Israel Warns Iran Of Military Response If It Closed Key Red Sea Strait

Israel warns Iran of military response if it closed key Red Sea strait

 Israel would deploy its military if Iran were to try to block the Bab al-Mandeb strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday.

Last week, Saudi Arabia said it was suspending oil shipments through the strait, on the main sea route from the Middle East to Europe, after Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis attacked two ships in the waterway.

Saudi Arabia and Iran are in a three-year-old proxy war in Yemen, which lies on the southern side of Bab al-Mandeb.

Yemen's Houthis, who have previously threatened to block the strait, said last week they had the naval capability to hit Saudi ports and other Red Sea targets.

Iran has not threatened to block Bab al-Mandeb but has said it would block the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Gulf, if it were prevented from exporting its own oil.

"If Iran will try to block the straits of Bab al-Mandeb, I am certain that it will find itself confronting an international coalition that will be determined to prevent this, and this coalition will also include all of Israel's military branches," Netanyahu said at a passing out parade for new naval officers in Haifa.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a separate speech at the event that Israel had "recently heard of threats to harm Israeli ships in the Red Sea." He gave no further details.

Ships bound for Israel, mainly from Asia, pass through the waterway to Eilat, or continue through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea. Ships bound for Jordan's Aqaba port and for some Saudi destinations must also pass through the strait.

Bab al-Mandeb is 29 km (18 miles) wide, making hundreds of ships potentially an easy target. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said an estimated 4.8 million barrels per day of crude oil and products flowed through it in 2016.

Israel has attacked Iranian forces in Syria and has insisted that they leave Syria completely. They have withdrawn to a distance of 85 km (53 miles) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, Russia's special envoy to Syria said on Wednesday.

Netanyahu warns that Israel will stop any Iranian attempt to close Red Sea

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Iran on Wednesday that Israel, together with an “international coalition,” would not allow the Islamic Republic to close a key regional waterway.

Speaking to graduates of the Israel Navy’s elite captains’ course at its naval training base in Haifa, Netanyahu said, “At the beginning of the week we witnessed a serious clash with Iran’s proxies who tried to obstruct international movement in the straits at the entrance to the Red Sea.”

He added: “If Iran tries to block the Bab Al-Mandab Straits, I’m convinced that it will find itself facing a determined international coalition to prevent this.

“This coalition would include Israel,” he promised the 36 newly-minted naval commanders, “in all its branches.”

Netanyahu was referring to the attack last week by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi rebels on two Saudi oil tankers in the straits, an attack that led to the temporary suspension of Saudi oil shipment through the area and a spike in global oil prices.

The Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, is the southern entrance to the Red Sea. As such, it is a bottleneck for maritime traffic to Israel’s southern port of Eilat.

Netanyahu emphasized the importance of sea power in his comments Wednesday.

“The sea provides us with many opportunities. Above all it increases the small size of the State of Israel and allows us to deploy our vessels above and below the waves across a vast area. This gives the State of Israel considerable power,” he said.

Shortly after Netanyahu’s speech, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman told the graduates that the IDF, which faces security threats on the country’s northern and southern borders simultaneously, is capable of fighting a war on multiple fronts.

“Daring seafarers, our men of iron, ready at any moment for any mission,” he said in a tweet following the ceremony.

“You stand ready in the Red Sea, and in the north and in the south. You are ready for a campaign on all fronts at once, ready to deliver a powerful blow to the enemy.”

The Saudi tankers, operated by the Saudi shipping group Bahri, each with a two-million-barrel capacity, emerged mostly unscathed from the attack.

“One of the ships sustained minimal damage. No injuries nor oil spill have been reported,” the Saudi state oil giant Aramco said.

The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen’s civil war has repeatedly warned that the Iran-backed Houthi rebels are threatening vessels in the Red Sea — a key shipping route for world trade — through their control of the strategic Hodeida port.