Israel, we will retaliate against Houthi attacks from the US

The United States informed Israel that it would lead a response to attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden by the Houthis, a Shiite Islamist militant group based in North Yemen.

In a Thursday report, The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed government officials as attesting to the dialogue, which is intended to keep Israel’s war against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip from expanding.

The news came after a series of missile launches at commercial vessels by the Houthis, which the Islamic Republic of Iran backs.

On Wednesday, the conflict escalated further when a Houthi surface-to-surface missile was fired toward Israel, although it did not cross into Israeli territory or injure civilians.

The U.S. military has not overlooked the Houthi aggression. One anonymous defense official told the Washington Examiner that a U.S. ship shot down a Houthi drone the same day of the missile attack near Israel.

And one week before, the USS Carney shot down multiple drones in response to distress calls from some commercial vessels in the region.

“We don’t see conflict. We don’t want to see this widen out to a regional war or into the larger region,” Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh assured reporters Thursday.

Singh then applauded Secretary of State Antony Blinken for moving the USS Gerald R. Ford to the Eastern Mediterranean in October, an effort she says has sent a message of “deterrence” to “Iran and its proxies.”

Despite the U.S. attributing the incidents to Iran’s greenlight, Iranian United Nations envoy Saeid Iravani claimed Tuesday that Tehran has not been involved in any attacks against U.S. military forces.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.