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Iran Conflict 2026
24MAY

Houthis strike Israel for the first time

2 min read
14:49UTC

Yemen's Ansar Allah launched ballistic missiles at Israeli military sites on Day 29, ending four weeks of deliberate restraint at Tehran's request.

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ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

Iran activated the Houthis after talks collapsed, threatening a second chokepoint.

Ansar Allah fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at military sites in southern Israel on 28 March, their first attack since the war began on 28 February. 1 The IDF intercepted one missile; sirens sounded in Beersheba.

Houthi military spokesman Brigadier-General Yahya Saree announced the strikes via Al Masirah TV and stated they would continue "until the aggression against all fronts of the resistance ceases." 2 The Houthis had sat out the war's first four weeks at Tehran's request. Their entry is a reversal, and its timing is deliberate: it came the day after Pakistan confirmed indirect US-Iran talks had stalled and the day Iran published five conditions for ending the war, including sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz .

Tehran chose this moment to activate the proxy it had held in reserve. The military threat from a single intercepted missile is secondary. The strategic threat is geographic: combined with Iran's existing traffic control at Hormuz, where only five vessels crossed on 25 March , two of the world's three critical maritime chokepoints are now contested simultaneously for the first time since the 1973 oil crisis.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Iran has a network of armed groups across the Middle East it funds and supplies. The Houthis, who control northern Yemen, are one of these. Since the war began on 28 February, they had stayed out of the fight at Iran's request. On 28 March they fired their first missiles at Israel. One was shot down; air raid sirens went off in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba. The Houthi spokesman said they would keep firing until all attacks on their allies stop. Why does this matter beyond one intercepted missile? Because the Houthis sit on the coast next to a second major oil shipping route called Bab al-Mandeb. Iran already controls the Strait of Hormuz. If both routes come under threat at the same time, the world's energy supply faces a problem no emergency reserve can fix.

Deep Analysis
Root Causes

The Houthis' decision calculus has two structural drivers the body does not address. First, Israeli strikes in August-September 2025 destroyed Houthi command-and-control, leaving the group with missiles but no officers who could plan integrated operations . Tehran has spent the war's first four weeks rebuilding that coordination layer, which explains the delay.

Second, the Houthis are politically incentivised to enter regardless of Iranian instructions. Sitting out a war that kills co-religionists in Gaza and Lebanon while the group claims to be the region's most committed resistance force is a legitimacy problem. Iranian restraint and Houthi domestic politics were converging toward the same outcome.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    If the Houthis close Bab al-Mandeb, the IEA's 400 million barrel reserve release cannot compensate; two chokepoints cannot be substituted simultaneously.

    weeks · High
  • Consequence

    Houthi entry invalidates the US ceasefire framework; any deal must now cover four fronts, not two.

    days · High
  • Precedent

    Iran has demonstrated it can hold proxies in reserve then activate on diplomatic cue, making proxy networks a coercive bargaining tool rather than a standing threat.

    long-term · High
Sources:Al Jazeera·Axios
Mentions:Israel →Hezbollah →Strait of Hormuz →Pakistan →Iran →Yahya Saree →Israel Defense Forces (IDF) →Ansar Allah →Bab al-Mandeb →
First Reported In

Update #50 · Houthis join; Iran holds two chokepoints

Al Jazeera· 28 Mar 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
Caused by
Pakistan confirms talks; Ghalibaf denies
Pakistan's confirmation that indirect US-Iran talks had stalled on 26 March directly preceded Tehran's decision to activate the Houthi entry on 28 March.
Occurred 27 Mar 2026
Read story →
This Event
Houthis strike Israel for the first time
Iran activated its most powerful remaining proxy the day after Pakistan confirmed talks had stalled, opening a second front and placing a second maritime chokepoint under threat.
Led to
Houthis fire second barrage at Israel
The second Houthi barrage on 29 March directly follows the first attack on 28 March, confirming staged escalation declared by Mansour.
Occurred 29 Mar 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's of London
The Joint War Committee left Hormuz war-risk premiums at $10-14 million per voyage on 25 May, declining to move on Brent's 5% fall. The JWC's protocol requires a UN Security Council resolution or bilateral government certification letter before de-listing, and neither has arrived: a verbal understanding does not satisfy the formal condition the reinsurance market's treaty terms require.
Gulf Arab producers
Gulf Arab producers
Saudi Arabia and UAE depend on Hormuz for their own crude exports; Aramco CEO Nasser has warned no oil market recovery arrives until 2027 if the blockade continues past mid-June. Monday's $98.96 Brent settlement shortens nothing for Gulf producers without a signed instrument and a Pentagon mine-clearance timeline that runs up to six months post-ceasefire.
Qatar
Qatar
Qatar holds $12bn of frozen Iranian assets at the centre of the sequencing dispute but cannot release them without explicit US Treasury authorisation, given the original freeze was a US instrument. As the asset-holding state, Qatar's leverage is real but passive: it is the escrow holder, not the decision-maker, and any resolution requires US Treasury sign-off that Trump has withheld.
Pakistan
Pakistan
With both Prime Minister Sharif and army chief Munir simultaneously in Beijing on 25 May, Pakistan has for the first time consolidated its civilian and military mediation tracks under China's roof. Munir's direct Tehran-to-Beijing flight signals that the security and financial threads of the sequencing problem are now being worked in parallel rather than sequentially.
China
China
Beijing hosted Pakistan's principal mediators and Iran's China envoy Ghalibaf simultaneously on 25 May while its banking regulator capped new state-bank lending to five sanctioned refiners. China is simultaneously the most credible third-party underwriter of the $12bn sequencing and the state whose institutions face live OFAC secondary-sanctions exposure if the deadlock persists through GL V's expiry.
United States
United States
Trump posted on 24 May that the blockade holds until a deal is certified and signed, ruling out the informal MOU structure both sides had been building. The 'certified, and signed' condition is the first operational bar Trump has attached in 87 days, but it arrived without an executive instrument, maintaining the gap between posted ultimatum and signed US policy.