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The Red Sea crisis was a proxy war waged by the Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels against international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden concurrent with the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza. On 19 October 2023, the Houthis initiated a series of attacks targeting southern Israel and ships it claimed were bound for Israeli ports; they demanded the lifting of the blockade of the Gaza Strip in exchange for an end to their piratical attacks and rocket attacks on Israel. The Houthis employed missiles and UAVs, some of which were intercepted by Israel over the Red Sea using Arrow missiles, while another missile was intercepted in space in the first recorded instance of space warfare. Other missiles fell short of their targets or were intercepted by the US Navy, the French Navy, and the Israeli Air Force. In December 2023, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree announced that any ship destined for Israel was a "legitimate target" and claimed that the Houthis would not stop until food and medicine was allowed into Gaza. The Houthis also fired on merchant vessels of various countries in the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, resulting in massive disruptions to cargo ship and tanker traffic in the region. Iran was directly involved in the Houthis' strikes, with IRGC personnel and Hezbollah militants coordinating Houthi attacks from Yemen, Iran providing drones, anti-ship cruise missiles, precision-strike ballistic missiles, and medium-range missiles to the Houthis, and even using the intelligence gathering ship Behshad and the frigate Alborz to guide Houthi attacks on ships that switched off radios and identifiers. Iran itself launched missile attacks on some foreign vessels. North Korea also supplied missiles to the Houthis for use against the American navy.

The international community responded by launching Operation Prosperity Guardian in December 2023, with several countries from Europe and the Americas to Asia and Africa forming a multilateral naval task force of protective escorts for commercial vessels. France, Italy, and India also independently sent naval assets to the region.

In January 2024, the United Nations formally condemned the Houthis' acts of piracy in the Red Sea, and, on 12 January 2024, the United States and United Kingdom conducted airstrikes against a dozen Houthi targets in Yemen. This resulted in an escalation of the conflict as the Houthis stepped up their targeting of American and British warships in the Red Sea, and American and British warplanes regularly bombed Houthi sites in Yemen with the objective of impairing the Houthis' drone-launching capabilities.

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