Israeli ships are a “legitimate target,” Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels warned on Monday after their seizure of an Israel-linked cargo vessel opened a new dimension in Israel’s war against Hamas.
Sunday’s capture of the Galaxy Leader and its 25 international crew members came days after the Iran-backed Houthis threatened to target Israeli shipping over the Israel-Hamas war.
The Houthis have fired several ballistic missiles and drones at Eilat since the beginning of the war last month, all of which were intercepted or missed their targets. One of the surface-to-surface missiles was shot down by Israel’s most advanced air defense system, the Arrow 3, marking the system’s first successful interception of a missile.
The Houthis have said they are acting as part of the “axis of resistance” against Israel, which includes Iran-backed terror groups in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. The Yemeni rebel group’s slogan is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory for Islam.”
The recent attacks are the first entry into a foreign war for the Houthis, who control much of impoverished Yemen and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since 2015.
“Israeli ships are legitimate targets for us anywhere… and we will not hesitate to take action,” Major General Ali Al-Moshki, a Houthi military official, told the group’s Al-Massirah TV station.
Analysts also said Houthi threats to shipping around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a choke point at the foot of the commercially vital Red Sea, were likely to rise.
The Bahamas-flagged, British-owned Galaxy Leader is operated by a Japanese firm but has links to Israeli businessman Abraham “Rami” Ungar
The Houthis said the capture was in retaliation for Israel’s war against Hamas, which was sparked by Hamas’s shock October 7 assault on southern Israeli communities, when 3,000 terrorists broke through the border and murdered some 1,200 people, a majority of them civilians, amid brutal atrocities, and kidnapped some 240 people to Gaza.
In response, Israel vowed to eliminate the terror group in a military campaign that the Hamas-run health ministry says has killed 13,000 people in Gaza, including thousands of children. Those figures cannot be independently verified, and do not distinguish between terror operatives and noncombatants.
Sunday’s ship seizure “is only the beginning,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam said Sunday in a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, pledging further maritime attacks until Israel halts its Gaza campaign.
This and IDF base shelled by Hezbollah. Sounds like Isaiah 17:1 just about to happen.
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