Yemen’s Houthis threaten to resume attacks on Israel if no aid to Gaza in four days
Rebel leader says Iran-backed group will continue strikes on Israeli shipping; group attacked dozens of ships and fired missiles at Israel during war
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels threatened Friday to resume attacks on Israeli shipping if aid supplies to Gaza do not resume in four days.
“If the Israeli enemy continues after the first four days to prevent the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip… then we will resume our naval operations against the Israeli enemy,” rebel leader Abdulmalik al-Huthi said in a televised address.
The Houthis, who control much of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, fired scores of drones and missiles at Israeli-linked and other shipping in the Red Sea during the Gaza war, until calling a halt when a ceasefire started in January.
A ceasefire since January 19 saw an influx of humanitarian aid into Gaza, before Israel on Sunday announced it was blocking deliveries over what it called Hamas’s refusal to accept a proposal to extend the expiring initial stage of the ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The Houthi threat comes days after the United States re-designated the Yemeni group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and sanctioned seven of its senior figures.
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, they 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.
The first, 42-day stage of the deal expired on Saturday night. According to the terms of the phased agreement that went into effect on January 19, Israel and Hamas were supposed to have begun holding negotiations regarding the terms of the second phase on the 16th day of the deal, February 3.
Israel has largely held off on holding those negotiations, as phase two ultimately requires that in exchange for the remaining living hostages, Israel fully withdraw from Gaza and permanently end the war — something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he would not accept before Hamas has been fully dismantled.
During the first phase, 33 Israeli hostages were released, eight of them dead, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many convicted terrorists serving hefty jail sentences. Five Thai nationals held hostage in the Gaza Strip were freed separately.
