JERUSALEM - Yemen’s Houthis fired two missiles at central Israel on June 8, one of which was intercepted and one of which fell short, as the jihadist group simultaneously announced a complete ban on Israeli vessels in the Red Sea in a significant escalation of its maritime campaign.
Yahya Saree, the Houthis’ military spokesperson, said the group was imposing “a complete and total ban on maritime navigation on the Israeli enemy in the Red Sea,” adding, “We consider that all movements of the enemy to be a military target from the announcement of this statement.” The Houthis claimed to be targeting sites in the Tel Aviv area.
The missile attack came as Israel and Iran exchanged fire for the first time since the April 7 ceasefire between the United States, Israel, and Iran. Iran fired multiple missile barrages at Israel in the early hours of June 8 in response to an Israeli strike against Hezbollah in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh on June 7.
Saree framed the attack as part of a broader jihadist campaign, describing it as “in the context of confronting American-Zionist aggression” and “in line with the jihad and resistance axis in Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.” He added the operations were conducted “in pursuit of breaking the unjust and oppressive [US] blockade [on Iranian shipping in the Strait of Hormuz]” and “within the framework of the principle of unity of fronts and confronting the enemies, and in response to the Zionist aggression against Lebanon, Gaza, and Iran.”
The Houthis’ leader, Abdulmalik al Houthi, said in a speech on June 5 that the Yemeni group is in “full coordination” with the other elements of the Axis of Resistance — Iran and its proxies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Gaza. Esmail Qaani, commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, had threatened to close the Bab al Mandeb Strait, the vital strategic Red Sea chokepoint, in early June.
The Houthis previously enacted a blockade on Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat and targeted vessels connected to Israel during the war in Gaza, though the group had also struck vessels without ties to Israel or with vague or distant connections. The Houthis were previously slow to join the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, only attacking Israel on March 28, a month after fighting began, and they opted not to close the Bab al Mandeb Strait at that time despite threats from Tehran.
The new maritime ban and the coordinated timing with Iranian strikes mark a sharper alignment between the Houthis and the IRGC-QF than in earlier phases of the conflict, with Western shipping interests in the Red Sea now facing renewed disruption as the ceasefire framework collapses.