Blitz Bureau

NEW DELHI: Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked Israel with a barrage of ballistic missiles on March 28– their first such strikes since the United States-Israeli war on Iran began. Brigadier-General Yahya Saree, a military spokesperson for the Houthis, announced the attack on Saturday on the rebels’ Al Masirah satellite television.

Strikes “will continue until the declared objectives are achieved, as stated in the previous statement by the armed forces, and until the aggression against all fronts of the resistance ceases”, Saree said. The Israeli military said it intercepted one missile.

The attack came hours after Saree signalled in a vague statement on Friday that the rebels would join the war that has rattled the Middle East and shocked the global economy. Saree said that the rebels fired a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting what he described as “sensitive Israeli military sites” in southern Israel.

Sirens went off around Beersheba and the area near Israel’s main nuclear research centre for the third time overnight Friday into Saturday as Iran and Hezbollah continued to fire on Israel. The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital Sanaa since 2014 and so far have stayed out of the US-Israeli war.

The militia’s attacks on shipping vessels during the Israel-Hamas war upended commercial transit in the Red Sea, through which about $1 trillion worth of goods passes each year. The Houthi rebels attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two ships and killing four sailors. Mohammed Mansour, the Houthis’ deputy information minister, told local media, “We are conducting this battle in stages, and closing the Bal Abaal Strait is among our options.”