VALLETTA, Malta: Migrants hijacked a cargo ship in Libyan waters Wednesday and forced the crew to redirect the vessel north to Europe, according to Italian and Maltese authorities.
As the vessel headed in a direction leading to the island nation of Malta and Italy’s shores, both countries vowed to keep the hijacked ship out of their territorial waters.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini identified the ship as the Turkish oil tanker El Hiblu 1 and said the crew had earlier rescued migrants in the Mediterranean Sea. He put the number of migrants on board at around 120 and described what was happening as “the first act of piracy on the high seas with migrants that hijacked” a cargo ship.
“Poor castaways, who hijack a merchant ship that saved them because they want to decide the route of the cruise,” Italian news agency ANSA quoted Salvini saying with sarcasm.
There was no immediate word on the condition of El Hiblu I’s crew. Other information about the reported hijacking was unavailable or difficult to confirm while the vessel remained at sea.
Italian media reports said the ship was heading to Libya to drop off the group that was rescued when migrants seized control six miles from the Libyan coast.
A private group that operates a rescue ship and monitors how governments treat migrants, Mediterranea Saving Humans, urged compassion for the group on the hijacked vessel and said it hoped European countries would act “in the name of fundamental rights, remembering that we are dealing with human beings fleeing hell.”
The Armed Forces of Malta said military personnel were standing by and the tanker still was in Libyan territorial waters as of early Wednesday night.
A Maltese military official told Maltese media the ship was carrying 108 migrants. The official was not authorized to speak to reporters and requested anonymity.
The official also said Malta would not allow the ship to enter the country’s waters.
Salvini said weather conditions were not good and it was too early to tell if the ship was being directed toward Malta or Italy’s Lampedusa island. But he had a message for the pirates: “Forget about Italy.”
Mass migration to Europe has dropped sharply since 2015, when the continent received one million refugees and migrants from countries in the Middle East, Asia and African. The surge created a humanitarian crisis in which desperate travelers frequently drowned and leading arrival spots such as Italy and Greece struggled to house large numbers of asylum-seekers.
Along with the dangerous sea journey itself, those who attempt to cross the Mediterranean risk being stopped by Libya’s coast guard and held in Libyan detention centers that human rights groups have described as bleak places where migrants allegedly suffer routine abuse.
European Union member countries, responding to domestic opposition to welcoming immigrants, have decided to significantly downscale an EU operation in the Mediterranean, withdrawing their ships and continuing the mission with air surveillance only.
EU officials on Wednesday lamented the move, while Amnesty International reiterated its view that Europe’s collaboration with Libya to stem migration was a human rights outrage.
EU members “alert the Libyan coast guard when refugees and migrants are spotted at sea so they can be taken back to Libya, despite knowing that people there are arbitrarily detained and exposed to widespread torture, rape, killings and exploitation,” Matteo de Bellis, an international migration researcher for Amnesty. “This shameful decision has nothing to do with the needs of people who risk their lives at sea, but everything to do with the inability of European governments to agree on a way to share responsibility for them.”
Ship hijacked near Libya by migrants rescued at sea
Ship hijacked near Libya by migrants rescued at sea
- As the vessel headed in a direction leading to the island nation of Malta and Italy’s shores, both countries vowed to keep the hijacked ship out of their territorial waters
- A private group that operates a rescue ship and monitors how governments treat migrants, Mediterranea Saving Humans, urged compassion for the group on the hijacked vessel
Hezbollah saw new war with Israel as inevitable and rearmed for months, sources say
- The details of Hezbollah’s recent efforts to rearm have not been previously reported
- The head of Hezbollah’s media office, Youssef Al-Zein, told Reuters that Hezbollah would not comment on its military operations
BEIRUT: Lebanese armed group Hezbollah spent months restocking its arsenal of rockets and drones, using support from Iran and its own weapons factories to prepare for a new war with Israel, six sources familiar with the group’s preparations said.
Down but not out after its devastating 2024 conflict with Israel, Hezbollah had concluded that another round of fighting was inevitable — and that this time, it could face an existential threat, according to the sources.
Reuters spoke to three Lebanese sources briefed on Hezbollah’s activities, two foreign officials in Lebanon and an Israeli military official, who all spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the press.
The details of Hezbollah’s recent efforts to rearm have not been previously reported.
