Houthis vow to restart attacks on shipping as US and Israel renew airstrikes

Yemen’s Houthi military forces, a rebel group that controls much of the country’s northern region in a stalemated civil war, says it will again begin launching attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea region. 

Houthi rebel forces, which launched more than 100 attacks on commercial shipping between late 2023 and early 2025 say they have targeted US naval aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman three times over two days in response to US strikes on Houthi targets ordered by US President Donald Trump.

The US Central Command (Centcom) operational unit in the Middle East said air strikes began on 15 March and posted a video of fighter jets launching from the aircraft carrier.

The US military group said it initiated an "operation consisting of precision strikes against Iran-backed Houthi targets across Yemen to restore freedom of navigation". 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on US television, "We’re doing the entire world a favor by getting rid of these guys and their ability to strike global shipping. That’s the mission here, and it will continue until that’s carried out."

The US airstrikes preceded a restart of violence in the Gaza Strip. Israel, which had been withholding food and other aid to the Gaza Strip for several days, launched a bombing campaign that has, after a two-month break in attacks, killed more than 400, according to Palestinian sources. Israel has been seeking to pressure the militant leadership of Gaza, Hamas, into a deal tabled by US Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff. The so-called ’Witkoff plan’ required Hamas to release half of its remaining Israeli hostages in return for an extension of the existing ceasefire agreement and promises for further negotiations around a permanent end to fighting. The ceasefire agreement in January 2025 had outlined three phases, with negotiations supposed to have started early on in the first phase and led to a longer-term break.

Houthi spokesperson Yahya Sare’e posted videos on social media platform X linking the US attacks in Yemen and the Israeli bombing of Gaza and saying "The Yemeni Armed Forces salute the steadfast people in the Gaza Strip and affirm that they will continue to ban the passage of Israeli ships from the declared zone of operations until the blockade is lifted."

Numbers differ, but an analysis by shipbroker Howe Robinson Partners revealed that, since the beginning of the Houthi-led campaign in late 2023, there have been more than 100 confirmed attacks on commercial vessels. These attacks sank two vessels, killed four mariners and wounded many others. They peaked in Q1 2024 with 36 incidents, and gradually declined to eight and seven incidents in the third and fourth quarters of the year, respectively. 

Vespucci Maritime chief executive Lars Jensen, who has been posting to his LinkedIn feed regular reports on the operational situation in the Red Sea and its impacts on container shipping, said "Realistically we are now looking at a 2025 where the deviation around Africa could continue in the peak season over summer."

"For now, the risk for merchant vessels passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea is back to a peak level again," he said.