• Saudi says Hodeidah port remained open to shipping.
• Kamaran Island and telecom facilities reportedly struck.
• Coalition vowed further action against Houthi attacks.
  

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said it carried out strikes on Houthi military sites in Yemen’s Hodeidah governorate, saying the sites were used to threaten commercial shipping as the Middle East war expanded.

The Houthis too claimed a missile strike on Saudi Arabia’s Jizan on Saturday, hours after vowing to retaliate against the kingdom for attacks.

The Saudi-led coalition said it hit Houthi sites and destroyed targets threatening commercial vessels in response to attacks on Red Sea shipping.

The strikes came after the Houthis claimed attacks on two Saudi ships this week, with Saudi Arabia confirming one of the attacks in the Red Sea.

“The terrorist Houthi military… targeted commercial ships in the Red Sea,” Turki al-Maliki, the Saudi-led coalition’s spokesman, said on X.

The coalition “carried out a decisive and strong response” targeting Houthi military sites used to threaten Red Sea shipping and that the “military response is now over”, he added.

The Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV said Saudi strikes hit facilities belonging to the state telecommunications corporation in Hodeidah city. The broadcaster also said Saudi forces targeted Kamaran Island, off Yemen’s western coast.

In a statement, Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, said that Hodeidah port had not been targeted and that all Yemeni ports, including Hodeidah, Ras Issa and Salif, remained open to maritime navigation and were receiving commercial ships.

The Saudi coalition said it would continue taking necessary measures to protect its ships and Saudi Arabia’s interests, and would respond “uncompromisingly” if the Houthis continued what it described as hostile actions.

Yemen’s Houthi-run foreign ministry said on Friday that the strikes marked the start of a phase of “escalation for escalation” and held Saudi Arabia responsible for any resulting developments.

The flare-up marks a new front of the war that has engulfed the region following US-Israeli strikes on Tehran in February, and comes on top of Iran’s parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Riyadh’s only other maritime route.

“The Saudi enemy’s targeting of civilian facilities in Hodeida and Kamaran island constitutes a dangerous escalation,” the Houthis’ Ansarollah media posted on Telegram.

“We affirm that these recent crimes will not go unanswered.”

A Yemeni security source told AFP a naval base in the port city of Hodeida and a military camp on Kamaran island were among the Saudi targets.

Blockade

The Yemeni security source, who requested anonymity, said the Saudi strikes targeted a telecommunications building near Hodeida´s port and a naval base at Ras al-Kathib in Hodeida.

The Houthis’ al-Masirah television channel said two people were wounded — a worker in Hodeida and a woman on Kamaran island.

It said a telecoms building had been hit in Hodeida.

On Monday, the rebels had warned in a radio message to ships that they would target vessels “belonging to (the) Saudi enemy” that do not comply with their blockade.

Saudi state media cited a transport authority official on Friday as saying “the vessel (NCC MASA), belonging to a Saudi company, was targeted while sailing in the Red Sea today… resulting in minor damage to the vessel´s hull”.

The ship resumed its course, the SPA added.

Red Sea access has become vital for Saudi Arabia to keep shipping oil as traffic in Hormuz is disrupted.

In April and May, all of Saudi seaborne crude exports departed from its Red Sea port of Yanbu, according to Kpler data. It represented 92% of all seaborne crude exports in June and 78% so far in July.

Saudi Arabia fought a seven-year war in Yemen starting in 2015 after the Houthi movement seized the capital and drove the internationally recognised government from power.

A truce in 2022 halted most major fighting in a conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of people through violence, hunger and disease.

But the truce has been undermined by Houthi targeting of a Saudi airport on July 13 and the announcement of a naval blockade of the kingdom, enforced by attacks on Saudi tankers which the Houthis said they carried out on Thursday.

US missiles hit Iran

Meanwhile, US missiles struck targets across Iran and President Donald Trump vowed “major military punishment” for Tehran and Houthis, though he once again left open the door to a diplomatic deal with Iran.

Two weeks after the collapse of an interim truce meant to end the war, Iranian armed forces responded by firing at US bases in neighbouring Arab countries and warning that they could strike non-military buildings there used by US personnel.

Trump has threatened in recent days to widen targets to Iran’s energy plants and bridges, send ground forces to seize its oil hub of Kharg Island, and bomb a deep-underground nuclear-linked site known as Pickaxe Mountain.

“We are talking to them,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I think they’re being serious. I think … they are being by far the most serious that we’ve seen them, but that doesn’t mean we get there.”

Asked what the exit strategy was for the Iran war, Trump said, “There’s a military exit where we just keep going just the way we are, and we can even make it a heavier dose, and it’s knocking out everything they have. Or there’s a smarter strategy that you make a deal.”