"You Can Choose Light and Choose Life"

"Then they shot at us. The car lost control, flipped over and  stopped. The doors were locked. We realized we couldn't get out, so we got out from the windows. The moment I landed on the ground, I was shot at point blank range."

"What good are your [United Nations] resolutions, your debates, your empty promises, if the sick, elderly, mothers and their children are left to rot in the terror tunnels?"

Israeli Hamas hostage Mia Schem

Chaim Otmazgin, one of the first ZAKA volunteers to arrive at the scene of the Nova massacre, forces himself to share the horrific stories because he ‘promised the bodies’ he would be their mouthpiece. Lisa Hostein; Photos of those who were murdered or abducted dot the landscape of the Nova music festival site. Yael Ilan

 

At the Nova Music Festival in Southern Israel on October 7, 2023, then-21-year-old Mia Schem, along with her friend Elia Toledano fled when "red alert" sirens sounded, with rockets from Gaza flying overhead. Twenty minutes driving away from the festival location failed to bring them to safety. When Mia Schem was shot as she emerged from the toppled car, she realized that pieces of her right hand were "flying into the air". She was was in the presence of burning cars, scattered bodies of the young festival-goers.

 

She made a split-second decision, her survival instinct directing her to "walk toward the terrorists", reasoning that to do so, might be her only chance of survival. "I was dragged by my hair into a truck with seven Hamas monsters", she recalled. Held captive initially in a private home in Gaza, she was later transferred to the Hamas' infamous tunnel system. There, she was placed in a small cage: "They treated me like an animal. They didn't give me any medicine, any treatment, nothing".

 

 A grab from a UGC video posted on Telegram on October 9, 2023, shows an armed Palestinian terrorist walking around the Supernova music festival, with a body behind him, near Kibbutz Re’im in the Negev desert in southern Israel (ANONYMOUS / AFP)

 

Held in this manner for 55 days, she was eventually released on November 30, 2023. The body of her friend, Elia Toledano, was returned to Israel several months later. A year afterward, while around a hundred hostages remained in captivity in Gaza, she addressed the United Nations Security Council, where she informed them that the Nova Festival was "a bloodbath". There, "hundreds of young men and women were shot, dismembered, raped and kidnapped".   

"I choose gratitude. Gratitude for the simple things. For waking up every morning. For breathing."

"For being able to hug my family. To be with my family."

"The most important thing I want people to understand is captivity didn't end the day I came home. My body came back, but part of my heart and soul is still there."
"Every day I make the choice to get  up and keep going, to live. I don't want people to remember me only as a hostage."

"I want them to remember me as a woman who chose life after everything I went through."

Mia Schem 

Screen capture from video of Hamas terrorist Muhammad Abu Aseed celebrates as he abducts IDF soldier Naama Levy on October 7, 2023.

 

During the time of her seemingly endless loss of normalcy, hope never left her tormented mind. She strove to be herself, to believe in herself, and to believe in others, and that some day she would be released, she would be reunited with her family, and she would go on to live her life, forever altered as it would be. In her dank, airless captivity, caged and incapable of normal movement, she turned to daily singing of Shir Lamaalot (A Song of Ascents), for comfort and to remind herself that she would surmount the trauma of what she had borne and witnessed.   

"I hope people understand what my story is. That my story is not only an Israeli story or Jewish story. It is a human story."

"Terrorism doesn't choose a religion and nationality, or skin colour. When we stay silent in the face of hatred and violence, everyone loses."

"I hope people will choose the trust, choose compassion, and the courage to stand with innocent people, and most of all, I want them to remember that there is always hope, even in the  darkest place."

"You can choose light and choose life." 

Mia Schem  

Screams Before Silence, October 7

 

Canada's Multiculturalism Love Affair

"I want to acknowledge the fear and distress this has caused."

"We recognize that Jewish residents have been living with a heightened sense of fear due to repeated incidents targeting their community, and this only adds to that, which is completely unacceptable."

"While the weapons used were imitation firearms, the impact is very real."

"These are criminal acts that we allege were meant to intimidate and cause fear."

Toronto Acting Deputy Police chief Joe Matthews 

 

"We are under attack like never before. Antisemitism, a global virus that has metastasized, finds itself right here on Bathurst Street. A street that my grandparents moved to from Poland in 1921, a street that represents the Jewish community's past, present, and one day will represent the future."

