Yemen’s Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have launched at least two attacks on Israel since Saturday as the US-Israeli war against Iran continues to expand across the region.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on the first attack that it was launched “in support of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the resistance fronts in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine, and in view of the continued military escalation, the targeting of infrastructure, and the perpetration of crimes and massacres against our brothers in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, and Palestine.”
Saree announced another attack later in the day, and Israeli officials speaking to media outlets said at least two missiles were fired from Yemen and were intercepted.
According to a report from Al Jazeera, the Houthis are planning to target Israeli military sites for now and will not target US positions in the region unless Yemen faces attacks from the US military. The US agreed to a ceasefire with Ansar Allah last year after conducting a heavy bombing campaign in Yemen that failed to stop Yemeni attacks on Israel, which were being launched in response to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.
The Houthis may also reimpose the blockade on Israeli-linked shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Shutting down the Strait would significantly exacerbate the global economic fallout and rising oil prices from the US-Israeli war against Iran.
The Ansar Allah-led government is based in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and governs an area of Yemen where the majority of Yemenis live. A US-backed Saudi-UAE-led coalition waged a brutal war against the Houthis from 2015 to 2022, but failed to remove them from power despite hundreds of thousands of people being killed.
One major reason why the Saudis sued for peace with the Houthis and the ceasefire between the two sides has held relatively well since 2022 was the Houthis’ ability to strike oil infrastructure inside Saudi Arabia, meaning that if the conflict escalates further, Yemeni forces could begin also start targeting oil fields.
