The French military announced overnight between Saturday and Sunday that a French destroyer intercepted two UAVs that were launched at it in the Red Sea, off the coast of Yemen.
More stories:
The two interceptions took place at 11:30 p.m. Saturday night and at 1:30 a.m. Sunday (Yemen time), according to France's Navy. The incident took place 110 km off the coast of Yemen, near the port city of Al Hudaydah, which is under the control of the Houthi rebels.
The incident occurred hours after the Houthi rebels in Yemen announced intend to prevent the passage of any ship making its way to Israel through the Red Sea, regardless of their nationality, and warned all international shipping companies against dealing with Israeli ports.
A Houthi military spokesperson said all ships sailing to Israeli ports are banned from the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.
"If Gaza does not receive the food and medicine it needs, all ships in the Red Sea bound for Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality, will become a target for our armed forces," the spokesperson said in a statement.
In Israel there is a dispute regarding the way in which the threat of the Houthis should be dealt with. Senior officials in Jerusalem say that Israel must attack the Houthis, who are Iran's emissaries, because if it does not it will show weakness. In the face of the voices calling to attack the Houthis, a senior security official said that at the present time any Israeli action against the Houthis will directly serve them and the Iranians, who want to distract Israel from its main mission in Gaza.
The Houthis are one of several groups in the Iran-aligned "Axis of Resistance" that have been hitting Israeli and U.S. targets since Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked Israel.
In one of the latest incidents, three commercial vessels came under attack in international waters last week, prompting a U.S. Navy destroyer to intervene.
The Houthis, which rule much of Yemen and its Red Sea coast, also seized last month a British-owned cargo ship that had links with an Israeli company.
A week ago, the Houthis attacked two ships in the Red Sea that were "suspected to be Israeli." The first ship that was attacked and lightly damaged is not an Israeli ship and does not fly under the Israeli flag, but one of its shareholders is an Israeli businessman. In the second case, a British ship known as Number 9 was attacked and severely damaged by a surface-to-sea missile, and was in danger of sinking. According to a U.S. source, the attack lasted about five hours. The American destroyer USS Carney, which operates in the Red Sea, was called to the area off the coast of Yemen and intercepted at least one UAV intended to attack ships.