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DUBAI: Israel’s military launched airstrikes early Monday targeting ports and facilities held by the Houthis, who responded with missile fire targeting Israel.
The strikes came after the Houthis attacked a Liberian-flagged ship in the Red Sea that caught fire and took on water, later forcing its crew to abandon the vessel. On Monday afternoon, they claimed the attack, which saw missiles and explosive-carrying drone boats set the vessel ablaze in the Red Sea.
The Magic Seas attack raised fears of a renewed Houthi campaign against shipping that could again draw in US and Western forces to the area, particularly after US President Donald Trump’s administration targeted the militia in a major airstrike campaign.
The ship attack comes at a sensitive moment in the Middle East, as a possible ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war hangs in the balance, and as Iran weighs whether to restart negotiations over its nuclear program following American airstrikes targeting its most sensitive atomic sites during an Israeli war against the Islamic Republic.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also was traveling to Washington to meet with Trump.
Israeli strikes target Houthi-held ports
The Israeli military said that it struck Houthi-held ports at Hodeida, Ras Isa and Salif, as well as the Ras Kanatib power plant. It released footage showing an F-16 launching from Israel for the strike, which came after the Israeli military issued a warning for the area.
“These ports are used by the Houthi terrorist regime to transfer weapons from the Iranian regime, which are employed to carry out terrorist operations against the state of Israel and its allies,” the Israeli military said.
The Israeli military also said it struck the Galaxy Leader, a vehicle-carrying vessel that the Houthis seized back in November 2023 when they began their attacks in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war.
“Houthi forces installed a radar system on the ship and have been using it to track vessels in the international maritime arena to facilitate further terrorist activities,” the Israeli military said.
The Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader was affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said that no Israelis were on board. The ship had been operated by a Japanese firm, NYK Line.
The Houthis acknowledged the strikes, but offered no damage assessment from the attack. Their military spokesman, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, claimed its air defense forces “effectively confronted” the Israelis without offering evidence.
Israel has repeatedly attacked Houthi areas in Yemen, including a naval strike in June. Both Israel and the United States have struck ports in the area in the past — including an American attack that killed 74 people in April — but Israel is now acting alone in attacking the Houthis as they continue to fire missiles at Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to launch further strikes.
“What’s true for Iran is true for Yemen,” Katz said in a statement. “Anyone who raises a hand against Israel will have it cut off. The Houthis will continue to pay a heavy price for their actions.”
The Houthis then responded with an apparent missile attack on Israel. The Israeli military said that it attempted to intercept the two missiles launched by the Houthis, but they appeared to make impact, though no injuries have been reported. Sirens sounded in the West Bank and along the Dead Sea.
Saree on Monday claimed to launch missiles and drones targeting Israel in its attack.
“We are fully prepared for a sustained and prolonged confrontation, to confront hostile warplanes and to counter attempts to break the naval blockade imposed by our armed forces on the enemy,” Saree said.
Ship attack forces crew to abandon vessel
The attack on the Magic Seas, a bulk carrier heading north to Egypt’s Suez Canal, happened about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southwest of Hodeida, Yemen, which is held by the Houthis.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, or UKMTO, center first said that an armed security team on the vessel had returned fire against an initial attack of gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, though the vessel later was struck by projectiles.
Ambrey, a private maritime security firm, said that the Magic Seas also had been attacked by bomb-carrying drone boats, which could be a major escalation. It said that two drone boats struck the ship, while another two had been destroyed by the armed guards on board.
UKMTO said the ship was taking on water and its crew had abandoned the vessel. They were rescued by a passing ship, it added.
A European Union anti-piracy patrol in the region, called Operation Atalanta, said that 22 mariners had been on board the Magic Seas.
Saree, the Houthi spokesman, claimed the attack and said the militia used missiles and bomb-carrying drone boats to attack the ship.
“Our operations continue in targeting the depths of the Israeli entity in occupied Palestine, as well as preventing Israeli maritime navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas ... until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege on it is lifted,” Saree said.
The Magic Seas’ owners didn’t respond to a request for comment.

GAZA CITY: Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed at least 12 people on Monday, including six in a clinic housing Palestinians displaced after 21 months of war.
Israel has recently expanded its military operations in the Gaza Strip, where the war has created dire humanitarian conditions for the Palestinian territory’s population of more than two million.
Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that six people were killed and 15 injured in an Israeli air strike that hit the Al-Rimal clinic, “which houses hundreds of displaced people, in the Al-Rimal neighborhood west of Gaza City.”
AFP footage showed Palestinians, including groups of young children, combing through the bombed-out interior of the clinic, where mattresses lay alongside wood, metal and concrete broken apart in the blast.
“We were surprised by missiles and explosions inside the building,” eyewitness Salman Qudum told AFP.
“We did not know where to go because of the dust and destruction.”
In the south of the territory, Bassal said two people were killed and 20 others injured by Israeli forces’ gunfire while waiting for aid near a distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
A US- and Israel-backed group, the GHF took the lead in food distribution in the territory in late May, but its operations have had a chaotic rollout with repeated reports of aid seekers killed near its facilities.


The UN human rights office said last week that more than 500 people have been killed waiting to access food from GHF distribution points.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza on Sunday placed that toll higher, at 751 killed.
In Khan Yunis in the south, Bassal reported two people killed in an air strike on a house and another killed by Israeli gunfire.
An air strike on a house in Gaza City killed one and injured several others, he added.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
In a separate statement, it said it had struck “dozens of terrorists, weapons depots, observation posts, military buildings, and other terror infrastructures” over the past 24 hours.
Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Out of 251 hostages seized during the attack, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 57,418 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.