Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a new multinational task force to counter Houthi assaults on shipping in the Red Sea, a delayed United Nations cease-fire vote for Israel, and natural disasters in China and Iceland.

Choppy Waters

Yemen’s Houthi militants vowed to continue their “military operations” in the Red Sea on Tuesday after the United States announced a multinational operation hours earlier to combat attacks against commercial shipping in the busy waterway. The Iranian-backed group has threatened to target alleged Israeli-linked vessels to protest military actions in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, another Iranian-supported organization.

“Our war is a moral war, and therefore, no matter how many alliances America mobilizes, our military operations will not stop,” Houthi spokesperson Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told the Washington Post.

In the past few weeks, the Houthis have conducted ballistic missile and drone strikes against at least 10 merchant vessels and a U.S. Navy ship, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. To counter such actions, Washington—along with Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles, Spain, and the United Kingdom—established a joint maritime task force on Tuesday to ensure “freedom of navigation for all countries” and bolster “regional security and prosperity.”

Called Operation Prosperity Guardian, the initiative will be aided by Task Force 153, a Bahrain-based unit formed last year and led by the U.S. Navy to help safeguard the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Austin visited Bahrain on Tuesday to discuss Middle Eastern instability amid the Israel-Hamas war.

As countries work to combat Houthi assaults, private companies are suspending their operations in the area. BP halted oil and gas shipments through the Red Sea indefinitely on Monday after two more Houthi strikes hit the Panama-flagged MSC Clara and the Norwegian-owned Swan Atlantic. BP is the first oil corporation to suspend its own tankers’ trips in the Red Sea. Global shipping firm Evergreen also suspended all journeys through the Red Sea for the foreseeable future on Monday.

Five major shipping companies from Hong Kong, Denmark, France, Germany, and Taiwan, as well as the Italian-Swiss-owned Mediterranean Shipping Company, all halted their operations in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, diverting many of their vessels to instead go around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa’s coast.

The need to reroute shipping is fueling global trade disruptions, FP columnist Elisabeth Braw explained. Delaying access to this vital thoroughfare will cause mass delays, putting supply chains at risk of collapse ahead of the holiday season and placing companies under growing economic stress. “Forces keen on disruption have decided that shipping is an extremely attractive target, and it’s even more attractive because some of the world’s most convenient shipping lanes are in geopolitically choppy Middle Eastern waters,” Braw wrote.

Today’s Most Read

• How Saudi Arabia Could Use Its Leverage in Gaza by Aziz Alghashian
• Ukraine Has a Civil Rights Problem by Nicolai N. Petro
• The Return of the Monroe Doctrine by Tom Long and Carsten-Andreas Schulz

What We’re Following

Delayed cease-fire vote. The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday delayed a vote for the second time on a resolution calling for some form of cease-fire in Gaza as the council’s members continue to struggle to come up with language that the United States would support. Earlier this month, Washington vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate humanitarian cease-fire,” and it said it still opposes the inclusion of the word “cease-fire.” Diplomats are now trying to find wording that the White House can accept, such as “suspension of hostilities.” The vote is now scheduled for Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials told Qatar that Israel would entertain a weeklong truce if Hamas releases around 40 captives. Qatar has positioned itself to be the main mediator for hostage negotiations and helped secure the war’s weeklong cease-fire in late November.

The U.N. voting delay and Israel’s truce suggestion came as Israeli forces raided one of the last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza on Tuesday. Airstrikes in the south also killed at least 28 Palestinians, highlighting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to not end Israel’s war against Hamas until the militant group is completely defeated. International rights groups continue to condemn Israel’s alleged indiscriminate killing of civilians.

Natural disasters. A 6.2-magnitude earthquake killed more than 120 people and injured hundreds more in northwestern China just before midnight on Monday, local officials said. Emergency forces rushed to Gansu province, one of the nation’s poorest regions, to conduct search and rescue efforts as landslides and sub-zero temperatures wreak havoc on the area’s outdated infrastructure. This is the country’s deadliest earthquake since 2014, when more than 600 people were killed in southwestern Yunnan province.

Iceland’s long-anticipated volcanic eruption also arrived late Monday. What started as a few cracks in the ground quickly became miles of spewing lava southwest of the capital, Reykjavik. The city’s nearby international airport remains open. Authorities evacuated the almost 4,000 residents of the town of Grindavik, located just a few miles from the eruption, last month in preparation for the impending event.

New cyber warfare. Iranian fuel pumps returned to operationality on Tuesday following a cyberattack on Monday that shuttered nearly 70 percent of Tehran’s petrol services. An alleged Israeli-linked hacking group named Gonjeshke Darande, or Predatory Sparrow, claimed responsibility for the attack in a post on X, formerly Twitter, saying it was done “in response to the aggression of the Islamic Republic and its proxies in the region.”

“Khamenei, playing with fire has a price,” the group wrote, addressing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The group said it had the ability to cut off all fuel operations but chose not to out of concern for civilian safety. Following the attack, only 40 percent of the nation’s stations were able to accept fuel cards for payments on Tuesday, locals reported.

Odds and Ends

’Twas a week before Christmas, and all through the land, people counted their change to buy holiday demands. Except for two Spanish young people, who allegedly posted a 2,000-euro (almost $2,200) ransom demand on TikTok after stealing baby Jesus from a local nativity set in San Vicente del Raspeig. Authorities arrested the 19- and 21-year-olds on Monday after the so-called kidnappers accused the town of not taking good care of the doll. Baby Jesus has since been returned to his cradle—the ransom, unpaid.