Iranian-backed Houthi rebels vowed on Monday to block any Israeli ship from sailing in the Red Sea – after the terror group claimed responsibility for unleashing a barrage of missiles on Central Israel.
Yahya Saree, the group’s spokesperson, claimed “sensitive targets belonging to the Israeli enemy in Jaffa” had been struck before announcing the blockade.
“We announce a complete ban on the enemy’s navigation in the Red Sea and consider any Israeli movement a military target for our forces,” he said.
The terror group says the attacks are in response to Israel striking Iran and Lebanon.
“We affirm that we will respond to escalation with escalation, and our military operations will intensify in accordance to the field developments, the battle, and in conjunction with the axis of Jihad and resistance,” Houthi leaders vowed.
“We will not stand idly by in the face of the unjust siege imposed on our people and the peoples of the axis of jihad and resistance in Palestine, Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq.”
The Houthis have essentially closed the Bab el-Mandeb strait to Israeli vessels, known as the “Gate of Tears” in Arabic for its perilous navigation conditions.
It’s on the southern outlet of the Red Sea, situated between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Djibouti and Eritrea on the African coast.
It is one of the world’s most important routes for global seaborne commodity shipments, particularly crude oil and fuel from the Gulf bound for the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal or the SUMED pipeline on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, as well as commodities bound for Asia, including Russian oil.
An estimated 3.3 million barrels of oil pass through the strait daily.
If the strait is blocked, ships are forced to travel around the southern tip of Africa, known as the Cape of Good Hope, in order to reach Asia, which can add up to two weeks onto journeys.
Iran and Israel’s trading of retaliatory strikes marks the most serious escalation since the April cease-fire.
Tehran has since claimed it has targeted Israel’s Nevatim and Tel Nof air bases as part of its Operation Nasr.
“This operation was carried out in response to the child-killing Zionist regime’s missile aggression against several radar sites in three parts of the country,” an Islamic Revolutionary Guards spokesperson said, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.
Israel’s military said it had struck a petrochemical complex in Mahshahr, southern Iran, without sharing any further details of the attack.
But Esmail Baghaei, the regime’s foreign ministry spokesperson, has claimed any escalation in the Middle East is Washington’s responsibility.
““No one believes that the Israeli regime would take any action without coordination with the United States,” he told reporters.
“The United States bears responsibility for the Israeli regime’s aggression, and it will also be responsible for the consequences of any escalation in tensions.”
With Post wires
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