Trump says Israel has ‘been very helpful to Saudi Arabia’ amid fight against Houthis

US President Donald Trump suggested Friday that Saudi Arabia was accepting help from Israel in its battle against Yemen’s Houthi rebel group.

Asked by a reporter on the White House lawn if Riyadh should be open to such assistance, Trump said, “I do, I think they will. Israel’s been very helpful to Saudi Arabia, and yeah they certainly would do that, yeah.”

It was not clear whether Trump was saying Israel had provided assistance to the Saudis in fighting the Houthis specifically.

The Saudis are currently facing unprecedented Houthi attacks. Since Yemen’s civil war flared back to life in July, the pro-Iran Houthis have repeatedly struck Saudi targets including Red Sea tankers, oil facilities and Riyadh’s international airport, where 13 people were killed in a single attack last week.

A Saudi-led military coalition has supported Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade, and reported on Friday having intercepted more missiles and drones as the kingdom comes under sustained attack from the Houthis.

Israel has itself faced years of Houthi ballistic missile attacks which it has largely succeeded in thwarting, though some still proved deadly. It has struck Houthi targets in response on multiple occasions.

In an interview on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked if the Saudis had asked for help, and said: “There are barely any Middle Eastern states that aren’t asking us for help.”

Asked by the reporter if long-sought Saudi-Israel normalization could be back on the table through the Abraham Accords, the 2020 deal under Trump’s first administration that saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco normalize ties with the Jewish state, the US leader said: “Yeah, I think so, maybe more than ever.”

Jerusalem and Riyadh were considered close to inking a deal before the Hamas October 7, 2023, attack. But Saudi Arabia has consistently said in recent years it will only normalize ties with Israel if a clear pathway to Palestinian statehood is established.

Trump added: “Saudi Arabia is very happy to have Israel’s support and our support.”

Q: Do you think Saudi Arabia should accept the help that Israel is offering to fight the Houthis?

TRUMP: Yeah I do, sure. Israel has been very helpful to Saudi Arabia. pic.twitter.com/wFl4ASaiT0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2026

Iran on Friday denied having anything to do with attacks by Yemen’s Houthis, a day after Saudi Arabia accused it of having encouraged the group’s recent escalation against the kingdom.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran rejects any claim that Iran has played a role in Yemeni (Houthi) operations,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement.

“Yemen’s armed forces act according to their own interests and assessments, and such claims are not credible to those familiar with relations between Iran and its friends. Nevertheless, Iran does not consider an escalation of tensions to be in the interests of any party,” he added.

The Saudi official, deputy minister for public diplomacy Dr. Rayed Krimly, had said the Houthis rejected an offer to meet in Oman at the outset of the latest round of hostilities.

Baghaei, however, reiterated an offer to mediate between the two sides, saying Tehran “has always been ready to use its good offices to help end the hostilities.”

On Friday, a spokesman for the Saudi-led military coalition said it had “intercepted and destroyed three drones in the southern area and Riyadh… and two cruise missiles over the Red Sea.”

He added that “in the past hours, we intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile over Yanbu,” a city home to the terminus of a major oil pipeline on the Red Sea coast.

The Houthi attacks have proliferated since the group launched a lightning offensive in Yemen in September, seizing strategic government-held territory along the Red Sea coast overlooking a major chokepoint for global shipping.

The pressure on Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, comes as global energy markets were already rattled by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz at the outset of the wider Middle East war in February.

Palace struck

The UN Security Council on Thursday “condemned in the strongest terms continued and escalatory Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” as well as their “attacks and threats against commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb” Strait, the southern gateway to the Suez Canal.

The Security Council also denounced the group’s “reckless strikes” on Riyadh’s airport, which the Saudi-led coalition said had been targeted at least 20 times so far this month.

Krimly, of the Saudi foreign ministry, accused Iran on Thursday of continuing “to arm, train and support the Houthi militia in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.”

“We think that the escalation by the Houthis at this latest stage of the conflict is encouraged by Iran,” he said.

Yemeni government forces have launched a counteroffensive with Saudi air support to retake areas seized by the Houthis, but have so far failed to reverse their gains.

On Thursday, the group launched a deadly missile attack on the presidential palace in the interim seat of the Yemeni government in Aden, killing five people and wounding 16 others, according to the health minister.

Yemeni Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani denounced the “cowardly” act on X, calling it a “continuation of (the Houthis’) criminal pattern.”

A government minister said on condition of anonymity that Zindani had been present at the time, but “was not harmed in any way.”

The minister said the Houthis hit a command center for Yemeni government forces at the complex with three missiles, and another for Saudi coalition forces with two missiles.

Media affiliated with the Houthis said they had targeted “the headquarters of military operations, led by Saudi officers, at the Al-Maashiq Palace in Aden, as well as weapons depots belonging to them.”