In escalation, Houthis vow to target all Israel-bound ships in Red Sea

Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Saturday they would start targeting any ship passing through the Red Sea en route to Israel, regardless of whether the ship’s ownership is linked to the Jewish state, as they continued to escalate attacks amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The Iran-backed rebel group has fired several ballistic missiles and drones at Eilat since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October, all of which were intercepted or missed their targets. The latest attack came Wednesday when Israel shot down a ballistic missile over the Red Sea.

They have also assaulted a number of ships, thus far targeting vessels allegedly owned by Israeli firms or with ties to Israeli businessmen.

“If Gaza does not receive the food and medicine it needs, all ships in the Red Sea bound for Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality, will become a target for our armed forces,” Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sare’e announced in a video statement.

Furthermore, Sare’e posted on X that his forces would “prevent [passage of] all the ships heading to the Zionist entity from any nationality, if the food and medicine [are prevented from entering] the Gaza Strip, and [they] will become a legitimate target for our armed forces. READ MORE