Iran-backed Houthis enter the monthlong war and could further threaten global shipping
Mar 28, 2026, 9:08 PM | Updated: Mar 29, 2026, 6:38 pm
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranian-backed Houthi rebels entered the monthlong war in the Middle East on Saturday, claiming two missile launches at Israel. About 2,500 U.S. Marines arrived in the region. And Pakistan’s government said regional powers plan to meet Sunday to discuss how to end the fighting.
The war has threatened global supplies of oil and natural gas, sparked fertilizer shortages and disrupted air travel. Iran’s grip on the strategic Strait of Hormuz has shaken markets and prices. The United States and Israel continue to strike Iran, whose retaliatory attacks have targeted Israel and neighboring Gulf Arab states. More than 3,000 people have been killed.
On Sunday, Iran for the first time issued a threat to strike Israeli and American universities in the region.
The Houthis’ entry could further hurt global shipping if they again target vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait off the Red Sea, through which about 12% of the world’s trade typically passes.
There could be limited relief after Iran on Friday agreed to allow humanitarian aid and agricultural shipments through the strait following a United Nations request. U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has given Iran until April 6 to reopen the strait.
Witnesses in Tehran reported heavy strikes late Saturday. Israel’s military earlier said it targeted Iran’s naval weapons production facilities that it would finish attacking essential weapons production sites within “a few days.” The U.S. said it has struck more than 11,000 Iranian targets in the war.
Iran fired missiles toward Israel, while air defenses early Sunday intercepted missiles and drones across Gulf countries.
Two Israeli strikes early Sunday in the Gaza Strip killed six Palestinians, including three policemen. One attack hit a police checkpoint while another hit a group of people in the southern city of Khan Younis, according to Nasser hospital, which received the bodies. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes.
Israel’s military said early Sunday that an American-Israeli soldier, originally from New Haven, Connecticut, had been killed while three Israelis were wounded in combat in southern Lebanon. The death raised the total to five soldiers from Israel’s military killed there since the conflict with Hezbollah reignited March 2.
The paramilitary Revolutionary Guard warned in a statment Sunday that Iran would consider Israeli universities and branches of American universities in the region “legitimate targets” without safety assurances for Iranian universities, state media reported.
“If the U.S. government wants its universities in the region spared, it should condemn the bombardment of (Iranian) universities by 12 o’clock Monday, March 30, in an official statement,” the Guard said, adding a demand that the U.S. stop Israel from striking Iranian universities and research centers, which have been attacked in recent days.
Iran’s threat of escalating attacks to regional universities came after claiming the monthlong U.S.-Israeli air campaign hit universities in Tehran and Isfahan. Israel’s military has acknowledged striking universities it says are connected to weapons development.
Houthi Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said on the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite television station that they launched missiles toward “sensitive Israeli military sites” in the south.
If the Houthis increase attacks on commercial shipping, as they have in the past, it would further push up oil prices and destabilize “all of maritime security,” said Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group. “The impact would not be limited to the energy market.”
The Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is crucial for vessels heading to the Suez Canal through the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia has been sending millions of barrels of crude oil a day through it because the Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed.
Houthi rebels attacked more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels, between November 2023 and January 2025. The group said it acted in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war.
The Houthis’ latest involvement would complicate the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the aircraft carrier that arrived in Croatia on Saturday for maintenance. Sending the ship to the Red Sea could draw attacks similar to those on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 2024 and the USS Harry S. Truman in 2025.
The Houthis have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014. Saudi Arabia launched a war against the Houthis on behalf of Yemen’s exiled government in 2015 and they now have an uneasy ceasefire.
Egypt Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar met in Islamabad on Sunday. Pakistan is hosting two days of talks with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In a stop in Qatar Saturday, Abdelatty said their efforts aim to establish a “direct dialogue” between the U.S. and Iran.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian held “extensive discussions” on Saturday.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said Washington delivered a 15-point “action list” to Iran for a possible ceasefire, with a proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and restrict Iran’s nuclear program, which is the issue at the heart of tensions with the U.S. and Israel.
Tehran rejected the list and presented a five-point proposal that included reparations and recognition of its sovereignty over the waterway.
U.S. ships with around 2,500 Marines trained in amphibious landings have arrived, adding to the largest American force in the region in more than two decades. At least 1,000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, trained to land in hostile territory to secure key positions and airfields, have been ordered to the Middle East.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington “can achieve all of our objectives without ground troops.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Gulf nations Saturday as his country offers defense help with drones.
More than two dozen U.S. troops were wounded in Iranian attacks on Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air Base in the previous week, according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly.
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at the base Friday, injuring at least 15 troops, five of them seriously. The base, about 96 kilometers (60 miles) from the Saudi capital Riyadh, was attacked twice earlier in the week, including a strike that wounded 14 U.S. troops, according to the people briefed on the matter.
More than 300 U.S. service members have been wounded in the war. At least 13 have been reported killed.
Iranian authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed in the Islamic Republic, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.
In Lebanon, where Israel has started an invasion in the south while targeting the Hezbollah militant group, officials said more than 1,100 people have been killed in the country since the start of the war.
In Iraq, where Iranian-supported militia groups have entered the conflict, 80 members of the security forces have died.
In Gulf states, 20 people have been killed. Four have been killed in the occupied West Bank.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Madhani from Washington. Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Cara Anna in Lowville, New York, Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Wafaa Shurafa in Deir al Balah, Gaza, contributed to this report.