"[Thursday night's shooting] at one of the most revered, respected and holy synagogues in Canada, is totally unacceptable."

"Our government, led by Premier [Doug] Ford, will never accept the normalization of even one act of antisemitism."

"Not only will we call it out, we will work day and night with our police services."

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner

 

"Heartbroken and furious at the same time over another attack on a Canadian synagogue by thugs who target the innocent at prayer."

"Antisemites are doing this. And governments too spineless to name them or defend what Canada once stood for is giving them the room to flourish."

Melissa Lantsman, deputy leader, federal Conservative Party of Canada 

A police cruiser is shown outside a synagogue in North York where three people were shot at with a replica firearm on Thursday night. (CP24)

 

 It was announced by Toronto police that an 18-year-old man from Vaughan, north of Toronto has been arrested. He is being charged in connection with a shooting at the Chasidei Bobov synagogue in Toronto last Thursday night. The charge and arrest is inclusive of an April 30 shooting that took place in front of another synagogue in an area of the city long known as a Jewish neighbourhood. The man arrested was named as Ruslan Novruzov. In making his announcement to the press, Acting Deputy Police chief Joe Matthews added that the incidents were "deeply concerning, particularly because the victims were visibly identifiable members of our Jewish community".

 

On April 30, three individuals walking in the Jewish neighbourhood near Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue West were shot at with a replica firearm, from a vehicle. Of the three, one was hit, as the suspects swiftly drove off in a blue SUV. Early Friday morning, police executed search warrants on a residence and vehicle in Vaughan where Novruzov was arrested and charged with a number of weapons offences. Two  gel blaster imitation firearms were seized.

 

The incident happened around 10:49 p.m. on Thursday at Chasidei Bobov synagogue in the area of Bathurst Street and Hwy. 401. Photo: Peter Dworschak/CityNews.

 

"I am disgusted by the targeted antisemitic attacks that took place in North York over the last several days, including last night outside a synagogue."

"These attacks will not be tolerated and I'm pleased the Toronto police have acted quickly in response and have a suspect in custody."

"I expect that all those who are responsible will be punished to the full extent of the law."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford  

Fine statements of sympathy and support from the province's highest political authority. An authority that has not -- in the past three-and-a-half years since the October 7, 2023 Palestinian terrorist assault on southern Israel led by Hamas that rampaged through farming communities, towns and villages and a nearby music festival to slaughter, rape and torture children, youth, the elderly, entire families in an orgy of sadistic savagery and which ignited a storm of antisemitic claims and threats in Canada through organized Palestinian protests, endangering the Jewish community -- moved to put a strop to these public displays of hatred.

 

Nor, for that matter has the federal government acted in any way to calm the situation, secure the normalcy of civil behaviour of one ethnic/religious/ideological group of Canadians against another. Instead, all levels of government, from Toronto's own municipal council led by its Mayor Olivia Chow, to the provincial government of Premier Doug Ford, to that of the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney acted to calm the firestorms of ongoing anti-Israel, anti-Jew, pro-Palestinian protests. While declaring their objections on moral grounds to antisemitism, they invariably invoke their rejection of 'Islamophobia'. 

 

The incident took place outside a synagogue on Bathurst Street near Wilson Avenue.   CTV News

 

Lost in the turmoil of never-ending protests -- where choruses of 'Final Solution!', 'Israeli genocide!', and 'Globalize the Intifada', along with threatening marches through Jewish neighbourhoods by scores of keffiyeh-clad, masked protesters was the need to ensure the security of Jewish Canadians whose houses of worship, parochial schools, and Jewish-owned businesses have been vandalized, fire-bombed and shot at -- have responsible government-authority interventions taken place. Group Muslim street prayers, illegally shutting down intersections and roadways have been tolerated. 

 

The large, and growing Canadian Muslim population has the kind of voting heft that the much smaller Canadian Jewish population does not have any longer. The generations of Jewish Canadians that trusted and loved their Canadian home now find themselves marginalized, thanks to the mass migration, emigration and refugee-intake of recent years, of people from Muslim-majority countries who have brought their traditional Jew-hate baggage with them. This is the cultural vigour celebrated in Canada as the benefits of multiculturalism.  

"Know this, if anybody feels that one act of antisemitism is going to be OK, it's not. It's time that everybody in our community, of other faiths, of other heritages, stand together."

