Red Sea tensions reach new high as US weighs terrorist designation for Houthis

Israel and Houthis in Yemen have traded fire for the first time, escalating tensions nine months after commercial ships in the Red Sea started to come under threat from the rebel group — in a waterway the U.S. Navy has been patrolling since the war in Gaza began.

Israel’s strike on Yemen’s port of Hodeidah on Saturday killed three and injured 87, the Yemeni Ministry of Health said, in a fighter jet assault over 1,000 miles away from Tel Aviv.

Israel says it was a response to a Houthi drone attack Friday that killed one person in Tel Aviv. The exchange of fire was a first for the conflict in the Red Sea, where Houthi attacks had forced an Israeli port to close but had not struck its territory.

The U.S. Navy has been engaged in a firefight with the Houthis since October, hitting Houthi launch sites and batting down incoming drones and ballistic missiles. Tallies of reporting from U.S. Central Command count 14 of these missiles and nearly 60 drones fired by the Houthis and destroyed by the U.S. Navy in June alone, which by some assessments has made the sea combat the United States’ most sustained naval fight since World War II.

Read more: ABC News