Houthis take Greater and Lesser Hanish after government forces leave the islands

Yemeni government officials and a Houthi official said on Monday that Ansar Allah fighters had taken Greater Hanish and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea. The two islands sit about 160 kilometres north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The officials said the rebels moved in after hundreds of government-allied troops left the archipelago.

The three officials spoke on condition that they not be named because they were not authorised to brief the press. Their account is consistent across Associated Press, Reuters and subsequent government-side comments from Aden. There was no public claim of a large firefight on the islands themselves.

The Hanish group had been held by the United Arab Emirates and its southern Yemeni allies. Their fall is the third coastal gain in a week for the Houthis. Last week the group took the mainland port of Mokha and Mayun, also called Perim, which sits inside Bab el-Mandeb. Mayun sits on the traffic lane that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

The timing is the point. Iran has kept the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed to ordinary tanker traffic since the opening of the current war with the United States. In peacetime that strait carries about a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas. Saudi Arabia has been sending crude west across the kingdom to Yanbu and other Red Sea terminals so that cargoes can leave through Bab el-Mandeb instead. The Hanish islands now sit on that substitute route.

Sunday already showed how thin the substitute is. Government forces attacked Houthi positions along the Red Sea coast. Houthis fired into Saudi territory. Riyadh's East-West pipeline, the line that feeds Yanbu, remains shut after drone strikes from Iraq late last week. Three industry sources told Reuters that Yanbu holds only five to seven days of export inventory while the pipeline is down. Traders in the kingdom have warned that export stocks run out if the line stays closed beyond that window.

China said on Monday it was deeply concerned about further Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and called strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure unacceptable. Beijing is a large buyer of Gulf crude. The statement is one of the few public rebukes of the Houthis from a state that has kept working channels with Tehran.

The geography is tight. The new Houthi positions sit about 32 kilometres from the United States military base in Djibouti, across the strait. Bab el-Mandeb is 29 kilometres at its narrowest point between Yemen and Djibouti. A force that holds Mayun, Mokha and the Hanish islands can watch, and in theory interdict, almost every ship that uses the Red Sea lane.

Yemen's internationally recognised government, based in Aden, said it would send more forces to the Red Sea coast. One official described the loss of Mokha and Mayun as a painful defeat. The government and its allied militias still hold the south and east, including Aden. The Houthis hold Sanaa and most of the densely populated north-west.

A truce that had largely held since 2022 is now gone. Fighting this month has pushed the country back toward open civil war, with an added layer: the Red Sea is no longer a side theatre. It is the remaining large export door for Saudi crude while Hormuz stays blocked.

Houthi officials framed the island seizures as a response to Saudi-backed attempts to claw back territory around Bab el-Mandeb. Government officials described a withdrawal rather than a battle. Both versions can be true at once. Hundreds of allied troops left. The rebels walked on. The result is the same chart: Houthi flags on two more islands that sit on the oil lane Riyadh now needs.

Insurance rates for Red Sea transit were already high after earlier Houthi campaigns against commercial shipping. Underwriters will price the Hanish capture into the next round of war-risk premiums. Shipowners who have been routing around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Red Sea have little reason to come back while both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are contested.

Oman had scheduled talks for Monday in Salalah between Iran and Gulf states on a temporary Hormuz lane. Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi postponed the meeting in the interests of consensus after Gulf governments asked for a delay. Iran blamed Saudi Arabia for the pause. The Hanish seizure landed on the same morning the talks were meant to start.

The next test is whether Aden can put men back on the coast in numbers that matter, and whether Riyadh reopens the East-West line before Yanbu's tanks run down. Until one of those things happens, the Houthis hold the substitute strait as well as the argument over who controls Yemen's western shore.