On 31 December last year, my family gathered with our closest friends and relatives in a former clothing store in Gaza City. The space had been repurposed into an event hall. We were there not just to bring in the New Year but to celebrate my sister Noor’s wedding.
One of those was a Chinese-owned tanker called the Rich Starry that turned around in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday to head back through the strait.
Iran, meanwhile, maintains it still has control over the strait and it will determine which ships transit through the crucial waterway. It also said if its ports are threatened, “no port in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will remain safe”.