The Houthi insurgents of Yemen appear to have joined the Iran conflict on behalf of their arms dealers and paymasters in Tehran by launching missiles and drones at Israel on Saturday.
The danger with more global implications is that the Houthis could resume their terror attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, dealing another blow to the global economy after Iran largely shut down the vital Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis launched a campaign of piracy against Red Sea shipping during the Gaza War, supposedly on behalf of the Palestinians, although the Yemeni insurgents were notably indiscriminate about attacking ships that had no real connection to Israel.
Attacks by the Houthis against massive cargo ships rarely inflicted massive damage, but they were troubling enough to drive almost every major shipping company to avoid the Red Sea passage to the Suez Canal, inflicting billions of dollars in extra freight and fuel costs on the world economy.
Various international efforts to protect shipping against Houthi drone and missile attacks proved ineffective, notably the effort by the Biden administration to cobble together an international coalition of concerned parties to restore order in the Red Sea including Israeli airstrikes intended to wipe out the Houthis’ missile launchers.
The Houthis suspended their campaign of high-seas terrorism in November 2025, ostensibly because a ceasefire agreement was reached in Gaza. On Saturday, the first Houthi missile and drone attacks against Israel since last year raised fears that the Red Sea could once again become dangerous for shipping.
Houthi officials claimed they attacked “sensitive Israeli military sites” on Saturday, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said all of the attacks launched from Yemen were intercepted.
Israel-based defense analyst Michael Horowitz told Radio Free Europe (RFE) that the Houthis might have been sending “an indirect message to the Gulf, and particularly Saudi Arabia, warning them against joining the war against Iran, or letting U.S. forces use more of their bases.”
Horowitz explained that the Houthis have been negotiating with Saudi Arabia after years of fighting, the Saudis having led a coalition to intervene against the Houthis in the Yemeni civil war that began in 2014.
The Yemeni insurgents could be reluctant to wipe out the progress they have made with the Saudis, so they did not instantly join the war on Iran’s behalf after Operation Epic Fury began at the end of February, but they might have launched a desultory attack on Israel over the weekend just to remind the region they are a destructive force to be reckoned with.
Other analysts told RFE that the Houthis could be useful to Iran by creating problems with Red Sea shipping, especially Saudi oil shipments. If Houthi attacks once again make ship captains nervous about using the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that runs between Yemen and Djibouti, it could shave four million barrels per day (bpd) off Saudi oil deliveries, and the already-nervous energy market would likely panic.
The timing of the Houthi resurgence is especially unfortunate because the Saudis only recently began shifting massive amounts of oil to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu in a bid to avoid using the Strait of Hormuz.
Shipments out of Yanbu have nearly tripled over the past two weeks, and oil shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait are up about 21 percent, which is not enough to completely make up for the loss of the Hormuz route, but it helps to ease the economic pain.
Analysts warned on Monday that losing the Bab el-Mandeb route could push the price of oil over $150 per barrel. The cost of insurance for tankers and cargo ships would almost certainly rise due to a renewed Houthi threat, adding to the cost of shipping for oil and many other goods.
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