Yemen’s Houthis announced yesterday Sunday that they had conducted two military operations, one in the Gulf of Aden and the second in Eilat, in southern Israel.

The movement’s spokesman for military affairs, Yahya Sharia, said what he said was an Israeli ship MSC Unific was targeted in the Gulf of Aden with ballistic missiles and drones, and that drones were launched against military targets in Eilat, a port on the southern tip of the country. Israeli territory.

According to the spokesman Sharia, the operations were carried out in response to the Israeli bombardment of Khan Younis last Saturday, which according to the Ministry of Health of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, resulted in the death of more than 90 people and injuries another 300 and more.

For its part, the joint command of the US armed forces responsible for the Middle East (CENTCOM, “central command”) announced yesterday the destruction of two unmanned remotely piloted aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the Red Sea, an unmanned remotely piloted surface vessel (USV) in the Red Sea, as well as one more UAV in Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.

The weapons were deemed to pose “an immediate threat to US and allied forces and merchant vessels transiting the area,” CENTCOM said, using its standard phraseology for such operations.

Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement, better known by the family name of its leaders, the Houthis, has been launching drone and missile attacks on commercial and warships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden sea lanes since November in a show of “solidarity » to the Palestinians in the besieged and devastated Gaza Strip, where Israel and Hamas have been at war since October 7.

In their dozens of attacks, the Houthis have sunk two merchant ships, captured a third and killed at least three sailors.

The campaign by the rebels, seen as close to Iran, has seen the cost of insuring ships crossing the Red Sea to the Suez Canal skyrocket; forcing shipping companies to send their ships around Africa, running much more time-consuming and costly.