Ships re-route to dodge the conflict ALAN PEAT THE CONTINUING conflict between Israel and Lebanon has shut down two main ports in the eastern Mediterranean, with SA-bound cargoes getting tied up in the ports as lines look for alternative ways to move containers around the area. Both Beirut in the Lebanon and the port of Haifa in Israel are effectively closed as far as foreign shipping lines are concerned, according to MSC’s sales and marketing manager, Glen Delve – and the line’s ships have had to stop calls at both ports. “We’ve got numerous containers stuck in the ports,” he said. David Mendel, marketing officer at the SA Embassy in Tel Aviv, told FTW that, “due to terrorist attacks and a rocket barrage that hit the city of Haifa - a port of some 250 000 people, about 18-miles from the international border - the Home Front Command ordered the Haifa port authority to evacuate all cargo vessels until further notice”. The port of Ashdod in southern Israel, he added, “is prepared for large-scale absorption of cargo and passenger ships.” This was confirmed by Maersk Line, which said that Haifa cargoes were being re-routed through Ashdod, but added that its acceptance of export and import cargoes for Syria had been re-opened. Also, the spokesman added, export cargo from Jordan will currently not be routed via Israel but loaded instead in Al-Aqabah – a port in Jordan, on the Gulf of Aqaba, which runs south into the Red Sea. “Furthermore, we have ceased acceptance of import and export cargo for Lebanon – with import cargo destined for that country, and already on the water, retained in Port Said until further notice.” Although Haifa is closed to foreign lines, the Israeli shipping group Zim Line is getting occasional vessels into the port, according to Eddie Cairns of SA line agents, Polaris Shipping. But the line’s home port of Eilat is unaffected, he added, and imports and exports are being channelled through there and Ashdod – although the latter, he told FTW, is now getting congested.
