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The vessel reportedly had its tracker turned off, a sign that crew members likely expected a threat in the region.

A suspected drone attack has hit a container ship owned by an Israeli businessman in the Indian Ocean, according to a United States defence official.

The attack was likely carried out using an Iranian-made Shahed-136 drone on Friday, an unnamed US defence official told The Associated Press news agency on Saturday. Pan-Arab satellite channel Al Mayadeen also reported that an Israeli ship had been targeted in the Indian Ocean.

The drone targeted the Malta-flagged, French-operated CMA CGM Symi vessel while in international waters. The ship reportedly suffered damage after the drone exploded, but no crew members were injured.

The US official did not provide any evidence of an Iranian link to the attack, and said “we continue to monitor the situation closely”. Iran has not commented on the reports.

Maritime security company Ambrey said in the days before the attack, the ship’s tracking transmissions had stopped shortly after departing port in the United Arab Emirates.

“The vessel was managed by an Israeli-affiliated company, which was assessed to be the reason why it was targeted,” Ambrey said.

According to the AP, the vessel’s crew had been behaving as though they believed the ship may face a threat as they had switched off its tracking system since Tuesday, after leaving Dubai’s Jebel Ali port. The ship had done the same earlier when travelling through the Red Sea past Yemen.

From Yemen, the Iran-aligned Houthis have launched several rounds of missile and drone attacks on southern Israel since Israel declared war on Gaza last month in the wake of a Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials. So far, the Israeli bombardment has killed about 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,150 children, Palestinian officials say.

Earlier this week, the Houthis also took control of a ship on Yemen’s Red Sea coast which they said was Israeli. But Israel described it as a British-owned and Japanese-operated cargo vessel with no Israeli nationals on board.

Iran and Israel have been engaged in a shadow war for years that has also included past claims of Iranian involvement in attacks on Israeli-owned ships. Tehran has officially denied orchestrating such attacks in the past.

If the attack on the Symi vessel came late on Thursday, it would mean it happened just hours before a truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect. Israel had also ramped up its attacks on Gaza in the hours preceding the truce, according to the United Nations.

Israelis and some other nationals held captive in Gaza were released on Friday in exchange for dozens of Palestinian women and children imprisoned in Israel. More exchanges are expected to take place until the end of the four-day truce on Monday, that may be extended.

Forty-eight days of bloodshed later, a truce lasting 96 hours – between Israel and Hamas – has come into effect, giving Palestinians in Gaza some temporary room to breathe. But in the information war, there is no ceasefire in sight.

Contributors:
Abboud Omar Hamayel – Academic, Birzeit University
Hussein Ibish – Arab Gulf States Institute
Mia Bloom – Professor, Georgia State University
Shashank Joshi – Defence Editor, Economist

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Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are experiencing a brief period of calm after nearly 50 days of relentless bombardment by Israeli forces.

The United Nations said the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas, which went into effect on Friday, has enabled it to scale up the delivery of food, water and medicine to the largest volume since the resumption of humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza on October 21.

The UN was also able to deliver 129,000 litres (34,078 gallons) of fuel – just over 10 percent of the daily pre-war volume – as well as cooking gas, for the first time since the war began.

In Rafah in southern Gaza on Saturday, many waited to fill gas canisters for cooking. “All the people are hoping and ready for it to make their lives easier,” said one resident, Ezzeddine Abu Omeira.

For the first time in over a month, aid also reached northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s ground offensive. A UN convoy delivered flour to two facilities sheltering people displaced by the fighting.

Prior to the war, 500 trucks crossed into Gaza daily, according to OCHA, the United Nations humanitarian agency.

The UN estimates that 1.7 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced by the fighting which began on October 7.

Healthcare workers in London are demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza as more than 200 Palestinian medical personnel have been killed by Israel since the war began. This type of vigil has been held for three consecutive weeks in more than a dozen cities worldwide.

9-year-old Ohad Munder was one of 13 Israeli captives released by Hamas on Friday. He was reunited with his family, as were the Palestinian children freed from Israeli prisons. As these families hold their loved ones close, thousands more in Gaza will never get a reunion.