Yemen’s Houthis say ready to launch attacks on Israel if Gaza ceasefire collapses
Iran-backed terror group’s leader says ‘our hands are on the trigger,’ in case if Israel resumes war against Hamas
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, who control most of western Yemen including the capital, are ready to launch attacks on Israel if it resumes attacks on Gaza and does not commit to the ceasefire deal, the group’s leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi said in a televised speech on Tuesday.
“Our hands are on the trigger and we are ready to immediately escalate against the Israeli enemy if it returns to escalation in the Gaza Strip,” al-Houthi said.
The announcement came the day after Palestinian terror group Hamas threw the truce into turmoil by saying it would pause fulfilling its commitments to the ceasefire deal reached last month, alleging Israeli violations.
During the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis repeatedly fired ballistic missiles and drones at Israel, in what eventually became nearly daily assaults. While most were intercepted, the attacks sent millions scrambling to bomb shelters, often in the middle of the night. Some drones and rockets hit the country, killing a man in Tel Aviv on one occasion and causing extensive damage to a school on another, as well as other damage including in the southern resort city of Eilat.
The Houthis also attacked Israeli and other vessels in the Red Sea, disturbing global shipping lanes, in what they said were acts of solidarity with Gaza’s Palestinians during Israel’s war with Hamas.
Israel responded to the Houthi attacks with airstrikes on the terror group’s resources in Yemen. The US and Britain have also bombed the Houthis over their attacks on shipping.
The Houthis had said that they would end their assaults when the war ended in Gaza, and since the start of the ceasefire have not attacked Israel.
The Gaza war started on October 7, 2023, when Hamas led thousands of terrorists to invade southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.
A complex three-phase ceasefire that began last month includes the gradual release of hostages in return for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, where it launched a ground campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the October 7 attack.
With five rounds of hostage-prisoner releases completed in the ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal as of last Saturday, there are 17 Israeli hostages still supposed to be returned in the first phase, in exchange for hundreds more Palestinian security prisoners.
However, on Monday, Hamas said that it intended to delay the next release of Israeli hostages, slated for Saturday, “until further notice,” in response to what it claimed were Israeli violations of the ongoing hostage-ceasefire deal.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in recent days kept the door open to resuming fighting with Hamas rather than continuing to a second phase of the deal, while US President Donald Trump suggested that Israel issue an ultimatum to the terror group to return all the hostages by Saturday at noon.
Netanyahu is under pressure from the far-right flank of his coalition to continue the war until Hamas is completely destroyed, a declared goal of the campaign.
Seventy-three of the 251 people abducted by Hamas during its October 7 onslaught remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 35 confirmed dead by the IDF.
