During the las week of November 2023, senior figures of the Houthi Ansar Allah terrorist group issued series of threats against Israel and the Biden administration against the backdrop of the war between Israel and the Palestinian factions headed by mega-terror outfit Hamas in the Gaza Strip, reports Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
The threats were also prompted by Houthi concern that the U.S. might designate it as a terrorist organization, especially after its recent hijacking of a shipping vessel in the Red Sea. Among the threats made, the same officials also vowed to continue to search for Israeli ships in the Red Sea with the aim of attacking them. At the same time, they warned that if the US designated them as a terrorist organization and this designation were to harm Yemeni interests, “we will view this as a declaration of war and then America will discover the disaster of engaging in escalation with Yemen…”
The following are translated excerpts from the Houthi reports:
On November 25, 2023, Hussein Al-’Izzi, the deputy foreign minister of the Houthi Ansar Allah government, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the group is not concerned about US threats to reclassify it as a terrorist organization, since doing so would only discredit the US and “expose its standards.” He said that if a terrorist designation caused harm to Yemen’s interests, this would be considered a declaration of war and “then America will discover the disaster of engaging in escalation with Yemen, the graveyard of empires and first country of attrition in history”. He said that the Houthis are “only interested in respecting those who respect us”.
On November 26, 2023, Hizbullah’s Al-Nour Radio reported that the Houthi naval forces had held a tour for journalists on the deck of “the Israeli ship,” the Galaxy Leader, that was hijacked by the Houthis on November 19 and is now being held in the territorial waters of Yemen, near the Al-Hudaydah port area. According to the report, during the tour of the ship a colonel in the Houthi naval forces, Shawqi Al-Qubati, declared that, “The navy of Yemen continues – with open eyes – to search for Israeli ships in the Red Sea, from Bab Al-Mandab [Strait] to Eilat, in order to attack them. This is in accordance with the promise made by the leader of the revolution in Yemen, ’Abd Al-Malik Badr Al-Din Al-Houthi, and with the objective of assisting the Palestinian people and its noble resistance”.
These threats follow similar declarations from the commander of the Houthi naval forces on November 22, which stated that the Houthis will continue to take action against Israeli ships and that “every Israeli ship is a legitimate target”.
On November 26, a member of the Houthi Ansar Allah political bureau, Hezam Al-Asad, tweeted in Arabic and in Hebrew that “Today, the Zionist cabinet faces two choices: To stop the aggression, to withdraw and to empty the prisons, which would be a victory for the resistance, the countries, and the factions of the axis, and for the freemen of the [Islamic] nation, and a defeat for the Israeli enemy, America, the Western countries and the regimes of normalization… Or to continue the aggression against Gaza and the crimes against its civilians, which will speed up the removal of the Zionist entity from the region”.
Meanwhile, on November 21, 2023, the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar published an article titled, “Sanaa Warns the Enemy And Allies: The Price Of Escalation Is a Complete Blockade of Navigation”. According to the article, the Defense Ministry threatened that any action against Yemen as a result of the November 19 takeover of the shipping vessel, Galaxy Leader, in the Red Sea would lead to a complete blockade of the Red Sea and the Bab Al-Mandab Strait shipping lane.
According to the report, Yemen’s Houthi-run Defense Ministry warned countries that were considering military action against Yemen that the its response would be to hit any party in its territorial Red Sea waters with an “iron fist”.
A press release posted on the Ministry of Defense website states:
“The Yemeni naval forces are fully prepared for any possible response, and will confront any foreign intervention in our territorial waters and islands. There will be appropriate response and all [vessels] will be legitimate targets for us”, said the Commander of Yemen’s Coastal Defense Brigadier General Muhammad Al-Qadiri.
“We have the appropriate weapons and missiles to deal with any development, and we can strike at any time or place we choose”, he continued.
The report argued that Yemeni forces warned shipping companies that continuing to work for businesses affiliated with Israel exposes them to danger. The report emphasized that the warning concerns only vessels associated with Israel.
Furthermore, the report from Yemen noted that the Houthi-run country has taken into consideration the safety of international shipping lines in the Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandab. Aware of risks, the report stated that Yemeni forces use modern technologies to monitor the movements of ships, determine their identities, and “hunt down any identified as an Israeli vessel”.
Al-Akhbar quoted Major General in Yemeni Air Force, Khaled Ghorab, as saying that the ship, Galaxy Leader, was dealt with in accordance with Yemeni law, since Yemen announced earlier that “all Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait are…legitimate targets”.
In his statement, Ghorab argued that Galaxy Leader “tried to break Yemeni law,” and that it was involved in “transporting weapons” to Israel.
The report also cited Deputy Director of Moral Guidance in Sanaa, Brigadier General Abdullah Bin Amer, telling Al-Akhbar that Yemen “was able to impose a naval blockade on Israeli shipping across the Red Sea”. The general continued:
“Attempts to bypass this blockade will cost the enemy’s economy a lot unless it stops its aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, as the shortest way to avoid the repercussions of closing Bab al-Mandab to Israeli navigation”, he said.
Bin Amer also stated that since the start of Yemeni operations, Israeli vessels have not sailed past the Gulf of Aqaba, and threatened that any military action against Yemen would result in a complete shutdown of navigation in the Red Sea. He also called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to stop its “barbaric war against the Palestinian people”.
