Houthis warn of Red Sea attacks on US ships if it backs Israeli strikes on Iran
Sana: Yemen's Houthi rebels have warned they will target American vessels in the Red Sea if the United States supports Israel in its ongoing military operations against Iran, the group’s spokesperson said on Saturday, according to an AP report
This warning comes despite a ceasefire agreement reached between the US and the Houthis in May, under which both sides had pledged not to engage each other.
"In the event of the American involvement in the attack and aggression against Iran with the Israeli enemy, the armed forces will target its ships and warships in the Red Sea," Saree said.
The statement by Houthi military spokesman Brig Gen Yahya Saree was disseminated via a prerecorded video message.
The Houthis and the US had reached a ceasefire agreement in May under which both parties agreed not to target one another.
The Houthis had previously attacked ships tied to Israel in the Red Sea following Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after Hamas launched a deadly assault on October 7, 2023.
Amid continued fighting, Israel claimed to have killed a senior Iranian commander and launched strikes on a nuclear facility inside Iran.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that Saeed Izadi, who headed the Palestine Corps of the Quds Force—the overseas arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—was killed in a targeted strike on an apartment in Qom.
Calling his death a “major achievement for Israeli intelligence and the Air Force”, Katz said Izadi had provided funding and weapons to Hamas before its October 7 attack on Israel, which sparked the ongoing war in Gaza.
Iranian media reported that five members of the Revolutionary Guards were killed in renewed Israeli strikes on Khorramabad, but made no mention of Izadi, who was on the US and UK sanctions lists.
Earlier on Saturday, air raid sirens were heard across parts of central Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, with explosions reported as Iranian missiles were intercepted over Tel Aviv.
Authorities said there were no casualties.
Israel began its military offensive—Operation Rising Lion—on June 13, claiming Tehran was on the brink of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has maintained that its atomic programme is solely for peaceful purposes.
While Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, it follows a policy of neither confirming nor denying it.
According to Iran’s state-run Nour News, at least 430 people have been killed and 3,500 injured in Iran since the Israeli strikes began.
In Israel, local authorities say 24 civilians have died in Iranian missile attacks—the worst flare-up in hostilities between the two arch-rivals to date.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would take two weeks to decide whether to support Israel militarily, adding that there was still time “to see whether or not people come to their senses.”
Trump warned that Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon “within a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months,” stressing, “We can’t let that happen.”
Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that a centrifuge production facility at Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site was struck by Israeli forces. However, it clarified that the building did not contain any nuclear material.
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