Yemen's Houthis launch missile attack on Israel as war on Iran intensifies

Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked Israel with a barrage of ballistic missiles. Brigadier-General Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, announced the attack on Saturday on the rebels' Al-Masirah satellite television. Saree said the strikes "will continue until the declared objectives are achieved, as stated in the previous statement by the armed forces, and until the aggression against all fronts of the resistance ceases".

The Israeli military said it intercepted one missile. Saree said on Saturday the rebels fired a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting what he described as "sensitive Israeli military sites" in southern Israel. Sirens went off around Beer Sheba and the area near Israel's main nuclear research centre for the third time overnight Friday into Saturday. The Houthis have held Yemen's capital Sanaa since 2014 and so far stayed out of the US-Israel war. The militia's attacks on shipping vessels during the Israel-Hamas war upended commercial transit in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion worth of goods passed each year. The Houthi rebels attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two ships and killing four sailors, from November 2023 until January 2025. In 2024, the Trump administration launched strikes against the Houthis that ended weeks later.

Mohammed Mansour, the Houthis deputy information minister, told local media on Saturday, "We are conducting this battle in stages, and closing the Bab al-Mandab Strait is among our options." Al Jazeera's Yousef Mawry, reporting from Yemen's capital Sanaa, said a potential naval blockade on Israel-linked ships passing through the Bab al-Mandab Strait would hurt Israel'