Yemen’s Houthis to resume shipping attacks over Gaza aid cutoff

Yemeni rebels warn Israeli ships ‘violating’ Red Sea ‘ban’ will be targeted as four-day deadline for resumption of aid to Palestinian enclave passes.

Yemen’s Houthis have announced that they will resume attacks on Israeli ships after their deadline for Israel to allow the resumption of aid deliveries into Gaza passed.

The armed group said late on Tuesday that it was “resuming the ban on the passage of all Israeli ships” in the Red Sea because Israel failed to honour the deadline the Houthis announced on Friday.

The Iran-aligned Yemeni group said the ban would take effect immediately, adding that “any Israeli ship attempting to violate this ban shall be targeted in the declared zone of operations”.

The “ban” also covers the Arabian Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden, the group said.

The Houthis, who control much of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, maintained a campaign targeting the busy sea route as Israel bombarded Gaza.

The attacks affected global trade, forcing a significant volume of maritime traffic between Asia and Europe away from the Suez Canal to take the far longer journey around Africa.

The group halted its drone and missile attacks, which had targeted vessels with tenuous Israeli links when the Gaza ceasefire was declared in January.

However, it threatened to resume the attacks when Israel blocked all aid into war-battered Gaza on March 2, in the hope of pressuring Hamas into releasing the remaining captives it took in its October 7, 2023 attack.

The attacks will continue until Israel allows aid deliveries in Gaza, the Houthis added in their statement on Tuesday.

From November 2023, the Houthis launched more than 100 attacks targeting shipping off Yemen’s coast, saying their action was in solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians.

Two vessels were sunk, another seized, and at least four seafarers killed in an offensive that disrupted global shipping. Many more seafarers were taken captive.

The campaign provoked the United States and European Union to deploy naval missions to try to protect shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The US and the United Kingdom also launched numerous air attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen.

Analysts say that these actions have raised the Houthis’ profile significantly, moving the group from a localised threat to one that now poses a direct challenge to Israeli and Western interests.

Earlier this month, the US designated the Houthi movement, known formally as Ansar Allah, as a “foreign terrorist” organisation.