Amid intensified attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on maritime traffic, Israel has asked the United States to renew military operations against the rebels, Israeli television reported Thursday.
The Iran-backed Houthis — who control large swathes of Yemen, but are not the country’s internationally recognized government — reached a ceasefire agreement with the US in May, and then stopped their attacks on commercial ships for some two months. This week, however, they attacked and sank two vessels, killing at least four people.
Israel has told the US that ongoing Houthi assaults on shipping “can no longer remain solely an Israeli problem,” the Kan public broadcaster reported.
Jerusalem called for “more intense combined attacks against Houthi regime targets — not just [Israeli] air force fighter jet strikes, but also a renewal of American attacks and the formation of a coalition including additional countries,” a source familiar with the matter told the outlet.
An unnamed security official told Kan that Israel’s request for US involvement came in response to expanding Houthi aggression, saying: “A broad coalition is needed to convey to the Houthi regime that it is in danger.”
The report came on the final day of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. It did not say at what level the message was communicated.
The Houthis on Thursday also continued their ballistic missile attacks on Israel, which they did not pause as part of their ceasefire with the US, shooting two missiles at the Jewish state.
The first missile, fired in the morning, was intercepted outside Israel’s borders. The second, shortly before 10 p.m., fell short before reaching Israel; accordingly, it triggered no sirens, though its launch was identified by the military.
The Iran-backed group’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, declared Thursday that his militia will continue to attack any ship transporting goods linked to Israel if it attempts to pass through the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, or Arabian Sea.
He said the attacks would continue “as long as the aggression and siege of Gaza persist.”
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Thursday he expects Iran to exert its influence over the Houthis to make them stop attacking ships in the Red Sea.
“We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and expect Iran to exert its influence on the Houthis to put an end to it,” said Wadephul at a press conference in Vienna, alongside his Israeli and Austrian counterparts.
“This shows that we need an understanding with Iran as a whole, not only regarding the development, the possible development of nuclear weapons, but also regarding Iran’s regional behavior,” he said.
From November 2023 until the following December, the Houthis targeted more than 100 ships with missiles and drones in a campaign the rebels describe as supporting Palestinians in the Gaza Strip amid the Israel-Hamas war.
That war began with Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, when the group invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. Twenty living hostages are still held in Gaza, along with two about whom there are grave concerns, and the bodies of 28 confirmed dead.
The Houthis — whose slogan calls for “Death to America, Death to Israel, [and] a Curse on the Jews” — stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the Gaza war. They later became the target of an intense weekslong campaign of airstrikes ordered by US President Donald Trump, which ended with the ceasefire between the terror group and the US.