Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement carried out a joint operation with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq movement, attacking four commercial vessels in the Israeli port city of Haifa, the movement’s military spokesman Yahya Saria said.
In his words, the movement attacked two cement carriers and two bulk carriers, whose owners “violated the ban on entering the ports of occupied Palestine.”
Besides, the movement reported that its drones attacked Haifa-bound cattleship, Shorthorn Express, in the Mediterranean Sea.
“Both operations successfully reached their targets. The strikes were precise and direct,” Saria told the Houthi-owned Al-Masirah television.
On June 6, Houthis reported their first attack on Israeli targets, which was carried out jointly with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella term for a network of Iraqi-based Shia Islamist insurgent groups. On that day, Saria announced that a ship carrying military equipment to the Israeli port of Haifa came under attack.
After the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis warned that they would launch strikes on Israeli territory while barring ships associated with the Jewish state from passing through the waters of the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until Tel Aviv ceased its military operation against Palestinian radical group Hamas in the embattled enclave. Since last November, the Houthis have attacked dozens of civilian vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
In response, the US and its allies launched Operation Prosperity Guardian aiming to ensure both the freedom of navigation and the safety of maritime traffic in the Red Sea. Subsequently, the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom began to deliver joint strikes on rebel-held positions in several Yemeni cities, using aircraft, warships and submarines, targeting Houthi missile sites, drones and radiolocation systems.