Taiz- For about a year, the Ansar Allah Houthi group has continued to carry out multiple attacks on Israeli cargo ships or those linked to them, in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, and all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.
The group also expanded its naval attacks, targeting American and British ships, following the military intervention of the two countries in Yemen at the beginning of this year. In addition, the Yemeni group continued to carry out offensive strikes on the Israeli side, some of which reached Tel Aviv and left casualties.
In a video speech on the occasion of the first anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, the Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, announced on Sunday the outcome of the attacks carried out by his group in support of Gaza, and said that their armed forces targeted 193 ships linked to the Israeli, American and British enemy over the course of a year.
Al-Houthi spoke in a speech that lasted about two hours, in which he said, “On the Yemen front, we were bombarded over a year with more than a thousand missiles and drones, and we used boats in the seas to support Gaza.” He added, “11 American MQ9 armed drones were shot down during a year.” .
Naval attacks
Among the 193 ships targeted by the Houthis, there were attacks that had the most prominent impact, most notably the hijacking of the ship “Galaxy Leader” on November 19, 2023, which they said was Israeli, and it was detained with its crew in the city of Hodeidah overlooking the Red Sea in western Yemen.
The ship contained a crew of 25 people, and is still detained today, as the group stresses that the fate of the ship’s crew “is linked to negotiations with the brothers in the Hamas movement, given that its crew members work on an Israeli ship.”
On February 19, Houthi forces fired ballistic missiles at the cargo ship “Rubimar” in the Gulf of Aden, which directly hit it and made it vulnerable to sinking. It is a ship owned by the United Kingdom and flying the flag of the country of Belize, located in northern Central America, and is approximately The ship is about 172 meters long and 27 meters wide.
Four days later, the US Central Command announced in a statement that the attack launched by the Houthis on the ship caused severe damage and led to the leakage of an oil slick with a length of 29 kilometers, explaining that the ship was transporting more than 41 thousand tons of fertilizer, which could lead to its sinking causing an environmental disaster. It happened on March 3, when US Central Command announced the sinking of the ship in the Red Sea.
On June 12, the Houthi group announced the targeting of the Greek ship “Tutor” in the Red Sea, “in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.” The group said in its statement that it targeted the ship because the company that owned it violated “the decision to ban entry to the ports of occupied Palestine.” .
A week later, the group broadcast a video clip showing scenes of the ship being targeted in the Red Sea with two drone boats, which led to its sinking. The Houthis revealed that they had used several naval weapons to target and sink the ship, including weapons used for the first time.
On June 21, the Yemeni Minister of Information, Muammar Al-Eryani, said that the Houthis used booby-trapped fishing boats carrying “doll” figures in the shape of fishermen, in the attack on “Tutor.” He added that the attack led to the sinking of the ship and the loss of one of its crew, considering this a “crime.” A series of successive incidents threaten to collapse Yemen’s fish production, and endanger the lives of thousands of Yemeni fishermen.
The Houthis also announced the sinking of the ship “Verbena” in the Gulf of Aden on the 15th of the same month, two days after it was targeted by a number of naval missiles. The group justified targeting the ship “because of its violation of the ban on access to the ports of occupied Palestine.”
Then, the US Central Command confirmed, through a statement, that the Verbena ship is a Ukrainian-owned, Polish-operated cargo carrier flying the flag of Palau, located in the western Pacific Ocean. The ship was bombed by an anti-ship ballistic missile launched from an area controlled by the Houthis towards the Gulf of Aden.
On August 21, 2024, the British Maritime Trade Operations Authority announced that 3 projectiles hit the ship “Sounion” 77 nautical miles off the city of Hodeidah, western Yemen, restricting its movement. It is a Greek tanker carrying 150,000 tons of crude oil (one million barrels). ), for the same reason (violating the ban on access to the ports of occupied Palestine), and it became vulnerable to sinking.
However, the group announced on August 29 that it had allowed the ship to be towed, which was done on September 16, when the European Union military mission in the Red Sea, “ASPEDS”, announced the success of towing the ship “Sounion” to a safe area without any oil leakage, after About 3 weeks after being targeted.
Bombings and marches
On October 31, 2023, the Houthis announced for the first time that they were targeting Israel with a large number of drones and missiles in solidarity with Gaza. After this date, the group continued to carry out several operations, most notably on July 19, when it announced the implementation of a specific military operation that targeted one of the targets. The mission in Tel Aviv, using a new “Jaffa” drone.
The group stated in its statement that “the aircraft is capable of bypassing the enemy’s interception systems, and radars cannot detect it,” and declared that “Tel Aviv is an unsafe area.”
On the other hand, the Hebrew Broadcasting Corporation announced at the time that an Israeli was killed and 10 others were injured, following the explosion of a booby-trapped drone at the intersection of Shalom Aleichem and Ben Yehuda Streets, hundreds of meters away from the United States Embassy.
In another Houthi attack, Tel Aviv announced that 9 Israelis were slightly injured as they rushed towards shelters, after a surface-to-surface missile was launched from Yemen, on September 15, 2024. Hours later, the Houthi group claimed responsibility for the attack, and stated in a statement that its missile forces carried out “A qualitative military operation targeted a military target in the Jaffa region in occupied Palestine.”
It revealed that “the operation was carried out with a new hypersonic ballistic missile, which covered an estimated distance of 2,040 kilometers within 11 and a half minutes, and succeeded in reaching its target, while the Israeli enemy’s defenses failed to intercept and confront it.”
In turn, Israeli Army Radio confirmed that the ballistic missile was launched from Yemen, and traveled a path of about two thousand kilometers, or about 15 minutes of flight.
Over the course of nearly a year, the Houthis announced the implementation of many attacks on Israel, the most recent of which was last Thursday, when the military spokesman for the group’s forces, Yahya Saree, reported the implementation of a military operation targeting a vital target in Tel Aviv with a number of Jaffa-type drones.