Houthis Seize Perim and Dhubab, Tighten Grip on Bab al-Mandab

The Houthis at Bab al-Mandab have made their most significant territorial gains in years, seizing Dhubab and strategic Perim Island at the entrance to the Red Sea. The Iran-backed group had already captured the port city of Mokha and advanced onto islands farther north. Reuters reported Friday that Yemeni government forces withdrew from Perim, also known as Mayun, allowing Houthi forces to take the island.

The advance gives the Houthis unprecedented leverage over the Yemeni side of one of the world’s most important shipping corridors. It does not mean they possess uncontested legal or military control over every vessel crossing Bab al-Mandab. However, controlling Dhubab, Perim, Mokha, and positions on nearby islands places forces directly beside the narrow maritime passage.

The rapid offensive has also reached the Hanish archipelago. AFP reported that Houthi forces captured Zuqar, Greater Hanish, and Lesser Hanish after missile attacks and amphibious assaults. Combined with the loss of Mokha, the island advances dramatically strengthen the group’s position across Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast.

Isaiah 43:16 describes God as the One “who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters.” For Israel, that image has a practical national meaning. Access to the sea is not abstract when hostile armed movements can position missiles, drones, and artillery beside the routes connecting Israel to global commerce.

Houthis at Bab al-Mandab Gain Strategic Leverage

Perim Island sits directly inside Bab al-Mandab and divides the strait into two channels. Its location gives whoever holds it a powerful position for monitoring maritime traffic entering or leaving the Red Sea. The island lies only a few kilometers from Yemen’s mainland and opposite the African side of the strait.

Dhubab is equally important because it sits on the Yemeni mainland directly across from Perim. Reuters reported Friday that Houthi forces seized both locations after government units withdrew. The group had captured Mokha a day earlier, pushing government-aligned forces south and opening the route toward the strait.

The Houthi seizure of Mokha was already a major battlefield shift. Four Yemeni government military sources told Reuters that the city had fallen on Thursday. AFP separately reported Houthi fighters entering the city as internationally recognized government forces regrouped farther south.

Saudi Arabia has responded with airstrikes, including attacks on Mokha airport after the Houthi takeover. Yemen’s internationally recognized government is also preparing counteroffensive operations aimed at recovering lost territory. The fighting represents the Houthis’ most important territorial expansion in years and threatens to reopen Yemen’s civil war on a much larger scale.

The claim that the Houthis have “completed control” over Bab al-Mandab therefore needs precision. Their territorial position now gives them extraordinary leverage over the Yemeni side of the strait and its islands. It does not mean every channel of the international waterway has physically fallen under uncontested Houthi authority.

Red Sea Pressure Reaches Israel and Saudi Arabia

The strategic danger comes from what the Houthis can do with that geography. Analysts told Al Jazeera that control of the coast could allow the group to threaten vessels with artillery, rather than relying only on longer-range missiles and drones. Bab al-Mandab is about 29 kilometers wide at its narrowest point.

That poses an immediate problem for Saudi Arabia. With the Strait of Hormuz already heavily disrupted by the wider Iran conflict, Riyadh has become increasingly dependent on Red Sea export infrastructure. A hostile force positioned along Bab al-Mandab creates pressure on the alternative route Saudi Arabia needs to move oil toward global markets.

Israel faces its own strategic exposure. Bab al-Mandab is the southern gateway to the Red Sea and therefore to the maritime route serving Eilat. Houthi missile and drone operations have already demonstrated the group’s ability to threaten Israel and commercial shipping from Yemen.

The U.S. military has also identified Red Sea freedom of navigation as a continuing security concern. CENTCOM warned in its 2026 posture statement that the Houthis retain capabilities that threaten American partners and continue expanding ties with armed groups along the Red Sea. Washington has therefore treated the waterway as a strategic theater rather than a local Yemeni issue.

The latest territorial gains make the question raised in “Pakistan Houthi Strikes Considered Under Saudi Defense Pact” considerably more urgent. Pakistan was reportedly weighing strikes against Houthi positions after Saudi Arabia sought support under their collective defense framework. The loss of territory beside Bab al-Mandab gives Riyadh an additional reason to seek outside military assistance.

It also raises the stakes for Turkey, which is part of that developing defense alignment. Any Pakistani or Turkish involvement would transform the Yemen fighting from another phase of the country’s civil war into a broader regional confrontation involving Iran’s partners and major Sunni military powers.

Freedom at the Gate of the Red Sea

The United States and Israel approach this crisis from distinct covenantal missions before God, yet the practical principles converge at sea. Israel’s covenantal responsibility includes defending Jewish sovereignty and ensuring that hostile powers cannot isolate the Jewish state from the world. America’s national tradition connects liberty with open commerce, strong alliances, and freedom of navigation.

Bab al-Mandab is where those principles become physical. A small island or coastal town can influence energy markets, military movements, and trade between Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean. The freedom of an international waterway therefore depends on whether armed movements can convert geography into political coercion.

The concern is heightened by the Houthis’ relationship with Tehran. Reuters describes the movement as Iran-aligned, while Yemeni government sources have accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of supporting the latest offensive. Iran already possesses major leverage around Hormuz. A stronger Houthi position at Bab al-Mandab could give Tehran-linked forces influence over both ends of the region’s most important maritime network.

The Houthis insist international navigation will remain safe for ships outside their targeted categories. Their leadership has said commercial traffic can continue while restrictions against Saudi vessels remain in place. Past Houthi attacks on international shipping, however, make those assurances difficult for governments and commercial operators to treat as a substitute for secure navigation.

For Jerusalem and Washington, the issue is therefore larger than who controls another Yemeni town. The question is whether an Iran-backed armed organization can position itself at one of the world’s most important maritime gates and decide which ships may pass without threat.

Perim, Dhubab, Mokha, and the Hanish islands have turned that concern from a future possibility into an immediate strategic problem. Saudi and Yemeni forces are now trying to reverse the advance. If they fail, the Houthis will emerge from the latest fighting with a geographic advantage they have never previously held at this scale.

The Red Sea is one of Israel’s routes to the wider world, an American security interest, and a lifeline for international trade. Keeping Bab al-Mandab open cannot depend on the discretion of an armed organization backed by Tehran. The Houthi advance has made control of that gateway one of the most consequential fronts in the expanding regional war.

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