A spokesman for Yemen’s ruling Houthi Ansarullah movement says the Arab country’s attacks against shipping in the Red Sea will only stop after the Israeli regime ends its aggression and blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Mohammed Abdul-Salam, who is also the chief negotiator of the Ansarullah movement, made the remarks on Tuesday, as Yemen’s military continued striking Israel-linked vessels, as well as US and British ships, sailing in regional waters.
Asked whether Yemen’s Red Sea operations would end in case a ceasefire is reached between the Israeli regime and the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement, Abdul-Salam said that the situation would be reassessed if Israel ended its siege on Gaza and allowed humanitarian aid to enter the Palestinian territory.
Yemenis have declared their open support for Palestine’s struggle against the Israeli occupation since the regime launched a devastating war on Gaza on October 7 after resistance movements in the territory carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm on Israeli settlers and military forces in occupied Palestine.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they will not stop retaliatory strikes until unrelenting Israeli ground and aerial offensives in Gaza, which have killed nearly 30,000 people and wounded around 70,000, come to a complete end.
The maritime attacks have forced some of the biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.
The United States and the United Kingdom have been carrying out strikes against Yemen since early January after Washington and its allies offered Israel their full support amid attacks by Yemeni forces on Israeli-linked ships sailing to and from the occupied territories through the Red Sea.
Separately on Tuesday, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement that US “preemptive” strikes on Yemen on Monday had destroyed two anti-ship cruise missiles, three unmanned surface vessels and a drone in the Arab country.
It claimed that the destroyed missiles were being prepared to launch toward the Red Sea.
Two days earlier, the US and the UK said that they had targeted at least 18 military sites in eight locations across Yemen. The attacks included strikes against underground weapons and missile storage facilities, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter, they added.
