Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels captured more strategic islands in the southern Red Sea, government and Houthi officials said Monday, strengthening their control of a major maritime shipping route.

The capture of the islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish was the latest in the rebels’ swift advance around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key passage for Saudi oil shipments that has only become more crucial during the Iran war since it serves as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

Like Hormuz, which is located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula — is a chokepoint that connects the Red Sea to the open ocean and Saudi Arabia’s key Asian markets.

For more than a month, the Houthis have been striking Saudi oil infrastructure and shipping in the Red Sea, stepping up pressure on global oil prices and boosting Iran’s leverage in its war with the United States.

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have been attempting to rally and fight back. But the Houthi gains have seemingly come with little resistance.

The rebels deployed on the Hanish islands, 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Bab el-Mandeb, after hundreds of government-allied forces withdrew from the archipelago, according to two government officials and a Houthi official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

The capture of the islands came after the rebels last week seized the port city of Mokha on the mainland nearby and the island of Mayun, inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis’ advances also put them just 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the US military base in Djibouti, on the other side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Thousands of Yemenis are fleeing the fighting

The fighting is pushing the impoverished nation back into full-fledged civil war, after a truce that largely maintained quiet since 2022. Even as they advance along the Red Sea, the Houthis have waged an offensive further inland, particularly in the longtime battleground province of Taiz.

Some 150 civilians have been killed in fighting since September 3, including a pregnant woman killed Saturday in a village in Taiz, the government’s Human Rights Ministry said. More than 200 civilians have been........

© The Times of Israel