It was feared that there would be a regional extension of Israel's war waged against Hamas in Gaza on the Israeli-Lebanese border, but it's happening much further south. Since Yemeni rebels decided to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Islamist movement, this extension has become all the more tangible as it affects a strategic commercial artery.

Following a series of attacks on civilian and military vessels, even though the rebels insist they only want to target ships with links to Israel, the world's shipping giants have decided to avoid the waters between Suez and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until further notice. This decision will considerably lengthen the routes of their container ships and increase costs.

These tensions in the Red Sea have precedent. Israel triggered the 1967 war, which changed the face of the Middle East, after Gamal Abdel Nasser blocked the Straits of Tiran between the Egyptian Sinai peninsula and the coast of Saudi Arabia, which provides access to the Israeli Port of Eilat.

Wars of attrition

The Yemeni rebels' unacceptable strategy of harassment has taken no one by surprise. From the moment it turned to armed struggle two decades ago, the Houthi movement, which initially expressed the frustration of a Yemeni region that it felt was despised by the authorities in Sana'a, showed itself hostile to the United States and its ally of Israel. Iran used the entrenchment of the crisis and the interminable civil war that followed to advance its position in the south of the Arabian Peninsula. This was facilitated by the fact that the Houthis are of Zaidi faith, a sub-sect of Shia Islam, although the religious factor should not be over-interpreted.

While the US's large-scale military deployment in the Mediterranean has undoubtedly helped keep Israel's sworn enemy, the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, at bay until now, as has the memory of the massive destruction of Lebanese infrastructure by the Israelis during the 2006 war, containing the Houthi threat is a formidable challenge.

Although it is not a graveyard of empires like Afghanistan, Yemen has already seen two major Arab countries get bogged down in wars of attrition: Egypt over half a century ago, and recently Saudi Arabia at the instigation of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia's intervention precipitated a humanitarian catastrophe for which the civilian population of one of the world's poorest countries continues to pay the price.

The United States would like to set up an international coalition of countries committed to free movement in these waters to avoid being on the front line, given the rebels' anti-American stance, but goodwill has been slow to emerge – and for good reason. The volatility in the Red Sea is likely to last as long as the indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues. Since the end of the humanitarian truce nearly three weeks ago, Israel's attacks have caused more death and desolation than it has brought it closer to its official war aims: the eradication of Hamas and the release of the hostages captured during the October 7 attack.