’s war on Hamas.
Mr. Lula summoned the ambassador, Frederico Meyer, back to Brazil “for consultations,” according to a statement from the country’s foreign ministry.
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, reprimanded Mr. Meyer on Monday about comments in which Mr. Lula compared Israel’s actions in the war to the Holocaust.
“What is happening in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian people has no parallel in other historical moments,” Mr. Lula told reporters during the 37th African Union Summit in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, on Sunday. But, he then added, “it did exist when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.”
Also on Monday, Mr. Katz said Mr. Lula was not welcome in the country until he takes back his remarks.
Citing “the seriousness” of statements made by Israeli officials, Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, also summoned the Israeli ambassador for a meeting in Rio de Janeiro on Monday, according to the statement.
Mr. Lula’s recall of his envoy does not represent a permanent rupture in diplomatic relations, as Brazil’s Embassy in Israel will remain open. But the discord does highlight a growing rift between Israel and countries that have been reluctant to align themselves in support of its military action in Gaza, most notably South Africa and Brazil.
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