The Iran-backed Houthi movement said they targeted a cargo ship in the Red Sea as it was sailing toward Israel, the second attack in less than a week after the Jewish state assassinated Yemen's Houthi-aligned prime minister.
The Tehran-backed group also launched four drones at Israel, including at Tel Aviv, a Houthi spokesman said on Tuesday. Israel has not confirmed the claims.
On Monday, the group launched a missile towards the Israeli-owned chemical tanker Scarlet Ray, causing no damage.
The attack follows the killing of the prime minister of Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen Ahmed al-Rahawi and several cabinet members in an Israeli strike on the capital Sana'a last week, which the group vowed to avenge.
On Monday, thousands of mourners attended a funeral at the largest mosque in Yemen's capital Sanaa for those killed.
"We are facing the strongest intelligence empire in the world, the one that targeted the government ... the US administration, the Zionist entity, the Zionist Arabs and the spies inside Yemen," Mohammed Miftah, de facto head of the government told mourners at the country's sprawling main mosque.
The armed religious group, which controls around two-thirds of Yemen's population in one-third of its territory, began a maritime blockade in the Red Sea in November 2023, in what they call a show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The group has since launched scores of drones and missiles towards Israel in addition to targeting around 100 international ships, resulting in the sinking of four vessels and the deaths of at least eight mariners, according to the Associated Press figures.
Ebrahim Azizi, the head of Iran’s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said Iranian border guards reported seeing drones crossing from Azerbaijani territory.
“Border guards of the Islamic Republic of Iran explicitly said that the Zionist regime used Azerbaijan’s border to infiltrate drones into Iran,” Azizi during an interview with state media.
He added that the matter had been raised by Iran’s presidency and foreign ministry with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who had requested documentation.
“Now, whether we provide documents is one issue, but the reality itself is undeniable. Our border guards clearly said: ‘We were there and with our own eyes we saw that Israeli drones entered Iran from Azerbaijani soil,’” Azizi said.
The comments follow a phone call in late June in which Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged Aliyev to investigate reports that Israeli drones and micro-UAVs had entered Iran from Azerbaijan during the conflict.
According to Iran’s readout of the call, Aliyev denied that Azerbaijan had allowed its territory to be used in attacks against Iran, describing such actions as a “red line.”
Iran has long voiced unease about what it sees as Israel’s security and intelligence presence in Azerbaijan.
In February, Kamal Kharrazi, a senior foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said countries “should take their neighbors’ sensitivities into consideration,” expressing concern over Israel’s activities in the South Caucasus state.
Azerbaijan, for its part, has consistently rejected allegations of hosting Israeli military bases or permitting its territory to be used against Iran. Its officials have occasionally accused Iranian clerics and state-linked media of spreading inflammatory rhetoric.
In January, Azerbaijan summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Baku to protest alleged anti-Azerbaijan content in Iranian outlets.
Despite recurring flare-ups, Tehran and Baku have maintained cooperation in areas such as cross-border trade, energy swaps, and infrastructure projects, including the Rasht-Astara railway.
But mistrust persists, particularly over the Zangezur Corridor linking Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan through Armenian territory, a project Iran fears could undermine its regional influence.
A US-brokered peace deal last month between Armenia and Azerbaijan granted Washington leasing rights to develop the Zangezur transit corridor, now renamed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP).
While Iranian officials continue to accuse Baku of tacit collaboration with Israel, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Israel said in 2023 that his country “would not let Israel’s military use Azerbaijan as a base for a possible attack against Iran.”
Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree made the announcement in a prerecorded message aired on al-Masirah, a Houthi-controlled satellite news channel.
Maritime security firm Ambrey said the Liberian-flagged Scarlet Ray, owned by Singapore-based Eastern Pacific Shipping, controlled by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer, fits the Houthis’ targeting profile “as the vessel is publicly Israeli owned”.
The Houthis started attacking vessels in the Red Sea region in November 2023. The group has since launched scores of drones and missiles towards Israel in addition to targeting around 100 international ships, resulting in the sinking of four vessels and the deaths of at least eight mariners, according to the Associated Press figures.
The attack in the crucial shipping route comes just hours after the Yemeni militia raided offices of the UN’s food, health and children’s agencies in Yemen’s capital, detaining at least 11 employees, as the rebels tightened security across Sana’a after the Israeli killing of their prime minister and several cabinet members.
Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy for Yemen, said on Sunday: “I strongly condemn the new wave of arbitrary detentions of UN personnel today in Sana’a and Hodeidah … as well as the forced entry into UN premises and seizure of UN property.”
He demanded that they be “immediately and unconditionally” released.
The Houthis have previously detained dozens of UN workers in Yemen and others linked to aid groups, leading the UN to suspend its operations in the Houthi stronghold of Saada in northern Yemen after the rebels detained eight UN staff members in January.
The raids on Sunday followed the killing of the Houthi prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi, and several of his cabinet members in an Israeli strike on Thursday, which the group said will be met with retaliatory action.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned that the response will be wider than simply its allies in Yemen, branding the killings a "war crime against humanity ... with full US support".
“It will ignite greater anger and expand the geography of resistance," the statement said.