Red Sea chaos looks set to return after Yemen’s Houthi Ansarallah group declared a renewed “ban” on Israeli ships traversing the area.
This edict came after a four-day deadline, issued by the Houthi group’s leader, for Gaza aid shipments to be allowed into the besieged Strip passed.
This means that Israel’s refusal to lift the siege of Gaza could now unleash a new round of chaos on the high seas around the Bab El Mandab once more.
In a televised address, Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Yahya Saree announced that any Israeli ship brazen enough to defy this ban will face attack or seizure.
Saree claimed that any Israeli maritime traffic that passes through the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, the perilous Bab al-Mandab Strait, and the Gulf of Aden will be targeted.
“This blockade will crush their passage until the crossings to Gaza are ripped open and life-saving aid, food, and medicine flood in,” Saree warned.
Israel, so far, has remained silent on the threats, offering no retort to Yemen’s deadline.
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The move follows the end of the first 42-day phase of a Gaza ceasefire on March 1 mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the U.S., after which Israel declined to enter the second phase, entailing full war cessation, and instead reclosed all Gaza crossings, blocking aid since March 8.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to extend the initial phase to secure more hostage releases without meeting broader commitments, a tactic critics say panders to hardliners in his coalition.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian armed group Hamas insists on adhering to the deal’s terms, urging mediators to launch second-phase talks for a complete Israeli withdrawal and the war’s end.
On March 7, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement, Sayed Abdul Malik al-Houthi, announced the four-day grace period, warning that if Israel fails to resume ceasefire talks and lift restrictions on aid deliveries, Ansarallah will restart naval operations against Israeli-linked maritime traffic.
“We meet the siege with a siege,” al-Houthi said, reiterating that Yemen “cannot stand by and watch the Israeli enemy’s aggressive approach in starving the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Yemen’s Endless War Inferno
Since November 2023, the Houthis have rained missiles and drones on Israel targets, hammering Israeli-linked cargo ships and even striking Tel Aviv itself in brazen displays of “solidarity with Gaza.”
Israel retaliated with airstrikes on alleged Houthi strongholds across Yemen — until the Gaza truce briefly doused the flames in January 2025.
The UK and U.S., too, have attacked Yemen in Israel’s defence, though Yemeni state media claims that civilian lives and infrastructure have been lost in the crossfire.
Undeterred by Western aggression, Yemen’s Houthis refuse to end their military support for Gaza, and are now poised to reignite the tit-for-tat strikes with the Israel-UK-U.S. axis.
Backed by Iran’s political support, the Houthis have emerged as a formidable adversary from their mountainous stronghold in north Yemen.
Fresh from a near decade-long crucible of war against a Saudi-led coalition hellbent on removing the Houthis from power in Sanaa, the Houthis remain in firm control of most of Yemen.
That brutal conflict, which claimed 150,000 lives, failed in all of its objectives but left Yemen in a dire economic and humanitarian state.
In Gaza, Israel’s relentless war since October 2023 has slaughtered over 48,500 — mostly women and children — until the January ceasefire and prisoner swap staunched the bloodletting, if only for a fleeting moment.
U.S. President Donald Trump has begun a process which will see the Houthi Ansarallah group redesignated as a terror organisation – a move which the UN has warned may make the humanitarian crisis worse in the war-torn Arab country.
