WANA (Mar 28) – Yemen has formally entered direct confrontation with Israel. The spokesperson for Yemen’s armed forces announced that military operations against Israeli targets had begun, describing the move as part of Yemen’s support for the Islamic Republic of Iran and resistance fronts in Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine.

 

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, spokesperson for the armed forces affiliated with Ansarallah, said the operation began with the launch of several ballistic missiles toward what he described as sensitive military targets in southern occupied Palestine.

 

According to Saree, the strikes were carried out in response to the continued military escalation, attacks on infrastructure, and the killing of people in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine.

 

He also said the missile attacks were launched simultaneously with operations by Iran and Hezbollah and had successfully reached their intended targets.

 

International media outlets have reported that the Houthis took responsibility for a missile attack on southern Israel, while the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen.

 

At the same time, Israeli media, including Yedioth Ahronoth, reported that Yemen had entered the war. The newspaper noted that Ansarallah had previously warned that if Gulf Arab states joined the United States in military action against Iran, their oil infrastructure could become a target.

 

If carried out, such a threat could dramatically expand the crisis beyond the battlefield and into the core of regional energy security and global oil markets.

 

In another part of his statement, Saree outlined three new red lines:

  • the formation of any new coalition alongside the United States and Israel against Iran and the resistance axis;
  • the use of the Red Sea for hostile operations against Iran or any Muslim country;
  • and any further escalation against Iran and its allies.

 

He said that in any of these scenarios, Yemen remained ready for direct military intervention, depending on developments on the ground.

 

The message goes beyond political signaling. It indicates that Ansarallah is seeking to pressure three fronts at once: Israel from the south, the United States through maritime routes, and Washington’s Arab partners through the threat to energy infrastructure.

 

In a related development, Mohammed Mansour, Yemen’s deputy information minister, announced on Saturday that closing the Bab al-Mandeb Strait is among Sana’a’s options in the conflict with Israel. The strait is a key international shipping route linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, making its closure a potential leverage point in the regional confrontation.

 

In other words, Yemen is no longer positioning itself as a peripheral player in the conflict. It is increasingly emerging as an active lever for raising the regional cost of any anti-Iran coalition.

 

Field developments on Saturday also suggest that the missile launch toward southern Israel marked the first openly acknowledged strike of this kind since the start of the war’s latest phase. That alone underscores how far the geography of the conflict has expanded — from Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza to the Red Sea and deep into southern Israel.

 

If this trajectory continues, Yemen’s formal entry into the war could become one of the most consequential turning points in the current conflict — not because of the number of missiles fired, but because of the strategic message it sends to Washington, Tel Aviv, and Arab capitals: the broader the pressure on Tehran and its allies, the wider the battlefield may become.