The spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces says the army’s naval division has carried out a retaliatory strike against a container ship in the Red Sea, and the missiles hit the vessel in an accurate and direct manner.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the operation was launched against a “US-owned ship” in support of the Palestinians, who are suffering in the blockaded Gaza because of Israeli aggression and siege, and were in response to US and British airstrikes on Yemen.
The US Central Command earlier said Yemeni forces fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a Liberian-flagged container ship, identified as Pinocchio, in the Red Sea.
Saree vowed in a statement on Tuesday that the Arab nation’s military will ramp up its operations against Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and the narrow strait of Bab el-Mandeb during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan in solidarity with Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
He said the Yemeni Armed Forces will continue to prevent vessels with commercial ties to Israel or heading towards ports in the occupied territories from sailing in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, until the brutal Israeli onslaught against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip comes to an end and the all-out siege is lifted.
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 the territory’s Palestinian resistance movements carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have said they won’t stop retaliatory strikes.
The maritime attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.
Tankers are instead adding thousands of miles to international shipping routes by sailing around the continent of Africa rather than going through the Suez Canal.
