Senior Houthi official says Bab el Mandab closure an option if any Gulf states join war

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WASHINGTON — The Houthis could move to close the Bab el Mandab strait should any Gulf countries participate in US and Israeli strikes against Iran, a senior official for the group told Al-Monitor. 

“We bear a religious, moral and humanitarian responsibility that precludes us from standing idly by,” Houthi Deputy Information Minister Mohammed Mansour said in a March 31 interview over WhatsApp. 

“The option of closing the Bab el Mandab strait is a Yemeni option that can be implemented should the aggression against Iran and Lebanon escalate savagely, or if any Gulf state becomes directly involved in military operations in support of the [Zionist] entity or the United States,” Mansour said.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were moving closer to formally joining the war following weeks of Iranian attacks on their soil. On Tuesday, the outlet said the UAE was preparing to help the United States open the Strait of Hormuz by force. 

Mansour spoke days after the Houthis fired ballistic missiles targeting what it said were "sensitive" military sites in southern Israel on Saturday, marking their first attack in the war that began on Feb. 28. On Wednesday, the Yemeni militant group claimed a third missile attack, which the Israeli military said it intercepted. 

The renewed Houthi missile launches come as President Donald Trump touts progress over a possible war-ending deal with Iran, which has publicly rejected US demands, including the dismantling of its nuclear program. On Wednesday, Trump said Iran had requested a ceasefire — a claim its foreign ministry denied as “false and baseless.” 

Many analysts are skeptical that Iran would accept a truce as it did during the 12-day war in June, fearing the United States and Israel would simply use the time to regroup and attack again. The Houthis, in tentatively entering the war now, may be aiming to strengthen Tehran’s hand in its negotiations with Washington. 

They have so far limited their attacks to Israel, whose multilayered air defenses intercept most missiles fired from Yemen. But their decision to join the fray could prove more consequential should they begin disrupting global trade and energy supplies already impacted by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz. 

The Houthis have threatened to leverage their control of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline to target vessels in and around Bab el Mandab, the 32-kilometer-wide strait at the Arabian Peninsula’s southern tip. With the Strait of Hormuz closed, Bab el Mandab is now carrying more oil exports from Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu port to Asian markets than it did before the war. 

Red Sea threat 

The Houthis, who are part of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance and designated a terrorist group by the United States, have controlled much of northern Yemen since expelling the internationally recognized government in 2014. They waged a nearly decade-long war against a Saudi-led military coalition before a United Nations-backed ceasefire took effect in 2022. 

Yemen’s relatively fragile calm unraveled during the Gaza war, when the Houthis attacked more than 100 vessels in the Red Sea and nearby waters in support of their Palestinian ally Hamas. The attacks, including the Houthis' sinking of two vessels, forced firms to reroute around the Red Sea, adding at least 10 days and 6,000 nautical miles onto the journey for ships circumnavigating South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. 

The Houthis and the United States reached an Oman-mediated ceasefire in May 2025 following a weeks-long campaign of US strikes on the group's military infrastructure in Yemen. The militants continued firing on Israeli territory and Israeli-linked vessels until the Gaza ceasefire was reached in October.  

Asked if the Houthis would resume attacks on US warships and commercial vessels, Mansour said, “We know how to wrest our rights; we are no strangers to confrontation.”

He added that “Sanaa will be compelled to seize its rights by force” if the United States “persists in its total alignment with the Israeli entity, harnessing all its capabilities to serve the Israeli extreme right, and if the United States continues to obstruct Saudi Arabia from implementing the UN-supervised roadmap.” 

A United Nations framework for ending the Yemeni civil war envisions a nationwide ceasefire and an inclusive political process. Implementation has stalled amid the Houthis’ Red Sea campaigns and their disputes with the Saudi-backed Yemeni government. 

Fatima Abo Alasrar, a senior analyst at the Washington Center for Yemeni Studies and author of the Ideology Machine Substack, described the Houthi decision to join the war as a card played to “save face” with its anti-Israel base inside Yemen. 

“But just because they named the card, it's not the same as playing it,” Abo Alasrar.  

The Houthis know they cannot match the intensity of their previous attacks on maritime shipping in part because the current war has disrupted the supply chains that underpin their weapons manufacture, Abo Alasrar said. US strikes have targeted Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran that serves as a departure point for shipments smuggled to the Houthis.

Iran's push

Iran nonetheless is encouraging — if not pressuring — the Houthis to get more involved, said Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemen specialist at Chatham House think tank. 

"This is too critical a moment for Iran not to pull any cards it has," said Muslimi. The Houthis, meanwhile, are not only “trying to improve Iran's negotiating position, but also their own position" within their patron's proxy network by resuming strikes against Israel. 

With Lebanese militant group Hezbollah severely degraded by Israeli military campaigns over the past two years, the Houthis see an opening to elevate their standing in the Axis of Resistance. 

“They are Iran's most valuable card, [and] addicted to increasing their power — domestically and regionally,” Muslimi said.