The United States plans to designate the Houthis as a terrorist organisation almost three years after Joe Biden took the Iran-backed militia off the list of proscribed groups.

Mr Biden called the Houthis a “terrorist” group after US and British warplanes, ships and submarines launched dozens of strikes across Yemen on Friday in response to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping.

From the middle of February, the US will consider the Houthis a “specially designated global terrorist” force, US officials said.

The classification is a step down from the Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) designation the Iran-backed group was given by the Trump administration in its final days.

The FTO designation barred Americans and US-based aid groups from providing “material support” to the Houthis, raising fears that the move would worsen Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.

Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, delisted the Houthis in February 2021 as the Biden administration sought to make it easier to get humanitarian aid into Yemen.

Israeli officials have been urging the West to crack down on the Houthis, who declared war on Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks and who have launched long-range attacks on Israeli cities using ballistic missiles and drones.

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister, last week urged the US and Britain to designate the Houthis and their Iranian handlers, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as terrorist organisations.

“I think the international community should designate the Houthis and IRGC as terrorist organisations. Because that’s what they are,” Mr Gallant told The Telegraph.

The Houthis are not currently on Britain’s list of proscribed terrorist organisations but there have been growing calls to ban the group.

The US is expected to make a formal announcement on Wednesday.

The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of missile and drone attacks targeting commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Jake Sullivan, White House national security adviser, said on Tuesday that addressing the threat posed to commercial vessels is an “all hands on deck” problem that the US and its allies must address together to minimise the impact on the global economy.

“How long this goes on and how bad it gets comes down not just to the decisions of the countries in the coalition that took strikes last week,” Mr Sullivan said during an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Mr Sullivan said it was critical that countries with influence on Tehran and other Middle East capitals make it clear “that the entire world rejects wholesale the idea that a group like the Houthis can basically hijack the world.”

Linda Thomas Greenfield, the US ambassador to the United Nations, said last week that 2,000 ships have been forced to divert thousands of miles to avoid the Red Sea since November.

Houthi militants have threatened or taken hostage mariners from more than 20 countries.

The Houthis swept down from their northern stronghold in Yemen and seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, launching a grinding civil war.

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in 2015 to try to restore Yemen’s exiled, internationally-recognised government to power.

Years of bloody, inconclusive fighting against the Saudi-led coalition settled into a stalemated proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Houthis’ chief sponsor.

The UN negotiated a ceasefire between the Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and militias affiliated with it.

The truce was extended twice in 2022, but was not extended after it technically lapsed more than a year ago. The terms of the truce are still largely being honoured.

Aid organisations worry that sweeping economic penalties could have relatively little impact on the Houthis, a defiant and isolated group that has little to no assets to be affected by US sanctions.

Stronger measures could threaten devastating consequences for ordinary Yemenis, who already are among the poorest and hungriest people in the world, aid officials said.

War and chronic misgovernment have left 24 million Yemenis at risk of hunger and disease as of 2023, and roughly 14 million in acute need of assistance, the UN said.

About two-thirds of Yemenis live in territory controlled by the Houthis.