Yemeni Houthis have decided to establish a naval blockade of the port of Haifa in northwestern Israel, said the representative of the armed forces formed by the rebels, Yahya Sariyah.
“The armed forces have decided to carry out the instructions of the leadership to launch an operation to establish a naval blockade of the port of Haifa“, he said on the air of the rebel-controlled Al Masirah TV channel. According to Sariyah, the decision was taken in response to Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip and its refusal to lift the blockade of the Palestinian enclave.
“All companies whose ships are in this port or heading there are informed that at the time of publishing this statement, the said port is included in the list of targets for attack“, the Houthi military spokesman stressed.
According to his statement, the Houthis have already “managed to establish a blockade of the port“ Eilat in southern Israel and “stopped its work“. At the same time, the Yemeni rebels are ready to stop all attacks on Israel and its related targets as soon as the Israeli authorities end the operation in the Gaza Strip.
On May 6, US President Donald Trump announced that the Houthis had agreed to stop attacks on ships in the Red Sea and that US troops would no longer strike rebel targets in Yemen. Shortly after the US leader's statement, Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi announced that the US and the Houthis had agreed on a ceasefire in Yemen, brokered by the sultan. According to him, the agreement implies that the Houthis will refrain from attacking ships crossing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, including American ones. For his part, the head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council said that the rebels "will not abandon their support for Gaza" and will continue to attack Israeli territory in solidarity with the Palestinians.