"[Non-Jews are welcome to go on the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday], to a synagogue, a Jewish congregation, in our city, and stand outside that congregation in solidarity."

"Stand, raise  your voices. Stand a little stronger for the values of Canada and Ontario that unite us, that bind us one together."

Solicitor-General Michael Kerzner 

 

Toronto, Violating Jewish Residents' Trust and Security

"I don't think that three years ago, anybody would dream that such a thing would happen."

"The idea that a person that lives at Bathurst and Steeles [in the heart of the Jewish community in Toronto] would say, 'I don't know if I want you to put a menorah back because I'm afraid', is terrible, and obviously more has to be done." 

"They feel violated, that such a thing should happen literally at the door of their home." 

Rabbi Mendel Zaltzman 

 

"There is no excuse for targeting people because they are Jewish." 

"Toronto cannot look the other way while seniors are intimidated in their hallways."

"[The incident was] an act of hate directed at Jewish residents -- seniors who deserve safety, stability, and dignity." 

City Councillor James Pasternak 

 

"The permissive nature of the City's response to the rising levels of incitement and intimidation aimed at the Jewish community continues to embolden those who wish to target Jewish Torontonians."

"Now, it is a group of Jewish seniors who appear to be paying the price for the inaction of our municipal leaders."

"The inability to protect our elderly is a sign of the further decay of our society."

B'nai Brith Canada

 

"This is a public supportive housing building for seniors. They deserve to live in peace without fear of being targeted for being Jewish." 

"I will be reaching out to TSCH [Toronto Seniors Housing Corporation]leadership to investigate how this could happen."

Olivia Chow, Mayor of Toronto

Toronto police say they received reports Sunday that about 20 mezuzahs had been stolen over the weekend from a Toronto Seniors Housing Corporation building near Bathurst Street and Steeles Avenue W. (Robert Krbavac/CBC)

 

Mayor Chow need not trouble herself with this kind of sanctimonious statement. There is no need for her to 'reach out' to the  housing corporation. If she were truly concerned over the incident where someone ripped mezuzahs from the doorways of senior citizens who happen to be Jewish, living in a supportive housing complex in her municipality, she need go no further than the nearest mirror. In that mirror she would see reflected the face of authority who has gone out of her way to leave Jewish Torontonians to their own protective devices.

 

While mouthing the usual tch-tchs about antisemitism, she has displayed it amply on her own account. As the highest elected authority in the municipality whose job it is to ensure equality of security of all residents, she had but to instruct the Toronto Police Force to act in accordance with the law in reacting to  'protest' gatherings clearly flouting civil law, that target Jews. As Mayor of all the people of Toronto she might have thought it a requirement to attend not only Muslim events but those of the Jewish community as well; certainly including a memorial for the 7 October tragedy.

 

Rabbi Zaltzman, the CEO of the Jewish-Russian Community Centre of Ontario explained that the seniors targeted at the  North York apartment building are for the most part members of the Russian Jewish community. Residents were shocked and dismayed and fearful when they realized that their mezuzahs, an icon of their faith, had been ripped off their doorways. They were left with the impression of having been violated; their trust in their security, in the acceptance of the larger community betrayed. 

 

Pro-Palestinian protestors wave flags and signs in Toronto, Ontario, on September 10, 2025. (illustrative)

(photo credit: VALERIE MACON/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)

 

Since the 2023 October 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel when Palestinian terror groups from Gaza led by Hamas rampaged through Israeli farm communities, shooting people at will, raping, torturing, destroying and looting, in a massacre that claimed over 1,200 lives of Israeli civilians; infants, the elderly, foreign farm workers, butchering young Jews attending a Nova music festival and taking 250 children, families, the elderly, soldiers captive into Gaza as hostages, Canadian cities, and in particular Toronto and Montreal burst into a celebration of 'Palestinian' rights.

 

Where crowds of Palestinian-inspired Canadian Muslims, leftist groups and pure unadulterated Jew-haters occupied the streets with loudspeakers vilifying Israel, calling for a global Intifada, shouting at Canadian Jews to 'go back to Poland', chanting 'Final Solution', and 'Palestine will be free from the river to the sea'; code for the destruction of Israel. Jewish students from elementary to high school to universities were harassed, Jewish shopkeepers had their buildings vandalized.

 

And Mayor Chow, at a speech to the National Council of Canadian Muslims at a fundraising gala, referenced "the genocide in Gaza". This, at a time when 40 percent of all hate crimes in Toronto, according to a police report, targeted Jews. Toronto is the site of 60 percent of antisemitic incidents in Ontario schools, according to a government report. The Kehillat Shaarei Torah synagogue was attacked for the  tenth time.  

 

Residents Shoshana Pellman (left), Miguel Camacho, whose mezuzahs were each stolen from the doors of their apartments on the weekend, commiserated with Rabbi Yirmi Cohen, who remembers when his father originally put up those mezuzahs years ago. (Ellin Bessner photo)

 

The religious/cultural symbolism of mezuzahs bring comfort to Jews who usually place them on an upright beam of a doorway, signifying that 'a Jew lives here'. Devout Jews may kiss the mezuzah entering and leaving a home. These are small metal hollow lozenges with Hebrew letters and design impressed on their surfaces, and within the hollow of each one is a sacred scroll with a prayer. Their theft strikes a blow to those elderly people whose doors and themselves were targeted.

 

Because mezuzahs were so commonly identifiable that many non-Jews during the first year of the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas 'protests', left many Jewish families living in fear of violence potentially perpetrated against them as the protesters' threats implied, that they themselves removed their prized symbols, hoping to avoid threatening encounters. That fear had subsided to an extent, but the recent theft of the symbols of Judaism have reminded Canadian Jews of their vulnerability in a city which once meant security and inclusion.

 

Rabbi Yirmi Cohen inspects the post of one of the missing mezuzahs taken off the doors of at least 20 apartments inside the seniors' complex sometime before Sunday morning Dec. 7 in what police are calling a hate-motivated theft. (Credit: Ellin Bessner )

 

Historical Wrecking Balls

"We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make."

"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

U.S. President George W. Bush, post 9/11

 

"Canada condemns Israel's strikes in Qatar -- an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar's sovereignty."

"Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region, and directly imperil efforts to advance peace and security, secure the release of all hostages, and achieve a lasting ceasefire -- efforts in which Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani plays a highly constructive role."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

AFPTV footage shows smoke billowing after Tuesday's explosions in Qatar's capital Doha  Getty Images

 

In 2001, Canada, all the Western world, NATO and the United Nations were 'with' the United States. The international community, those most tied to the United States as democratic allies sent their military forces, their diplomats and NGOs arrived to provide humanitarian services in 2001 when Afghanistan was invaded after its Taliban leaders refused to surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, responsible for the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and the overpowered terrorists that led to another plane crash in Pennsylvania. 

 

Britain, Spain and France all experienced their own Islamist terror attacks, when the world became familiar with the rise of  'political', 'radicalized' Islam. But no country has ever experienced the level and number of attacks that Israel  has been exposed to -- by its neighbour-states and by terrorist groups fostered, armed, trained and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Shia theocracy has its laser focus on Israel's destruction, and has never been modest in airing that ambition even in the hallowed chambers of the United Nations whose function is to promote peace among nations.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, is accompanied by U.S. President Donald Trump, center, at a dinner in the Blue Room of the White House  Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

 

Iran is supported in its aspiration of genocidal obliteration of Jews by Qatar, which acts as a covert bland buffer between the Republic and its Sunni majority neighbours, while presenting itself as a trusted intermediary to the West. Qatar's vast oil-resourced treasury serves as a silver salver to entree in the United States, funding universities and supporting the infiltration of a fellow Islamist generator of antisemitic assaults among the large and growing Muslim diaspora settling in the West, the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 

Qatar has dedicated itself to the stealth promotion of terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, in tandem with the Islamic Republic of Iran. More latterly, Turkey, a risible member of NATO, has joined them in their nefarious schemes against Israel. Both Turkey and Qatar have shielded Islamist terrorism, given them haven, described them as loyal servants of Islam, upholding its most sacred precepts. The Palestinian Authority has done likewise, but it is in sharp competition with Hamas for leadership of the Palestinians.

