Israel deploys missile boats in Red Sea as Houthis attack from Yemen

 

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The Israeli military has said that it has deployed missile boats in the Red Sea a day after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement revealed that it had launched missile and drone attacks on Israel and vowed to carry out more.

Images disseminated by the Israelis showed Saar-class corvettes patrolling near Eilat port in the Red Sea. Israel sees this as a new front as its war in Gaza draws retaliation from Iran-aligned, pro-Hamas forces elsewhere in the region.

The Houthi movement said on Tuesday that it had launched three drone and missile attacks towards Israel since the start of the Hamas-Israel war on 7 October. It vowed that there would be more such attacks to come “to help the Palestinians to victory”.

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In what appeared to be a new attack overnight, the Israeli military said it had intercepted an “aerial threat” over the Red Sea. Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said on Tuesday that the Houthi attacks were intolerable, but declined to elaborate when asked how Israel might respond.

The Houthi movement is part of the Iran-aligned regional alliance hostile to Israel and the United States, which includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah and militias in Iraq. The movement governs swathes of Yemen including the capital Sanaa, more than a thousand miles from Israel.

Missiles and drones fired at Israel from the Red Sea area since 7 October have so far either been shot down or fallen short. In an incident on 27 October, Israel said that the Houthis were behind a drone attack that caused explosions in two Egyptian towns on the Red Sea, claiming that they had been intended to hit Israel.

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