The United Nations Security Council on Friday (September 25, 2026) condemned escalating attacks on Saudi Arabia by Yemeni Houthi fighters in a rare show of unity from the UN’s top body.

The Houthis have imposed a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia, hitting its tankers, seizing swathes of Yemen’s Red Sea coast vital for oil exports and causing energy prices to jump, while also raining missiles on the kingdom.

A ground campaign being waged by Houthi forces against Saudi-backed Yemeni forces is also threatening a humanitarian crisis, with 138,000 people displaced across Yemen since August, with 70,000 children among them, according to the UN. That is the highest level of displacement since a 2022 truce.

“The members of the Security Council condemned, in the strongest terms, continued Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including attacks impacting civilian and energy infrastructure, which have resulted in the injury of civilians, including women and children,” said the rotating president of the council, French UN envoy Jerome Bonnafont, delivering a joint statement.

Deepening humanitarian crisis

The council stressed the importance of upholding international law and freedom of navigation. The body also “demanded the Houthis immediately cease their military escalation and their attacks impacting civilians and civilian objects,” according to the statement.

Houthi gains in recent weeks cemented the hold of Iran and its allies on the two waterways that the wider Gulf, including top crude exporter Saudi Arabia, relies on to ship out oil and other fuel products. The other key waterway is the Strait of Hormuz.

The UN refugee agency chief, Barham Salih, warned Friday (September 25, 2026) that “the latest escalation is also very disconcerting.”

“(In) Yemen’s deepening humanitarian crisis, where civilians continue to bear the brunt of this conflict, tens of thousands of people have already been displaced by the recent escalation and hostilities, with thousands fleeing the conflict, looking for safety in Djibouti and elsewhere,” he said.

“More crossings are reported to be underway.”

Over 3,500 people have made the dangerous journey across the water to the east African nation of Djibouti, the International Organization of Migration said.

The Security Council statement called for “full, safe, rapid, and unhindered humanitarian access to all civilians in need.”

More than 2.2 million children under five across Yemen were acutely malnourished, the UN says, with over half a million suffering from severe acute malnutrition, the deadliest form.

Washington and its allies, including Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, accuse Iran of backing the Houthi militant movement.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian denied the allegation on Thursday (September 24, 2026), saying “the Houthis are responsible for their own actions.”

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan — which signed a joint defence agreement last month — will hold chief of staff talks to support the kingdom, Riyadh said in a statement on Friday, raising the prospect of a joint response to Houthi attacks.

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked what ​they described as a ⁠Saudi military ship and four escort vessels in the Red Sea with missiles, according to ‌the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree on Telegram on Monday (August 17, 2026).

There was ‌no immediate confirmation from Saudi ‌authorities.

Mocha ⁠is a Red Sea port ⁠near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a strategic chokepoint connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden ​and an important ‌international shipping route.

Last Tuesday, the Houthis attacked a ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern entrance ‌to the Red Sea, Houthi-run news agency ​Saba reported. Yemen’s Transport Ministry said four crew members were killed ⁠in the attack.

The Houthis imposed a naval blockade in July against Saudi Arabia ‌in the Red Sea in response to what they described as a Saudi siege on Yemen, an allegation Riyadh has denied.

Two sources in Yemen’s internationally recognized government told Reuters earlier on ‌Monday that the Houthis had attacked a ship ​in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait with six missiles.

The sources added ⁠that the ship had been out of ⁠service for more than a year for maintenance and was believed ‌to have been empty at the time of the attack.

Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels on Monday (July 20, 2026) announced they are imposing a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for a blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on Sanaa International Airport, threatening another vital waterway for global shipping and raising fears of renewed conflict.

A Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a video statement that the maritime ban against Saudi Arabia will be effective immediately, describing it as an “equation of an eye for an eye.” There were few details, but the deputy head of the Houthi media office, Nasruddin Amer, said on X that the Bab al-Mandeb strait will be closed in response to what he called Saudi Arabia’s “unjust blockade on Yemenis for over 10 years.”

Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is the gateway to the Red Sea through which around 12% of the world’s trade usually passes. A fourth of global container trade transits through the 32-kilometre (20-mile)-wide strait to and from the Suez Canal.

The Houthis earlier demonstrated their ability to disrupt shipping there when they targeted ships for months over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, with over 100 vessels attacked. It is unclear whether the Houthis will resume that level of attack against neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

There was no immediate response from Saudi Arabia. The ingdom already faced pressure as it uses its East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, which remains in the grip that Iran imposed shortly after the U.S. and Israel attacked it on Feb. 28. The Saudis have been sending millions of barrels of crude oil a day through the pipeline.

Saudi Arabia leads a coalition against the Houthis and imposed an air and sea blockade on Yemen in 2015. Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A truce was reached in 2022.

That truce has been threatened in recent days after the Houthis said the Saudis struck the Sanaa airport in an attempt to affect a flight carrying Houthi leaders back from Iran, where they attended the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The plane landed safely at another airport.

The Houthis then launched missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport in the most significant confrontation in years.

By allowing a direct international flight to land without the approval of the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis sought to establish a new reality in which they could independently make decisions over Yemen’s airspace, experts told the AP.

“We affirm the right of our great people to respond to the blockade with a blockade,” Saree emphasised on Monday, adding that Houthis are prepared to confront “any foolish act committed by the reckless Saudi enemy … with a comprehensive and decisive escalation.” The Houthis are a crucial part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance,” which also includes militant groups in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.

The rebels have had a large stockpile of drones, but several Houthi members previously told the AP that the stockpile is running low after its attacks during the Israel-Hamas war. The Iran war has further impeded the flow of weapons, said the members, who at the time spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorised to talk to the media.

The U.S. and Israel responded to the Houthis’ earlier attacks on shipping with a punishing air campaign across Houthi-held areas in Yemen until a deal that saw the rebels stop their assaults.

Disrupting transit through the Bab al-Mandeb forces shipping firms to route vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, significantly increasing costs.