 

This handout picture released by Qatar’s Amiri Diwan shows Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (right), meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Doha, on September 10, 2025. (Qatar Amiri Diwan / AFP)

 

Israel, on the other hand, has since its re-emergence as a Jewish state on the geographic terrain of its ancestral heritage, has been forced repeatedly to emphasize its right of existence by defending itself militarily and in the process defeating its regional enemies. The attacks, once conducted by states now reconciled to Israel's indomitable presence, have been dominated by death-cult groups whose focus is trained solely on Israel's dismemberment while the Muslim Brotherhood and indeed Iran/Qatar have longer-range missions; world domination in the name of Islam, the 'religion of peace'. 

 

And it is the Islamist powers that Canada, France, Spain, Ireland, Britain, Norway, Australia and others cater to. Not only because they fail to look behind and beyond the facade spoonfed them by skilled propagandists, but as a result of having been flooded by emigrants, migrants and refugees from the Islamic world who now constitute in numbers a powerful incentive to cater to them as a voting bloc. They take seriously Qatar's presentation as a skilled mediator in talks between embattled Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas whose leaders reside in palatial comfort far from the fray while dictating to the Palestinian population to remain defiant (as does certainly the Palestinian Authority/Fatah/Mahmoud Abbas) and accept their sublime fate as martyrs for Islam.

 

This handout picture provided by the Palestinian Authority's press office shows Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) received by Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani upon arrival in Doha on September 14, 2025, ahead of an Arab-Islamic emergency summit. (Thaer GHANAIM / PPO / AFP)

 

It is these sanctimonious actors presenting themselves as innocent of any sinister, underhanded plans to disrupt the West, to replace democracy and rule of law with Islamist Sharia law, while in practise inciting hate and suspicion and infecting a wide segment of the West with the viral affliction of violent antisemitism that have gained the support of those who -- as defenders of Judeo-Christian values should be alert to the danger posed -- cite Israel and its presence in the Middle East as the problem, and have abandoned Israel and their own national Jewish populations to a fate they cannot contemplate, soon to arrive on their own shores.

 

Qatar's Emir is furious that Israel attacked Doha for the purpose of using stealth bombers to pinpoint the presence of elite leaders of Hamas and eliminate them. Invoking the sanctity of the state against attacks on its sovereignty, he is adamant that the international community must sanction and punish Israel for this violation of international law. In fact, international law fully supports such an attack on any country that harbors and shields terrorists threatening another nation. Even so, Qatar's Emir has the ear of those like Canada's Prime Minister Carney, eager to support Qatar and condemn Israel.

 

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thanii chairs a preparatory meeting in Doha on September 14, 2025 [Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AFP]

 

Fallout to Shipping from the Israel/Gaza Conflict

• U.S. Intelligence Reveals China-Houthi Network: American intelligence sources reportedly revealed that the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen are using Chinese-made weapons for their assaults on shipping in the Red Sea in exchange for refraining from attacks upon Chinese vessels. After Houthi leaders visited China in 2023 and 2024 to establish a supply chain, the group was able to obtain “advanced components and guidance equipment” for their missiles, according to Israel’s i24 News. The report claimed that the Houthis plan to utilize the Chinese weapons components to produce hundreds of cruise missiles capable of striking Persian Gulf states. Defense of Democracies
  

"As international scrutiny intensifies on the Houthis due to more than a year of attacks on Israel and commercial shipping, the group is likely seeking to diversify its supply chain to sustain its expanding missile capabilities. Additionally, the Houthis have learned crucial lessons from more than a decade of valuable battlefield experience. They have learned that exerting pressure on key states in the region, especially the affluent Persian Gulf states with their vast oil and gas reserves, may create significant global economic instability."

 — Joe Truzman, Senior Research Analyst and Editor at FDD’s Long War Journal

 

"China’s assistance to the Houthis is yet another signal that Beijing is actively contributing to global chaos and instability. From Chinese firms allegedly providing drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine to now providing support to a proxy group conducting strikes against Israel and the United States, China is cementing its status as an arsenal for autocracies."

 — Jack Burnham, Research Analyst

Newly recruited Houthi fighters marching past an image of their leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, in December.   Credit...Yahya Arhab/EPA, via Shutterstock

"The U.S. mission to deter and degrade the Houthis is not working. In the last week of 2024, the militant group launched a new wave of missile and drone attacks on Israel and shipping lanes in the Red Sea which led to strikes by the United States on military targets on the coast of Yemen. All told, in December alone, the Houthis fired on several U.S. Navy and merchant ships, and conducted ten drone and missile attacks on Israel. Israel and the United States retaliated five times in total, knocking out port and energy infrastructure and Houthi military positions, but the Houthis continue to fire back. In the process, friendly fire brought down a U.S. FA-18 fighter jet, thankfully sparing its crew. This cost-benefit ratio is not sustainable. Houthi operations and ambitions have not been seriously eroded, but U.S. military readiness and reputation have. Washington needs a new strategy, one that is focused on the sources of the Houthis’ growing power and not simply on its symptoms on display in the Red Sea."

