Yemen's Houthis Enter US-Israel War on Iran with Direct Missile Strikes

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched their first direct missile and drone attacks on Israel on Saturday, March 28, marking a significant escalation on the 30th day of the US-Israel war on Iran, as and regional powers convened emergency talks in Islamabad. The conflict, which began on February 28, 2026, with US and Israeli strikes on Iran, has now killed over 4,500 people according to governments and non-governmental agencies, while Iran's effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has inflicted what Bloomberg described as the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the global energy market. The United States has deployed two contingents of thousands of Marines to the region, with the first contingent arriving Friday aboard an amphibious assault ship, and the 82nd Airborne Division is also expected to receive deployment orders. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that Washington expected to conclude military operations within weeks and that the US could achieve its aims without ground troops, though he acknowledged the deployments gave President Donald Trump maximum flexibility to adjust strategy.

Houthis fire second salvo, vow to keep striking Israel Brigadier-General Yahya Saree, military spokesperson for the Houthis, announced Saturday's first attack and on Sunday declared a "second military operation" against Israel using cruise missiles and drones, vowing the group would continue operations until Israel ceased its attacks and aggression. Israel confirmed intercepting at least one missile fired from Yemen over the occupied West Bank, with no casualties reported from that strike, while a second missile was also claimed by the Houthis. The Israeli military said it had shot down two missiles coming from Yemen. Analysts warned that the Houthis' entry into the conflict raised the prospect of a blockade of the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a chokepoint through which Saudi Arabia has been rerouting significant oil exports since the Strait of Hormuz was closed. Benjamin Schmitt, a former US State Department adviser on energy security, told Deutsche Welle that a simultaneous blockade of both the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb would produce an oil shock possibly unlike anything ever seen. Baraa Shiban of the Royal United Services Institute told DW that the Houthis' involvement represented a new phase, adding that Iran, facing limited military options against the United States, had leaned heavily on economic warfare, and the Houthis' ability to disrupt trade routes fit that strategy. France condemned the Houthi attacks, accusing the group of escalating tension in the Middle East by entering the regional war.

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Iranian strikes wound Americans, hit Gulf aluminium plants Iran kept up its retaliatory campaign across the region, striking an air base in Saudi Arabia on Friday and wounding 12 US military personnel, two of them seriously, in one of the most serious breaches of US air defences recorded during the conflict. The United Arab Emirates reported that an Iranian strike hit a key aluminium plant in Abu Dhabi operated by Emirates Global Aluminium, injuring a number of workers and causing significant damage. Aluminium Bahrain, which operates one of the world's largest aluminium smelting facilities, said two employees were wounded in a separate Iranian attack. Tehran also accused Israel of targeting two of its steel production operations, while Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened retaliatory action against US and Israeli universities in the Middle East after two Iranian universities were struck, saying those institutions were legitimate targets until two of their own were hit. Iran's navy chief Shahram Irani warned that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier would be targeted if it came within range. Air defences shot down a drone near the residence of Masoud Barzani, leader of the Iraqi Kurdish ruling party, in Erbil, according to security sources who spoke to Reuters. Kuwait's defence ministry said the radar system at its international airport had been significantly damaged after being struck by 15 drones.

US base in Saudi Arabia: 12, Abu Dhabi aluminium plant: several, Bahrain aluminium plant: 2

Islamabad talks begin as Washington Post reports ground invasion plans Foreign ministers from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey convened in Islamabad on Sunday in a four-way meeting described by Pakistan's foreign ministry as a review of the evolving regional situation, with Islamabad acting as a go-between for Washington and Tehran. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke by phone with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ahead of the talks, signalling Tehran's awareness of the diplomatic channel even as it continued military operations. Despite the diplomatic activity, there was no sign of an immediate breakthrough, with the war having spread across the Middle East and producing the largest disruption to global energy supplies on record. Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf accused the United States of secretly planning a ground attack despite its public engagement in diplomatic efforts to end the war. The Washington Post reported Saturday that the US Defense Department was preparing for potentially weeks-long ground operations in Iran, possibly including raids on Kharg Island and coastal sites near the Strait of Hormuz, though the report noted President Trump had not yet approved any deployment. In Lebanon, Israel killed three journalists in a strike on a media vehicle, with the Israeli military confirming it had targeted Ali Shoeib, a veteran correspondent for Hezbollah-affiliated Al Manar TV, whom it described as a member of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force operating under journalistic cover — a claim it provided no evidence to support. The World Health Organization reported that nine paramedics had been killed in southern Lebanon within a single 24-hour period, bringing the total of health personnel killed in Lebanon in March to 51.

The US-Israel war on Iran began on February 28, 2026, with strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. His son Mojtaba Khamenei was named successor on March 8 or 9, 2026, according to various reports. The Houthis had previously entered a conflict in support of Hamas following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, at which point they began targeting shipping in the Red Sea, effectively disrupting global trade through the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the current conflict has halted the flow of roughly one-fifth of seaborne global oil that previously transited the waterway, according to Bloomberg.