Red Sea crisis

The Red Sea crisis (Arabic: أزمة البحر الأحمر) began on 19 October 2023, when the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen launched missiles and armed drones at Israel, demanding an end to the invasion of the Gaza Strip. The Houthis have since seized or bombarded dozens of merchant and naval vessels in the Red Sea and received hundreds of retaliatory air strikes by the United States and allied forces. The crisis is linked to the Gaza war, the Iran–Israel proxy war, and the Yemeni crisis.

Since 2014, the Houthis, who oppose Yemen's internationally recognized government, have controlled a considerable swath of the country's territory along the Red Sea. Shortly after the outbreak of the Gaza war, the Hamas-allied group began to launch missiles and drones at Israel. It has also fired on merchant vessels in the Red Sea, particularly in the Bab-el-Mandeb, the southern maritime gateway to the Suez Canal, damaging the global economy. The group has declared that it will not stop until Israel ceases the Gaza war.

The Houthis say that any Israel-linked ship is a target, including US and UK warships, but they have also attacked the ships of many nations with no connection to Israel. From October 2023 to March 2024, the Houthis attacked more than 60 vessels in the Red Sea. To avoid attack, hundreds of commercial vessels have been rerouted to sail around South Africa.

The Houthis' Red Sea attacks have drawn a military response from a number of countries. In January 2024, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2722, condemning the Houthi attacks and affirming freedom of navigation. The United States-led Operation Prosperity Guardian was launched to protect Red Sea shipping. From 12 January 2024, the US and UK led coalition air and missile strikes against the Houthis, while other countries are independently attacking Houthi vessels in the Red Sea. On 3 May 2024, Yemeni general Yahya Saree said, "We will target any ships heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea in any area we are able to reach". On 6 May 2025, US president Donald Trump announced a cessation of US strikes as a result of a bilateral ceasefire between the US and the Houthis.

The Houthi movement is an Iran-backed Zaydi Shia Islamist militant organization that exercises de facto control over parts of Yemen, though it is not the country's internationally recognized government; the Houthi takeover in Yemen in 2014 resulted in the group's acquisition of the capital city of Sanaa, but the anti-Houthi Presidential Leadership Council remains recognized by the international community as Yemen's legitimate government. After this conflict grew into an ongoing civil war, millions of residents were internally displaced, and a Saudi-led coalition responded by imposing a blockade of Yemen. These combined to shrink the economy by half and contributed to famine in Yemen since 2016, one of the worst in the world.

The US military destroyed drones in Yemen's Houthi-held region and over the Red Sea due to perceived threats, exacerbating tensions in the conflict-ridden area. This comes amidst ongoing attacks by the Houthis and challenges to diplomatic efforts to end the Yemeni war.

Following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the Gaza war, numerous Iran-backed militant groups across the Middle East (including the Houthis) expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened to attack Israel. Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi warned the United States against intervening in support of Israel, threatening that such an intervention would be met with retaliation by drone and missile strikes. In order to end their attacks in the Red Sea, the Houthis demanded a ceasefire in the Gaza war and an end to the accompanying Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

According to Armament Research Services, Houthi weapons are mostly of Russian, Chinese or Iranian origin. They are known to use surface-to-surface missiles, artillery rockets, loitering munitions and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They have several missiles and UAVs capable of reaching Israel from Yemen: