A UK-owned ship was set on fire off the southern coast of Yemen after being struck in a missile attack in the Gulf of Aden.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center said the Thursday strike saw two missiles fired at the ship some 70 nautical miles southeast of Aden.
US-led coalition forces are responding to the incident, the UKMTO said.
Ship-tracking data identified the vessel ablaze as a Palau-flagged cargo ship named Islander.
The private security firm Ambrey also said “the missile attack lead to a fire onboard and coalition military assets were responding to the incident.”
Yemen’s armed forces have introduced “submarine weapons” in their attacks on vessels either owned by Israel or associated with the regime.
Speaking in a televised speech broadcast from the Yemeni capital of Sana’a on Thursday, the Ansarullah resistance movement’s leader Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi reiterated a principled position that such strikes will continue in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“Operations in the Red and Arabian Seas, Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden are continuing, escalating, and effective,” Houthi said.
Yemen on Thursday sent shippers and insurers formal notice of a ban on vessels linked to Israel. The communication, the first to the shipping industry outlining a formalized ban, came in the form of two notices from the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center.
Ships that are wholly or partially owned by Israeli individuals or entities; Israel-flagged vessels, or those owned by US or British individuals or entities, or sailing under the flags of the US or Britain, are banned from the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea, according to the Thursday notices.
“The Humanitarian Operations Center was established in Sana’a to coordinate the safe and peaceful passage of ships and vessels that have no connection to Israel,” a senior Ansarullah official said.
Separately on Thursday, Yemeni forces targeted Israel’s port of Eilat.
The regime’s military said it had “successfully intercepted a launch which was identified in the area of the Red Sea and was en route to Israel.”
On October 31, 2023, Yemeni forces first claimed a missile-and-drone barrage targeting the port. Eilat has seen an 85% drop in activity since the Yemeni forces stepped up attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
In recent months, the United States and its allies have launched illegal attacks on Yemen’s territory amid frustration in the face of the anti-Israel maritime campaign by the Yemeni armed forces.
