Houthis rebels in Yemen released footage on Wednesday showing their deadly attack on the Eternity C cargo ship in the Red Sea, and its subsequent sinking.
Earlier, a similar video showed an attack on the Magic Seas, which was also sunk.
Maritime officials said Houthis killed four of the 25 people aboard the Eternity C before the rest abandoned the cargo ship. Eternity C went down Wednesday morning after attacks on two previous days, sources at security companies involved in a rescue operation said.
A European naval force in the Mideast said 10 of the 25 people who were on board have been rescued, four of them pulled from the sea on Thursday.
The Houthis claim to have “rescued” a number of the others in what the US has denounced as kidnappings.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the attack was carried out with an unmanned vessel and six cruise and ballistic missiles.
The Houthis later released footage of the group launching missiles at the Eternity C.
The bridge appeared heavily damaged by the attack and oil leaked from the vessel.
The video included a radio conversation between that captain and Houthis as they warned him the ship would be attacked if he did not stop, which he refused to do, insisting the vessel was in a permitted waterway.
The ship took on water from holes along its waterline before sinking beneath the waves, the rebels chanting: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”
“The naval force of the Yemeni Armed Forces targeted the ship Eternity C,” Saree said, claiming that the vessel was headed for the Israeli port of Eilat and was attacked in support of Palestinians in Gaza.
Operation Aspides — the EU naval task force in the Red Sea — told AFP one of the wounded crew had lost his leg.
On Monday, the Houthis said they hit the Magic Seas because its owner had done business with Israel and used its ports.
The Eternity C and the Magic Seas both flew Liberian flags and were operated by Greek firms. Some of the sister vessels in each of their wider fleets had made calls to Israeli ports in the past year, shipping data analysis showed.
The rebels released a video showing masked gunmen storming the Magic Seas and simultaneous explosions that scuttled the bulk carrier.
All the crew from the Magic Seas were rescued before it sank.
The Houthis, who say they are attacking ships to support Gaza amid the war there between Israel and the Hamas terror group, have also directly targeted Israel with ballistic missiles, most recently early Thursday morning.
The Houthis said they attacked Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile.
Israel’s air defense systems intercepted the missile before it reached the country, though the attack set off sirens in many areas.
From November 2023 until the following December, the Houthis targeted more than 100 ships with missiles and drones in a campaign the rebels describe as supporting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war. The Iranian-backed rebels stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war. They later became the target of an intense weekslong campaign of airstrikes ordered by US President Donald Trump, which ended with a ceasefire between the terror group and the US.
This week, the US appeared to indicate that it will not tolerate further attacks that disrupt shipping.
“These attacks demonstrate the ongoing threat that Iran-backed Houthi rebels pose to freedom of navigation and to regional economic and maritime security,” US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Tuesday. “The United States has been clear: We will continue to take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks.”
The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian terror group Hamas led a devastating invasion of southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages taken.