THE United Nations security council was set to vote today on a resolution that would condemn and demand an immediate halt to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi government on merchant and commercial vessels in the Red Sea area.

The United States draft resolution says at least two-dozen Yemeni attacks are harming global commerce “and undermine navigational rights and freedoms as well as regional peace and security.”

The Yemenis have said they launched the attacks with the aim of ending Israel’s devastating air-and-ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.

Israel’s three-month assault in Gaza has killed more than 23,200 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Israeli invasion was triggered by the surprise attack by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel during which over 1,100 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 240 taken hostage.

The security council resolution would demand the immediate release of the first ship the Houthis attacked, the Galaxy Leader, a cargo ship with links to an Israeli company, that was seized on November 19 along with its crew.

The Yemeni actions have forced many shipping companies to bypass this route and use the much longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa.

A US-led coalition of nations has been patrolling the Red Sea to try and prevent the attacks.

But, according to US authorities, the Yemenis managed to fire off their largest-ever barrage of drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea on Tuesday.

The attack forced the US and British navies to shoot down the projectiles in a major naval engagement, authorities said on Wednesday. 

The US military’s central command said the “complex attack,” which reportedly took place off the Yemeni port cities of Hodeida and Mokha,  included bomb-carrying drones, anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile.

It said 18 drones, two cruise missiles and the anti-ship missile were downed by F-18s from the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, as well as by Arleigh Burke-class destroyers the USS Gravely, USS Laboon and USS Mason, as well as Britain’s HMS Diamond.

“This is the 26th Houthi attack on commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea since November 19,” Central Command said. “There were no injuries or damage reported.”

Meanwhile a ceasefire in the war that has raged between the Houthi-led Yemeni government and a US-backed Saudi-led coalition since 2014 has so far held.