Israeli companies also received help from Gulf states and Israel’s eastern neighbor Jordan to avoid dangerous waters in the Red Sea, where Yemen’s cargo ships have been repeatedly attacked by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
The Houthis have launched a de facto blockade near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to prevent the movement of ships they say are linked to Israel and are trying to support the terrorist group Hamas in the Gaza war.
Cargo ships and oil and gas tankers are under attack from missiles and drones, and many companies refuse to risk their cargo, preferring ports in southern Europe, including Greece and Italy, while leaving Africa Ships are being forced to reroute to longer and more expensive routes around the area. This is to avoid Israel all together.
However, the economic damage is not only affecting Israel, but also Europe’s supply chains. Electric car giant Tesla has announced it will close its Berlin factory for two weeks due to a parts shortage caused by supply delays caused by the Houthi threat.
One company that has found a solution to the blockade is Mentfield Logistics, which supplies much of the cargo bound for Israel. Coordinating with Eitan Nabeh, the Israeli envoy to Bahrain, ships from China and India unload their cargo in Bahrain and Dubai, where they are loaded onto Saud and Jordanian trucks and taken overland to Israel, where they are picked up by Israeli trucks. Supplies at the King Hussein border crossing with Jordan.
The company’s CEO, Omer Itzhari, said that even during the coronavirus pandemic, when the company chartered a plane to bring essential goods such as medical protective equipment and eggs into the country, He said he needed to be creative.
“Today, we are dealing with the Houthi threat to sea routes. We know that the shortest and cheapest solution to transport goods from the east is through Saudi Arabia, and from there overland into Jordan and Israel. We understand,” he said.
Industry officials said the advantage of the land route is its speed. Before the war, shipping a container from the East to Israel cost about $2,000. Because he had to take a long route today, the cost rose to $8,000 for him. Before the war, it took him 30 days for a container to arrive, but now it can take up to 60 days. By land, the container will arrive within 20 days.
“If you are an Israeli importer and want to transport goods ahead of the Passover holiday, using sea routes presents problems. There is no,” said one importer. “There’s also an interesting political side to this, and some kind gestures from Saudi Arabia and Jordan. There are more trucks going overland now, and those numbers are growing at breakneck speed.” he said.
Even before the Houthi blockade began, some supplies were being transported by land, including steel, but not on such a scale.
Another company using the land bridge to transport goods to Israel is Trucknet, which recently signed an agreement with an Egyptian company that allows it to use the Israeli border crossing for deliveries to the Egyptian market.
“This is an economic and historic breakthrough that embodies the economic and trade cooperation between Israel and Arab countries in the fight against the axis of evil,” said CEO Hanan Friedman. “The purpose of this route is not to replace the use of the Suez Canal, but simply to add to it, allowing it to circumvent the Houthi threat, and later to be used to shorten shipping schedules by 10 days. That will happen.”