The Houthis claimed to have hit Saudi Arabia with missiles on Saturday morning, deepening their involvement in the Middle East war, while the U.S. appeared to end a run of 13 days of strikes on Iran.

Saudi authorities issued emergency warnings for the provinces of Jazan and Yanbu around 6:10 a.m. local time, asking people to seek shelter. It ended the warnings shortly after.

The Islamist militants, based in Yemen and backed by Iran, said they fired missiles and drones at facilities linked to oil giant Saudi Aramco in the Red Sea port towns of Jizan and Yanbu. There was no immediate confirmation from the Saudi government or Aramco that the company’s sites were targeted.

Yanbu has become a key outlet for Saudi Arabia’s oil exports since the Strait of Hormuz was effectively shut at the start of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran in February. Jizan, which is in Jazan province, is the site of an Aramco oil refinery in addition to the port.

A Saudi-led coalition responded by striking Houthi military positions later on Saturday, according to Yemen TV, a channel affiliated with the internationally recognized Yemeni government.

A day earlier, the coalition hit Hodeida, a port in the southern Red Sea where many of the Houthis’ maritime attacks in recent years have emanated from. The coalition said it was a response to the Houthis targeting commercial ships in the past week.

The Houthis announced several days ago they would blockade Saudi ports and threatened to strike any ship visiting them. Soon after, they attacked two Saudi-linked oil tankers in the Red Sea, hitting at least one of them. They damaged another Saudi vessel on Friday, according to the kingdom’s main news agency.

The blockade is a response, the Houthis say, to recent strikes by the kingdom on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

The escalation compounds an already severe squeeze on regional energy flows. Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, normally the conduit for a fifth of global crude supplies, remains largely paralyzed by the hostilities between the U.S. and Iran. Any sustained disruption to Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea export routes, through which it’s sending millions of barrels of oil a day, mainly from Yanbu, would likely push up crude prices even more.

On Friday, a Hong Kong-flagged supertanker bound for Yanbu U-turned just before reaching the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint at the south end of the Red Sea. The empty very large crude carrier, called New Champion, had been chartered by a Chinese buyer to pick up a cargo of crude from Yanbu, shipping fixtures show. After turning around, it headed eastward at a near top speed.

New Champion’s pivot exposes the widening economic fallout of the Houthis’ aggression, and points to increased hurdles for Chinese buyers to receive Saudi crude.

Brent crude has soared around 27% in the past two weeks with U.S.-Iran skirmishes worsening and the Houthis effectively opening a second front in the war. The global benchmark closed on Friday at $96.78 a barrel.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who seems increasingly frustrated with Iran for refusing to reopen the Hormuz, late Friday said the U.S. was “locked and loaded” for major strikes on Iran. He added he had not made a decision on whether to go ahead with them, after telling Axios a few days ago he was mulling a “massive attack.”

Speaking at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Trump said Iran would “love to make a deal” but he doesn’t think “it’s time yet.”

He said the warring sides are talking though gave few details, and it’s unclear if he meant indirectly through the main mediators, Pakistan and Qatar.

The U.S. military did not announce any strikes on Iran overnight, suggesting it had paused such operations that have happened daily since around July 10. Iranian media and the government did not announce the country had come under attack from the U.S. either, and did not report any Islamic Republic strikes on U.S. troops and bases in countries such as Kuwait and Bahrain.

It’s unclear why and there’s no suggestion the U.S. has stopped the strikes for anything more than a short period.

The Houthis captured Sanaa in 2014 near the start of Yemen’s ongoing civil war. They survived a roughly seven-year bombing campaign led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and still control areas containing most of Yemen’s population.

The Saudis and Houthis agreed to a truce a few years ago, but it’s been shaky and tensions have risen since the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran this year.

Iran is the main funder and sponsor of the Houthis, though the group is more autonomous than other proxies of Tehran such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

_____

©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.