senior officials of Hamas and the Yemeni Houthi rebels met recently to discuss “coordination” of their actions against Israel, sources in Palestinian factions revealed to AFP last Friday night.

According to the agency’s sources in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, leaders of the two organizations, as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FPLP, Marxist), had “last week” a particularly “important meeting” with Ansar officials Allah (“Supporters of God”), an organization better known by the family name of its leaders, the Houthis.

During this meeting, the exact location of which and who participated in it was not specified, “mechanisms for coordinating resistance actions regarding the next stage” of the war between Israel and Hamas were discussed, the sources explained.

Palestinian factions and the Houthis also discussed a possible Israeli ground operation in Rafah, which the Israeli leadership says is Hamas’ last major stronghold in the Gaza Strip.

Nearly 1.5 million forcibly displaced Palestinians have taken refuge in this city, according to the UN.

Yesterday it was announced that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the “operational plans” ahead of the Rafah operation.

During their meeting with the Palestinian factions, the Houthis “confirmed that they will continue their operations in the Red Sea” in order to “support the Palestinian resistance”, added the AFP sources in Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who spoke under the condition not to be named.

Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Houthis are part of the “axis of resistance”, a loose alliance of movements hostile to Israel and the US backed by Iran; it also includes the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi paramilitary groups.

About a month after the Israel/Hamas war broke out, triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israeli territory on October 7, the Houthis began launching attacks against commercial — and now sometimes military — shipping off Yemen, in a sign of “solidarity” with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

During a speech on Thursday night, Ansar Allah leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi said his movement would “continue and expand the scope of (its) operations.”

“Our main battle is to prevent ships associated with the Israeli enemy from passing not only from the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but also from the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope,” he said.