The Yemeni group claims to have launched military operations jointly with Iraqi groups, but Israel denies the attacks.
Yemen’s Houthis have launched two joint military operations with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against ships in the Israeli port of Haifa, the group’s military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised speech.
“The first targeted two ships carrying military equipment in the port of Haifa while the second targeted a ship that violated the decision to prohibit entry to the port,” Saree said on Thursday.
“Both operations were carried out with a number of (drones) and the strikes… were precise.”
The Israeli military was quick to deny the claim, calling it “false.”
The Houthis and Iranian-backed Iraqi groups operating under the name Islamic Resistance have each claimed attacks against Israeli interests in the region.
The results of Thursday’s operations remain unclear, but the announcement shows a growing level of coordination between different groups in the Iran-allied “axis of resistance”, which also includes Lebanese Hezbollah.
The latest attack comes in response to “massacres by the Israeli enemy in Rafah” in the southern Gaza Strip, the Houthis said.
Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said the group’s operations with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq against Israel would intensify.
The Houthis, who control Yemen’s capital Sanaa and present themselves as the country’s official armed forces, have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea since November in what they say is a campaign of solidarity with the Palestinians and against the Israeli attack on Gaza.
No more “joint operations”
The claimed attack came amid growing fears of a regional escalation as Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 36,500 Palestinians, drags on.
Hezbollah recently declared that it was “ready for all-out war” with Israel if conflict was forced upon it. The group and Israel have exchanged fire almost daily for eight months.
Last month, days before the Israeli army launched an offensive on the crowded city of Rafah, the Houthis warned that they would target ships heading to Israeli ports in any area within their range.
The attacks have forced shipping companies to reroute their goods on longer and more expensive routes through southern Africa.
Saree said the Israeli military should expect “more specific joint operations” until its “brutal and criminal aggression ceases and its siege against our people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.”
A U.S.-led military coalition has been bombing Houthi targets since January, but the Yemeni group has continued its attacks.
Since October 7, Israeli forces have destroyed much of Gaza, forced around 1.7 million people from their homes and pushed the besieged enclave to the brink of famine.