Financial Policy

"It's a bit like the autobahn", commented German container ship captain Tobias Kammann wryly, of the number of ships sailing around the southern tip of Africa, where not so long ago there were scant numbers of vessels travelling that way. That was prior to 2024, before the Yemen-based Iran-proxy Houthis began their mission of destroying the Red Sea as a navigable waterway for marine  traffic. The Houthis, considered by many countries (including much of Yemen itself) to be a terrorist group, is pulling its weight on behalf, they claim, of the 'Palestinian' cause.

Houthi military spokesman, announcing the targeting of three U.S. destroyers in the Red Sea to show support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, in Saana, Yemen on September 27, 2024

 

Originally the Houthi leadership claimed it was acting in support of 'Palestine', where Gaza has been invaded by the Israeli military, in response to Gaza-based terrorist groups led by Hamas when thousands of Palestinian terrorists along with ordinary Palestinian citizens surged across the border into Israel to attack farming communities located close to the border between Gaza and Israel. Most of the looting was likely carried out by the civilians, leaving the bloody carnage of rape, mutilation and slaughter to the terrorists who later carried 250 Israelis -- from infants to the elderly -- back to Gaza, as hostages.

And while it may be perfectly true that the Houthi targets are primarily linked to Israeli shipping, few vessels have been safe from the pillaging of the Houthi pirates. Global shipping companies normally sail through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to complete a voyage from Asia to Europe and back. Until roughly a year ago, when Houthi insurgents from Yemen began targeting vessels in the Red Sea with drones and missiles. 

 

Defense of Democracies

 

Shipping companies were forced to divert their cargo around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. This represented a route 3,500 nautical miles and ten days longer than the normally efficient Red Sea/Suez Canal route commonly used. In response, Western-led naval fleets were tasked to quell the attacks. The zeal with which the Houthis -- from one of the poorest countries of the world -- took to their task in opposing all shipping through the Red Sea remained undiminished.

As the attacks continued and commercial vessels continue to avoid passage through the Red Sea, Middle East analysts have expectations that the Houthis would continue their commitment to maintain their attacks, regardless of their mentor the Islamic Republic of Iran seeing its influence diminish, following the near military collapse of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the collapse by insurgents of the Assad regime in Syria.

An average of 136 container ships travelled around the Cape of Good Hope weekly throughout 2024. In comparison, prior to the Houthi attacks, only 40 ships had used that route. The Suez Canal had handled ten percent of world trade, along with over a fifth of global container shipments. Diverting around Africa has effectively increased a requirement for vessels leading to greater numbers being deployed to maintain regular service over the longer route, and with that, shipping rates have surged.

Over a period of twelve months, the cost of shipping a container from Asia to Northern Europe rose by 270 percent. According to Stephen Cotton, general secretary of the International Transport Workers' Federation, there is concern for ship crews carrying bulk cargo like coal, iron ore and fertilizer when operators of the carriers fail to inform their crews of the routes they are scheduled to travel; they may end up going through the Red Sea.

"This sense of anxiety and not knowing if you're a target is an issue", he observed. Large container ships can pay up to $1 million to pass through the Suez Canal. Egypt has been deprived of revenue, reflecting a 70 percent fall in passage through the Suez Canal -- which has not helped Egypt's severely constrained budget. Moreover, it has been calculated that the Red Sea crisis is responsible for the industry pumping out an additional 35.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in those 12 months.

Should all shipping companies continue to shun the Suez Canal, the industry would likely arrive at new ways to make the route around Africa more efficient. One remedy, suggested Salvatore Mercogliano, maritime historian and associate professor at Campbell University in North Carolina, would be to build larger container ships. "Shipping will always find a solution", he commented. Meanwhile costs of shipping escalate, and prices of commodities to consumers soar.

Houthi soldiers march during a funeral procession for Houthi fighters killed during conflict with Yemen government forces, in Saana, Yemen   Center for Preventive Action