The Houthis first attacked Israel in October of this year as a reprisal for their siege of the Gaza Strip
Yemen's Houthi rebels in Sana, the capital of the country.
While the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to take the lives of thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip, some Middle Eastern countries have begun to respond -albeit on tiptoe - to the attacks by the Hebrew state in defense of their Muslim siblings. Yemen is the only country that has really raised its voice in defense of Palestine, and it has done so by threatening to attack Israeli ships passing through the Red Sea, which laps the Yemeni coasts. These warnings were issued by Abdul Malik Al Jutti, leader of Yemen's Houthi current.
WHO ARE THE HOUTHIS?
They are a political and armed movement that practice Zaidism, a split of Shiite Islam, which opposes the Sunni government of Yemen. This group calls itself "Ansarollah" ("supporters of God" in Arabic) and emerged in 1994 as a reaction to the growing power of Saudi Arabia in the rest of the Arabian Peninsula, impoverishment and poor living conditions. At that time, these Shiite rebels took up arms for the first time and have since established themselves as an organized and effective group.
Houthi fighters gather during a military maneuver near Sana, carrying Yemeni and Palestinian flags.
Yemen's Houthis represent around 35% of the country's population and are named after the movement's first leader, Hussein Al Huti. This rebel group has been confronting the Yemeni government for more than a decade and, since 2011, has expanded beyond its Zaidi roots, becoming since then a fervent opponent of the central government and forcing the executive to go into exile in Saudi Arabia after taking Sana, the country's capital, in 2014.
This group is supported by Iran, the homeland of Shiism, a situation that has not pleased Saudi Arabia, which has long accused Iran of arming the Houthis to wage a proxy war and has gone so far as to compare the Houthis to Hezbollah -a Lebanese Shiite organization that receives arms, training and financial support from Iran-. After years of being busy countering the rise of Iran in countries such as Iraq and Syria, the unstoppable rise of the Houthis prompted Saudi Arabia to strike a blow for authority in the neighboring country to maintain its image as a bastion of Sunnis.
THE ROLE OF THE HOUTHIS IN YEMEN´S CONFLICT
Houthi involvement in Yemen's political issues began in the 1990s, when the political leader Hussein Al Huti criticized the government for corruption and demanded more political autonomy for the Zaidis. The response of then President Ali Abdullah Saleh was to crack down on anti-government demonstrations in the early 2000s, so the Houthis rose up against the Saleh government in 2004 and Al Huti was murdered. After this defeat of the movement and until 2010, the Houthis clashed up to five times with the Yemeni government.
By 2014, the Houthis had succeeded in driving the Salafist groups out of the north of the country and advanced towards Sana. That year they seized the capital, dissolved the parliament and in 2015 formed a Revolutionary Committee to establish a system of self-rule. Since then, Yemen's civil war took on a regional look. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates formed a coalition to return Al Hadi to power, leading to bombings and ground interventions. The ex-President Salé saw this as an opportunity to return to power and allied with the Houthis. Together they continued their advance southward, but in 2017 Salé announced a unilateral end to the alliance and a rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, and two days later, the Houthis murdered him. Since then they have carried out attacks against both Al Hadi troops and Saudi forces on the border.
The conflict in Yemen has spread to plunge the population into the world's largest humanitarian crisis. By the end of 2021 there were 377,000 dead and, according to Amnesty International, human rights violations have been committed by all the participants of the conflict. The Saudi Arabian coalition is blockading Yemeni ports, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid. Twenty-four million people, 75% of the Yemeni population, are currently in need of humanitarian aid and protection. Nearly twenty million are severely food insecure, and eighteen million have lack access to basic health services.
THE CONFRONTATION WITH ISRAEL
To face the crisis, negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Houthi leaders to end the conflict began in April 2023. However, they stopped in October, when the Houthis attacked Israel as a reprisal for their siege of the Gaza Strip. These attacks are part of the strategy of the Shiite Axis of Resistance, to which the Houthis belong. They launched missiles and drones against ships of the Hebrew state on October 20 that were intercepted by a U.S. ship, and have confirmed their authorship in others intercepted by Israel.
Although they began by launching missiles and drones, because of the ineffectiveness of their direct actions, the insurgents opted to attack and hijack any Israeli-flagged or Israeli-owned vessel transiting off the coast of Yemen, one of the most important commercial shipping routes in the world. On November 19, the first capture of an Israeli vessel by Yemeni Houthis was recorded. Although the Hebrew state denied that it was an Israeli vessel, the Houthi rebels claim it was part of their "military operation in the Red Sea" directed exclusively against Israeli vessels, which culminated in the diversion of the ship to the insurgent-controlled port of Al Salif.
The Galaxy Leader, an Israeli ship hijacked by the Houthis.
The Israeli ship has become a tourist attraction and is decorated with the messages "Long live the al-Qasam Brigades", in reference to the armed wing of Hamas, or "Death to the US, death to Israel and curse on the Jews". Like if it was a pilgrimage, thousands of Iranian-backed Houthi sympathizers boarded small fishing boats to visit the ship.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea confirmed -in case any doubts remained- in a televised speech that the Iranian-backed Houthi movement carried out this operation, but did not initially detail how many people were on the boat or their nationalities. Sarea has indicated that the Houthis are treating the ship's crew in accordance with Islamic teachings and values, and have released images of the hostage sailors dancing, singing and eating with Yemeni fighters. He also assured that they will continue to carry out military operations against Israel until the aggression against the Gaza Strip and the West Bank ceases, accusing the Hebrew state of threatening security and stability in the Middle East.
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