AhlulBayt News Agency: Umm al-Rashrash Port, located in the occupied Palestinian territories and considered one of the most important strategic commercial corridors for the Israeli enemy, has become hostage to Yemeni operations in the Red Sea, entering a phase of complete economic and administrative collapse. This was revealed by the Zionist economic newspaper Globes in an extensive report.
The port, which lies on the Red Sea and serves as the Zionist entity’s gateway for trade with Asia and Africa, is facing an unprecedented existential crisis. Its revenues collapsed by 80 percent in 2024, vehicle unloading operations came to a complete halt, and it received only 16 ships during the past year, compared to more than 134 ships in 2023 before the start of the Yemeni blockade.
Official data published by Globes reveal the scale of the economic disaster inflicted on the port as a result of Yemeni operations. In the first half of 2025, only six ships visited the port, a figure that reflects a total paralysis of commercial activity. Even after the signing of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza, commercial vessels did not return, as no ship carrying vehicles arrived in October of last year.
According to statistics, out of more than 4,000 cargo transport operations across Zionist maritime ports, only 26 took place at Umm al-Rashrash Port. This confirms that the threats issued by Yemeni forces remain effective and continue to exert a strong influence on the decisions of international commercial and shipping companies dealing with the entity.
The Concession Dilemma: Between Past Profits and Current Losses
The Zionist newspaper detailed the concession agreement, noting that the Nakash brothers purchased the port’s operating concession in late 2012 for 120 million shekels, for a period of 15 years, with an option to extend for an additional ten years. During the four years preceding the war, the owners withdrew profits totaling 162 million shekels, while the original amount paid was described as negligible compared to the enormous returns.
The owners have requested a two-year extension of the concession free of charge as “compensation for the war period,” an implicit acknowledgment of the direct impact of Yemeni operations on the port’s capacity. However, the Zionist government has been hesitant. Although it received the amount required to activate the extension option—105 million shekels—it believes that the Nakash brothers failed to meet essential conditions, particularly the provision of container unloading services, a requirement that has not been implemented at all in recent years.
The so-called Zionist Ministries of Finance and Transport are expected to reach a final decision by the end of the current month, but all options are difficult. Extending the concession to the Nakash brothers would ensure administrative continuity but would mean ignoring their failure to comply with contractual conditions. Alternatively, postponing the tender until conditions improve remains uncertain amid ongoing Yemeni threats.
A third option would be to launch a new tender, which could fail entirely due to the lack of interested companies because of security risks, or could attract low-value bids that do not cover costs. This scenario could expose the fragility of the enemy’s economic situation to international public opinion. From an economic perspective, these represent strategic risks, as they undermine the investment-friendly environment long promoted in the entity’s economic propaganda.
Globes warned that issuing a tender at this time “is not an easy matter,” noting that what it described as Yemeni threats and the continued suspension of profitable activity could result in a tender “with no bidders or with low-value offers,” reflecting the success of Yemeni pressure in imposing an effective economic deterrence equation.
Mutual Accusations
The dispute has not been confined to political decision-making circles, but has extended to the so-called Zionist labor federation, the Histadrut, which called for not extending the concession. In April, the Histadrut accused the port’s management of “violating the provisions of the law and the licensing document, adopting austerity policies, limited investment in infrastructure, negligence to the point of compromising safety, and significantly reducing the workforce.”
Although the port’s management rejected these accusations, attributing monthly losses of eight million shekels to the “war” and the Yemeni blockade, these disputes reveal an internal crisis of confidence in the management of the enemy’s vital economic facilities and are considered among the direct effects of the Yemeni blockade.
“Government” Aid: Failed Rescue Attempts
The enemy government attempted to ease the crisis through support programs that included compensation of 15 million shekels in June 2025, postponement of port usage fees, and the provision of state-backed loans. Proposals were also made to force ships to dock through alternative routes with “government” funding of up to one million dollars per ship. However, all of these attempts failed to revive the port. Its bank accounts have remained frozen for weeks, and no funding was allocated in the budget for the proposed compulsory routing measures.
Saudi Cooperation as a Connecting Link
Amid these internal failures, the Zionist outlet i24 News revealed the “Blue–Raman” project, which aims to connect Saudi Arabia to the occupied Palestinian territories through a fibre-optic network passing near Umm al-Rashrash Port, in an attempt to bypass the “risks of the Red Sea.” This description implicitly acknowledges the success of the Yemeni blockade.
This digital cooperation has taken place alongside land corridors opened by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates to ensure the flow of goods and technical services to the enemy entity throughout the blockade period. This reveals the scale of covert cooperation between the mentioned Arab regimes and the enemy entity, a cooperation that has intensified as the impact of Yemeni interdiction operations on Zionist maritime navigation has grown.
The Success of Strategic Pressure
Developments on the ground confirm that Yemeni operations in the Red Sea have achieved an unprecedented strategic breakthrough in the economic and logistical capabilities of the Israeli enemy, particularly at Umm al-Rashrash Port. These outcomes can be summarized as follows: total economic paralysis marked by an 80 percent drop in revenues and the halt of vehicle flows; sovereign incapacity reflected in the “state’s” inability to launch a new tender or find effective alternatives; acknowledgment of impact through the owners’ request for a free extension as “compensation for the war period”; administrative confusion due to internal disputes among the “government,” investors, and unions; and the search for regional exits through reliance on Saudi cooperation as an alternative link. This reliance is described as a new scandal highlighting the path of economic normalization between certain Arab regimes and the Israeli enemy—regimes that not only abandoned Gaza but also extended assistance to the enemy to rescue it from the crisis caused by Yemeni operations and the imposed blockade.
A Comprehensive Economic Deterrence Equation
It has become evident that two years of continuous Yemeni maritime operations, carried out in support of Gaza, have succeeded in imposing a comprehensive economic deterrence equation. The repercussions have extended beyond direct material losses to disrupt the enemy’s internal political decision-making, paralyze the vital logistical system managing the only strategic port south of occupied Palestine, and force the enemy government to oscillate among uniformly unfavorable options.
As attention turns to the decision expected at the end of the month, the port stands as a symbol of the growing economic weakness of the Israeli enemy and as evidence that Yemeni strategic pressure has become a central factor shaping the regional landscape. The successes of Yemeni forces in the Red Sea have demonstrated their maximum effectiveness on the ground, serving as a reminder that Arabs possess all the elements of victory in an inevitable battle, even if its resolution is delayed or postponed.
/129
Your Comment