Hezbollah speaks of a “battlefield” in the Red Sea, China asks to stop attacks on ships

In a separate chapter 100 days into the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, military and rhetorical tension around the Red Sea continues to rise in the Middle East.

This Sunday, January 14, the leader of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, gave a televised speech in which, among other things, he assured that Western attacks against the Houthi rebels in Yemen compromise security in the Red Sea and They can turn the strategic trade route into a “battlefield.”

Furthermore, Nasrallah stated that Yemen's Shiite insurgents will continue their “continuous attacks on Israeli ships” as well as any vessels transiting into Israel's port.

After some words from the American president the day before, in which he confirmed that they had sent a communication to Iran “privately” about the latest events in the Red Sea, he said:

If Americans believe that Yemen will retreat after aggression, then they are wrong…the Yemeni response is decided by Yemenis, and Biden and his Administration are wrong to message and threaten Iran regarding Yemen.

The latest developments have pitted Yemen's Houthi rebels against a Western alliance led by the United States and Britain in one of the world's most coveted sea lanes.

China and Egypt ask to stop attacks at sea and guarantee security

This Sunday China also spoke out about the growing military tension in the Middle East region.

The Foreign Minister of the Asian superpower, Wang Yi, pointed out in Cairo, after a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, that the attacks around the Red Sea must stop, as well as the pressure on merchant ships. There was no explicit condemnation of either party.

The representatives of China and Egypt also published a press release after the meeting, in which they emphasized “that they closely follow the situation in the Red Sea” as well as highlighting “the importance of interpreting these events in relation to the situation in Gaza.” , since it is one of the main causes.” However, they stated that “ensuring the safety of navigation in the Red Sea” must be a priority.

Regarding what is happening in the besieged Gaza Strip, Wang, al-Sisi and Shukri expressed their “concern about the expansion of the conflict” and stressed the priority of “uniting international and regional efforts to immediately stop the Israeli attacks” on the Palestinian territory.

Cameron defends UK attacks in Yemen

In parallel to these statements, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, stated in an interview with the British newspaper 'Sunday Telegraph' which does not rule out new attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen if the rebels do not stop their attacks by sea.

In addition, Cameron defended that his country's military actions “will have contributed to some extent to degrading the capacity of the Iranian-backed Houthis” and said that if Yemen's Shiite insurgents do not act they could “virtually close a vital sea route with relative impunity”.

The Yemeni group threatened to give a “strong and effective” response after several days of Western attacks on its strategic military positions.

Since mid-November, the Yemeni Houthis have been launching artillery and attacking merchant ships that are blocking one of the world's main trade routes as a protest against Israel for its war in Gaza.

This has discouraged many shipping companies, which have chosen to modify their routes through the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, on their way to Europe. An extreme that, according to several countries, delays times and increases costs.

The offensive by the United States and the United Kingdom is awaiting a larger naval mission that must be approved by the European Union this month by the foreign ministers of the community bloc.

The objective of the operation, according to German politician Maria-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann in statements to the newspaper 'Welt am Sonntag'is to protect merchant ships that use the strategic Red Sea route for their commercial operations with frigates from EU member countries.

In this regard, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, expressed on Sunday, January 14, her hope for the mission of the European Union (EU), which she described as “important and central”, to protect ships in the Red Sea from attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels.

His French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, said the attacks pose a grave threat to international trade and human lives, noting that France strongly condemned them and demanded they stop immediately.

Power situation for the Houthis?

The military escalation between the rebels in Yemen and the United States provides, according to analysts consulted by the EFE agency, a situation of legitimacy for the insurgents on an internal scale, in a country that has been in a debilitating civil war for a decade with no signs of truce.

The Houthis, supported by Iran and the Axis of Resistance – which includes Syria and other pro-Iranian militias such as Hezbollah – are defenders of the Palestinian cause, but they also seek in their current international operations a propaganda thread for their own actions.

“For them this is legitimacy, popularity and presence at a regional and international level. They have been able to promote themselves as regional or international actors that, at least, can disrupt international interests,” Farea al Muslimi, a Yemeni analyst of the think tank Chatham House.

“I think the Houthis will not retreat; in fact, they will go further. In a way, they expect and desire this, a direct confrontation with the United States or the West,” the expert maintains.

“That's not going to end well for anyone. We are at a time when the Houthis feel that they can be maximalist, that they can play the zero-sum game, but they don't care about the price,” highlights Al Muslimi.