The Houthi guerrillas in Yemen, promoted and supported by Iran and an ally of Hamas, have reported that they launched several rockets towards Israel on Sunday morning in solidarity with the people of Gaza and Hamas. Israel, for its part, claims to have intercepted a ground-to-ground projectile from that country with its anti-aircraft guns and which is still outside its territory, although an alarm had already been raised in the southern city of Eilat, on the shores of the Atlantic. Red Sea. The tension between the two continues to growwith attacks and reactions since Friday, as well as warnings of new offensives. This carries the danger of an intensification of the escalation and consequently of a greater regionalization of the war.
Tehran Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanani has warned of this risk. On Saturday night, he warned of “an escalation and expansion of the war as a result of dangerous Israeli adventures,” according to statements on Iran’s Press TV channel, cited by the Efe agency. Such fears were already prevalent after the Iran-Israel attacks three months ago.
“Iran is endangering world peace and must be stopped now, before it is too late,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz claimed in a statement published on the social network X (formerly Twitter). The Jewish state, he added, is trying to “highlight” at the international level the importance of the actions it is taking against the Houthis in order to emphasize Tehran’s “direct responsibility” and its consequences on international maritime routes.
Houthis spokesman General Yahia Saree also reported during a television appearance on Sunday that the militia launched an attack on the American ship with rockets and drones. Pumbaa in the waters of the Red Sea, Yemen's Al Mayadeen channel reported. Saree insisted on his right to defend himself against “aggression” from the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel. The response to Israel, he noted, will be “large-scale” and “inevitable” and will not stop until the war against the Palestinians ends, he added. Since the war began on October 7, when Hamas killed some 1,200 people on Israeli soil, The Houthis have expressed their solidarity with the Palestinians and their armed resistance in the form of attacks on Israel .
Saudi Arabia, which has led efforts to remove the Houthis from power in recent years, has warned of the risk of escalation between the pro-Iranian militia and Israel, “exacerbating current tensions in the region and slowing down ongoing efforts.” war in Gaza“, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Likewise, UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concern “about the risk of further escalation in the region and continues to urge everyone to exercise maximum restraint,” a statement said late Saturday. “We are witnessing an expansion of the conflict,” Marc Owen Jones, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University, said in statements to Qatar’s Al Jazeera.
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It all comes just hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels to the United States, where he will meet President Joe Biden on Tuesday and deliver a speech to Congress on Wednesday.
A drone launched by the Houthis crashed unnoticed into a building in Tel Aviv on Friday, killing a 50-year-old man. The response, in the form of F-15 fighter jets by Israel, came Saturday afternoon. The jets hit the port of Hodeidah in western Yemen, a major logistics and commercial center where the Jewish state authorities say Iran supplies them with weapons. The result was six deaths and 80 injuries, according to local health sources cited by the Reuters agency.
The port of Eilat, at the southernmost tip of Israel and on the shores of the Red Seais usually the main target of the Yemeni guerrillas. Director Gideon Golber has announced that they will lay off half of the 120 employees next week due to the decline in activity and economic losses, the newspaper reports. Marchiv.
The Houthi rebels have controlled northwestern Yemen for nearly a decade, including the capital Sanaa since 2015. In total, they control about 30% of the 555,000 square kilometers of this country of 33 million people.
The internationally recognized government, based in the southern city of Aden, warns that the current escalation will worsen the humanitarian crisis that has been affecting the country for years and blames both the militia and Israel. The legitimate executive “condemned in the strongest terms the aggression of the Zionist entity and its violation of the sovereignty of Yemeni lands, which is a clear violation of all international laws and norms,” they said in a statement, Efe reported.
Given the current situation, Israel sees a new war front opening, that of the Houthis in Yemen, after almost ten months of relentless war in Gaza against Hamas and other Palestinian armed resistance groups and at the same time on the border with Lebanon with a continuous exchange of projectiles with the Shiite guerrilla Hezbollah. Tehran, identified by Israel as the main underminer of regional security, supports all three groups.
Three months ago, the ayatollah regime launched an offensive into Israeli territory with 200 missiles and drones. Although there were no fatalities, the Jewish state responded five days later with a measured attack, signaling that it would not stand idly by. Now, the flames from fuel tanks in the Yemeni port city of Hodeida, struck by Israel on Saturday and still burning on Sunday, symbolize the possibility that the spark of war will eventually spread even further.
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