The head of Hezbollah’s media office, Youssef Al-Zein, told Reuters that Hezbollah would not comment on its military operations, though he said the group had decided to “fight to the last breath.”
PAYING SALARIES, REPLENISHING STOCKPILES
Founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, Hezbollah launched rockets and drones at Israel on Monday to avenge the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, pulling Lebanon into the war raging across the Middle East.
Although the decision caught some of its own officials off guard, Hezbollah had been readying its military stockpiles and its command-and-control structure for an eventual rematch with Israel, the six sources said.
To do so, it had drawn on a monthly budget of $50 million, most of it from Iran and earmarked for fighters’ salaries, according to one of the Lebanese sources, who has been briefed on the group’s finances and military activities. One of the foreign officials confirmed the $50 million budget.
It was not immediately clear how long the group had been relying on that monthly budget and how it compared to its previous financial resources.
The group has said funds from Iran helped finance rents for people displaced by the 2024 war. Around 60,000 Lebanese, most of them from the Shiite Muslim community from which Hezbollah draws its popular support, remained displaced over the last year, with their homes still in ruins.
Hezbollah had also worked to replenish its drone and rocket stashes through local manufacturing, the first Lebanese source, the foreign officials and the Israeli military official said. The Israeli military official said Hezbollah had used Iranian funding both to smuggle arms and make its own weapons, but added that its manufacturing capability had been diminished.
The second foreign official said the group had stationed new rockets and Iranian-made logistical materials in southern Lebanon before the latest war began.
Hezbollah’s media office did not immediately respond to questions on its rearmament and Iranian support for it.
Israeli military spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told Reuters that Hezbollah “had a lot of arms left” and was also seeking to rearm. “They were trying to smuggle and we were preventing that,” Shoshani said.
PACE OF FIRE BUILDS UP
In 2024, a punishing two-month war with Israel ended with a ceasefire brokered by the United States. Hezbollah halted its attacks on Israel, which continued strikes on what it said were Hezbollah’s efforts to rebuild military capabilities.
Israel also kept troops in five hilltop positions in southern Lebanon.
Last year, Lebanon also began confiscating Hezbollah weapons in the country’s south — but Israel said the group was rearming faster than it was being disarmed.
Speaking to Reuters weeks before Hezbollah entered the regional war, the first Lebanese source confirmed that the group had been rebuilding its military capabilities “in parallel” with Israel’s campaign to destroy them.
The pace of Hezbollah’s attacks this week provides clues about its weapons stocks.
The group launched 60 drones and rockets on March 2, the first day it attacked Israel, and a similar number the following day, said the second foreign official, who tracks Hezbollah’s activities closely.
But on March 4, Hezbollah launched more than double that number of projectiles, a sign it had been able to draw from its larger caches, the official said.
ALMA, an Israeli think tank that monitors security on Israel’s northern border, said it assessed that Hezbollah’s arsenal on the eve of its attack included approximately 25,000 rockets and missiles, most of them short- and medium-range.
A video published by Hezbollah on March 4 showed a fighter setting up a drone in a wooded area. Riad Kahwaji, a Dubai-based defense analyst and founder of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, identified the drone in the video as a Shahed-101, which he told Reuters could be produced locally.
HEZBOLLAH EXPECTED A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
Hezbollah has also dispatched fighters from its elite Radwan force back to southern Lebanon, Reuters reported this week. They had been withdrawn from the area after the 2024 conflict.
Israeli strikes after the 2024 ceasefire included the targeting of what Israel said were Hezbollah training camps. In late February, the Israeli military said it struck eight military compounds used by the Radwan force to store weapons and prepare for a confrontation.
The Israeli official and the first foreign official said Hezbollah had been struggling to recruit new operatives as a result.
The group lost 5,000 fighters in the 2024 war, an unprecedented blow to its fighting force, though the second Lebanese source said it still had some 95,000 fighters left.
In the lead-up to its entry into the current regional war, Hezbollah had become convinced Israel would carry out a major strike on the group that would seek to “disable its ability to retaliate,” the first Lebanese source said.
A third foreign official familiar with Hezbollah’s thinking said that assessment had driven the group’s decision to launch the first salvo, fearing Israel would eventually turn its attention from Iran to Hezbollah.
“They knew they were next on the list,” the official said.
