The Houthi movement launched ballistic missile and drone attacks against Saudi Aramco facilities in the Red Sea coastal cities of Yanbu and Jazan on 25 July, marking the group’s first strikes on the kingdom since 2022. Air raid sirens sent residents to shelters in Yanbu, where a Greek-operated Patriot battery intercepted an incoming missile and a drone, while footage from Jizan indicated a direct hit on an oil installation. Saudi civil defence authorities issued warnings for both governorates before later declaring the threat had passed, but Riyadh has not officially confirmed the extent of the damage. NASA’s FIRMS fire-monitoring platform detected thermal anomalies at the Jizan refinery, which has a processing capacity of 400,000 barrels per day.

The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said the operation was a response to Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on Hodeidah province the previous day. Those strikes, which the coalition described as proportionate action against “legitimate military targets” linked to threats against commercial shipping, hit what Houthi-affiliated media said were a telecommunications facility and Kamaran Island. The Houthi political bureau called the raids a “dangerous escalation” and warned that “blockade will be met with blockade, port with port, and escalation with escalation.” The group had already declared a maritime blockade against Saudi-flagged vessels on 21 July, after which it attacked the oil tankers Encelia and NCC Masa, causing a fire on the former and minor damage to the latter’s hull.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government condemned the Houthi ship attacks as “new acts of terrorism” and accused the group of using the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab strait to advance Iran’s regional agenda. It expressed support for the Saudi-led military operations and urged the international community to cut off the Houthis’ funding and arms supplies. Kuwait’s foreign ministry also denounced the repeated targeting of commercial vessels as a “blatant breach of international law” and a direct threat to freedom of navigation, and declared its full solidarity with Saudi Arabia.

The exchange of strikes revives a front that had been relatively quiet since a 2022 ceasefire, and it compounds the disruption to global energy supply chains already strained by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Toby Matthiesen, a Gulf specialist at the University of Bristol, said the escalation “creates a new layer of uncertainty for world oil supply” and warned that a prolonged conflict could derail Saudi Arabia’s economic development plans. Houthi-aligned political commentator Hussain Albukhaiti signalled that the group would escalate further if the United States responded, including by blockading commercial or US naval vessels. The flare-up unfolds as the broader US-Iran confrontation spills into multiple theatres, with the Red Sea now emerging as an active front in a widening regional contest.