“America is a partner and financier of all the crimes of the Zionist enemy. It is killing the Palestinian nation and has brought suffering and misery to this nation,” Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised address Sunday on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Gaza War.
Pointing to the US provision of large amounts of armaments to Israel in decades past, al-Houthi said Washington had delivered the “devil of wars” in Tel Aviv “the deadliest weapons” over the past year, including hundreds of transport planeloads and over 100 shiploads, (among this 240 planes and 20 ships worth in the first three months of the conflict alone).
“The Israeli enemy has used about 100,000 tons of explosives, including bombs, missiles and rockets, which were provided by the United States,” the militia leader asserted, adding that this includes an estimated 10,000 tons of unexploded ordonnance currently littering the Gaza Strip today, and US-made bombs prohibited under international law.
“The enemy has mobilized all its resources to attack Gaza, and America, Britain and the West have supported this regime through the Gaza War. The Israeli enemy attacked Gaza with an army of over 350,000 soldiers and reserve forces…sending five formations under the cover of fire from the land, sea and air. This has been the most violent and brutal attack in the history of wars,” al-Houthi said.
Listing off a series of “murders and massacres” he said had targeted Gaza’s residents over the past year, al-Houthi warned that a “curse” would “fall on the Zionist enemy,” and the “global conscience” sure to remember its “crimes.”
Al-Houthi went on to blast the US over what he characterized as Washington’s “obstruction” of efforts at the United Nations to secure a ceasefire in Gaza, including the blocking of five ceasefire resolutions, while its officials visited Israel.
Characterizing ‘Al-Aqsa Storm’ – the Hamas surprise attack into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 which kicked off the present war, as a “very big and very hard blow to the Israeli enemy,” al-Houthi asserted that “no matter how much the Israeli enemy continues with its genocide, killing and terrorism, it will not achieve the result it wants. No matter how many genocidal crimes it commits, it will not bring about any result other than the downfall and destruction of this regime.”
“The [Axis of Resistance] fronts of support in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen are one of the most important features of this round of the conflict with the Israeli enemy…and this situation is unprecedented and has never been seen before in the past 75 years,” al-Houthi said.
As for the Houthis, “one of the most important results of the Yemen operation has been preventing the movement of the Israeli enemy in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Arabian Sea,” al-Houthi said.
The Houthis began their guerrilla campaign against Israel on October 19, 2023 with the launch of missiles and drones toward the Jewish State, with the projectiles intercepted by Israeli and allied air and missile defenses. The militia raised the stakes with the seizure of the Galaxy Leader, a car carrier owned by an Israeli shipping magnate, in November 2023, and escalated again the same month by targeting ships passing through the Red and Arabian ships which Houthis suspected of links to Israel using missiles and drones.
The US announced the formation of a military coalition to stop Houthi attacks in December 2023, and in January 2024, kicked of a campaign of air and missile attacks targeting Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen together with Britain. Houthi attacks led to the sinking of two cargo ships, damaged over two dozen others, and caused a sharp decline in global shipping through the Red Sea, adding to global shipping costs and forcing haulers to go the long-way round via Africa to transport cargoes between Europe and Asia.
The Houthis haven’t stopped their drone and missile attacks targeting Israel, either. In July, a militia airplane-style drone reached the country, slamming into a building as little as 100 meters from the US consulate in Tel Aviv. In September, a Houthi missile reached Israel for the first time, landing in an open area in the center of the country, according to the Israeli military. Israel responded by striking Yemen’s port city of Hudaydah on both occasions, targeting oil tanks and power stations both times.
Senior Western officials including President Biden have admitted that US-led strikes targeting the Houthis haven’t stopped their attacks on Israel or in the Red Sea.
The militia has said repeatedly that they would end their blockade after the Israeli military’s operations in Gaza are brought to an end.