For more than a year, the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militant group that controls northern Yemen, have attacked ships in the Red Sea, severely disrupting a major trade route, and have targeted Israel with drones and missiles.
This month, the pace of Houthi attacks on Israel has increased — as have Israeli retaliations.
Over the past week, the Houthis said they had launched several attacks on Israel.
In response, the Israeli military on Thursday bombed parts of Yemen, including the international airport in the capital, Sana, leaving four people dead according to the local health ministry. It was Israel’s fourth attack in Yemen over the past year and came just a week after Israel last struck.
The United States and Britain have also retaliated against the Houthis to protect international waterways. The U.S. military on Saturday said that it had targeted Houthi facilities in Yemen.
Here’s what to know about the Houthis, their attacks on ships and their conflict with Israel.
Who are the Houthis?
The Houthis, Shiite militants who have been fighting Yemen’s government for about two decades, overran the Yemeni capital, Sana, in 2014, forcing the country’s internationally recognized government to flee to the southern city of Aden.
A Saudi-led coalition launched a military intervention to oust the militants but failed, leaving the Houthis in power in northern Yemen, ruling most of the population and igniting a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands and led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The Houthis have built their ideology around opposition to Israel and the United States, seeing themselves as part of the Iranian-led “axis of resistance,” along with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Their ideology is reflected in the slogan on the group’s flag: “Allah is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory to Islam.” Their leaders often draw parallels between the American-made bombs used to pummel their forces in Yemen and the arms sent to Israel and used in Gaza.
Talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in September 2023 raised hopes for a peace deal that would potentially recognize the Houthis’ right to govern northern Yemen. In December 2023, the United Nations announced that the warring parties had agreed on a road map for peace, but progress was frozen soon after when the internationally recognized Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia, said it was suspending the deal’s implementation, citing Houthi escalation in the Red Sea.
Once a group of poorly organized rebels, the Houthis in recent years have bolstered their arsenal, which now includes cruise and ballistic missiles and long-range drones. Analysts credit this expansion to support from Iran, which has supplied militias across the Middle East.
Does the U.S. consider the Houthis a terror group?
The Trump administration initially labeled the Houthis a terrorist organization in 2021, shortly before former President Donald J. Trump left office. The Biden administration lifted the designation weeks later to make it easier for humanitarian aid to enter Yemen. Early this year, the State Department announced that it was reimposing the label in view of the Houthi attacks on ships.
The terrorist designation allows Washington to impose financial penalties and criminally prosecute anyone who knowingly provides a labeled group with “material support,” and the Treasury Department has been trying to pressure the Houthis by cutting off financing and supplies.
Why are they attacking ships?
Weeks after Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, prompting Israel to unleash a devastating military campaign in Gaza, the Houthis, in solidarity with Hamas, said they would target any ship traveling to or leaving Israel and said they had launched drones and missiles at Israel.
But the Houthi criteria for attacking ships quickly expanded to include vessels with direct or indirect links to Israel or past visits to Israeli ports, then also to ships with ties to the United States or Britain, and the Houthis have since broadened the category multiple times.
The Houthis have launched more than 130 attacks with drones and missiles on vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, according to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, a nonprofit group that tracks the strikes.
Perhaps the most audacious Houthi operation came in November 2023, when gunmen hijacked a vessel named the Galaxy Leader and took it to a Yemeni port, where they have been holding the ship’s crew members captive for more than a year.
In August, a Houthi attack on an oil tanker carrying the equivalent of about one million barrels of crude oil threatened to become an environmental disaster as the vessel burned for weeks. It was ultimately towed to safety.
How are the attacks affecting countries around the world?
To travel between Asia and Europe, global shipping companies have for decades sailed through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Now, many shipping companies are diverting their cargo around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip, a route that adds an extra 4,000 miles and 10 days to shipping routes and requires more fuel.
So the Houthi attacks have significantly increased the costs and risks of transporting goods, contributing to the higher prices for goods around the world, according to economists — price spikes that influenced elections in Europe and the United States.
The cost of shipping a container from Asia to northern Europe is up 270 percent in 12 months, according to Freightos, a digital marketplace for shipping. But continuing to use the Red Sea would raise insurance premiums and endangers sailors, some of whom have been killed or kidnapped in the attacks.
What has the U.S. been doing to stop the attacks?
The Biden administration assembled a naval task force, called Operation Prosperity Guardian, that includes the United States, Britain and other allies and has been patrolling the Red Sea to, in the words of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, “preserve freedom of navigation” and “freedom of shipping.”
U.S. and British warships have intercepted some Houthi missiles and drones before they reached their targets. In the first half of this year, the two countries’ conducted at least five joint strikes against the Houthis.
What has Israel signaled it will do?
On Thursday, after Israel struck Yemen for a second time this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in an interview with local news media that Israel was “just getting started” responding to the Houthis.
Israel Katz, the defense minister, on Thursday reiterated a threat he had made earlier about Israel’s intent to assassinate Houthi leaders. “We will hunt down all the Houthi leaders, hit them as we have done elsewhere,” Mr. Katz said. “No one will be able to escape Israel’s long arm.”
Israel is apparently turning more attention to the Houthis now, after reaching a cease-fire agreement with Hezbollah last month and largely undermining Hamas’s capabilities in Gaza over more than a year of war.
In response to Israel’s attack, Mohammed Abdulsalam, a Houthi spokesman, said that targeting civilian infrastructure was “a Zionist crime against the entire Yemeni people.” He added that Israeli strikes won’t “deter Yemen from supporting Gaza.”
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