🇵🇱🇪🇺 - Grzegorz Braun, who was removed from the Polish parliament after putting out a Menorah with a fire extinguisher, has won a seat in the European Parliament.

🇮🇱- firefighter reports that 5 tons of fuel are burning on the lower deck (-2 level) and that it's impossible to reach. The main focus is now on preventing the ship from sinking

📖 🇵🇸 🇮🇱 If shipping companies decide Israeli ports are too risky, the country could soon find itself running out of food | Times of Israel - October 26th, 2023

🔶️ Due to its location, Israel trades almost exclusively via sea routes. Yet, even before the conflict, calling Israeli ports was complicated, even beyond getting insurance for it. In some cases, USDA noted, “vessels had to wait for weeks before entering the port, with operational queues of up to 60 vessels at a time.”

🔶️ Israel is highly dependent on imports. As the US Department of Agriculture noted in a 2022 report, Israel relies almost exclusively on imports for its consumption of sugar, vegetable oils and oilseeds, feed, grain, and other raw materials for the food industry, while its meat industry relies on imports of live animals. Israel imports almost three times as much food and agricultural products as it exports. Those goods travel through the ports of Ashdod and Haifa.

🔶️ Haifa was having to absorb significant traffic from Ashdod. At the moment, the war risk premium paid by shipping lines for a vessel calling Ashdod has a typical headline rate of 0.65 percent of the vessel’s total value. Libya’s Tripoli Port — itself a risky destination — has a headline rate of 0.4 percent, the same rate Haifa now incurs. Even Mogadishu Port in Somalia is cheaper than Ashdod, at 0.5 percent. In fact, only Russia’s and Ukraine’s Black Sea ports incur significantly higher war risk premiums than Ashdod does, at 1 percent of the total vessel value.

🔶️ “What insurers and ship owners look at the moment is Israel’s ability to fend off attacks,” said Simon Lockwood, a maritime executive with WTW, the global insurance broker. The high Israeli rates reflect the risk of merchant ships being harmed in Israeli waters. “Nobody wants to go into a port and not be able to get out, as happened in Ukraine,” said Neil Roberts, a secretary of the Joint War Committee, a maritime body that classifies international waters according to risk. The suddenly very real risk of missiles and other calamities hitting ships in Ashdod adds to those already significant hurdles.

⚡️ How shipping lines and their insurers assess Israel’s conflict with Hamas — and the prospect of a wider war in the region — has enormous importance for Israel. And that’s not the end of it, because the increasingly likely conflict with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah would add enormous risks to nearby Haifa. “Should Hezbollah from southern Lebanon get involved, the threat level for the port of Haifa would instantly escalate. But although Hezbollah may not be frightened by Netanyahu’s words about unimaginable military strikes, shipping lines and their insurers certainly are. Though they’re fiercely nonpolitical, their services are indispensable to shipping-dependent Israel. And if they conclude it’s too risky to call Israeli ports, the country could soon find itself running out of food.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-war-with-hamas-could-threaten-israels-imports/

📰 OFFICIAL: Israel asked the Biden administration to help it deal with Hezbullah and provide any support.

🇺🇲🇷🇺🇨🇺⚡- Russian Navy vessels off the coast of Florida. The fleet is heading to Havana, Cuba.