DUBAI, January 23. /TASS/. Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea will stop when the conflict in the Gaza Strip is ended, Majed al-Ansari, Qatari foreign ministry spokesman, said.
"We support all regional efforts to reduce escalation," he told a news conference in Doha, commenting on the situation around the safety of navigation in the Red Sea. "We say once again that this problem began after the escalation in the occupied [Palestinian] territories, hence, it will be over when this escalation ends, first of all when the war there ends."
Following the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis warned that they would launch strikes on Israeli territory while barring ships associated with the Jewish state from passing through the waters of the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until Tel Aviv ceased its military operation against Palestinian radical group Hamas in the embattled enclave.
On January 12, US and British aircraft, ships and submarines for the first time attacked targets belonging to the Ansar Allah movement in a number of Yemeni cities, including Sana’a and Hodeidah. The strikes targeted the launch sites of rockets and unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as radar stations belonging to the Houthi rebels.
In the early hours on Tuesday, the US and UK attacked Houthi facilities in several Yemeni provinces. According to a joint statement by Australia, Bahrain, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the US, the allied forces carried out eight strikes on Ansar Allah positions, their main target being the rebels' underground warehouses and facilities related to missile launches and air surveillance. The strikes were the first joint US-British operation since January 12. The US has independently attacked Yemeni rebel positions several times over the ten days since then.