Houthi leader announces new phase of hostilities against Israel after Tel Aviv attack

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Sayed al Huthi attributes the attack exclusively to his forces and sees the Israeli response in Hodeida as a triumph for the movement

Jul 21. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The leader of the Yemeni revolutionary movement Ansarullah, the germ of the Houthi insurgency, Sayed Abdulmalik al Huthi, announced this Sunday that last Friday’s attack on Tel Aviv is the beginning of a new phase of hostilities against Israel in the campaign that Yemeni guerrillas have been waging for months in a gesture of support, according to the Houthis, for the population of Gaza.

The attack was carried out by an explosive drone that bypassed all radars and ended up detonating in Tel Aviv. The explosion, which occurred early Friday morning, caused the death of Yevgeni Ferder, a 50-year-old Israeli, and left several others injured. The Houthis had previously fired projectiles at southern Israel, but had never gone so far.

“With this attack we declare the beginning of the fifth phase of our escalation: a new equation that will continue with God’s permission and support,” he said in a speech reported by Al Mayadin, where he warned that, from now on, “the enemy will never again be safe in what is called ‘Tel Aviv’.”

In his statement, Al Huthi said that the great victory of this attack was the retaliatory bombing carried out by Israel against the Yemeni city of Hodeida (which has so far left six dead and 87 wounded according to the Houthis), believing that the Israeli government has been forced to “go beyond its strategy of limiting the conflict to Gaza.”

After promising that the bombardment of Hodeida will not prevent the Houthis from “continuing this fifth phase of support” for Gaza, the Houthi leader has sent a message to the Israeli population to “realize that their stupid leaders are dragging them into more dangers.”

The Houthi leader also praised the capabilities of the drone, which was exclusively manufactured by the Houthis and has “a long range and remarkable destructive power, above any other drone used to date.”

Shortly before the insurgent leader’s speech, the Houthi chief spokesman, Mohamed Abdulsalam, warned that the bombing of Hodeida confirmed that the movement would abandon all “red lines” in any future retaliation. “All sensitive institutions, at all levels, will be a target for us,” he said in comments reported by the pan-Arab channel Al Jazeera.

A COALITION AGAINST ISRAEL

Although the Houthi leader has claimed that the operation was carried out by his group alone — Iran is the movement’s main ally — another spokesman for the insurgents has acknowledged that there is “coordination” between Ansarullah and enemies of Israel.

“Of course there is coordination between us, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran,” Mohamed al-Bujaiti, a senior official of the organisation, explained to Al Jazeera, referring to the Lebanese militia of Hezbollah and the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.

“Furthermore, our military operations at sea are carried out in coordination with our brothers in Hamas,” he said.

“This coordination exists and we are continuing to develop it,” he added, “to the point that we could even achieve unification in our fight against the Zionist enemy,” referring to Israel.