Did Yemen's Houthi rebels open a luxury restaurant on a ship they seized in the Red Sea? No, that's not true: A video on social media consists of a montage of different clips featuring the Queen Elizabeth 2 docked in Dubai.
The claim appeared in a video on TikTok by jehangir.chohan, on December 27, 2023, with the caption (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff):
A ship restaurant has been opened in Yemen
The video also includes an audio track (as translated) that said:
ooh, Israel only if you see where your ship is, your ship is with us docked in the Red Sea,
your ship is now a lounge on the beach we added glass and the entrance is for 500 Riyals with shishas and internet... Galaxy Park
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Jan 16 10:42:31 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories conducted a reverse image search on Google Lens. The results led to a video (archived here) on YouTube by @shirandesilva68 on March 22, 2022, titled "
The Queen Elizabeth 2 is a former British ocean liner that served as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship for the Cunard Line from 1969 to 2008. The ship has been a floating hotel & museum at Port Rashid in Dubai since 2018.
The sound in the video on TikTok is Yemeni comedian Mustafa Almoumry, who published a satire post on Instagram on November 21, 2023, with the caption "Galaxy tourist Park😂" after the first ship was seized by the Houthis. Almoumry is known for creating satirical content (archived here) atop the seized ship, Galaxy Leader.
On October 19, 2023, the Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group in the north of Yemen, began attacks on vessels passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, in the Red Sea. The group claims these actions are aimed at supporting Palestinians in the Hamas-Israel war.
