The chief negotiator for Yemen's Houthis said on Monday the group's stance has not changed since U.S.-led air strikes on its positions, and warned that attacks on ships headed to Israel will continue.

U.S. and British warplanes, ships and submarines last week launched dozens of air strikes across Yemen in retaliation for Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, which the Iran-aligned movement cast as a response to Israel's offensive in Gaza.

"Attacks to stop Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of the occupied Palestine will continue," Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters.

He said the group was still demanding an end of the war in Gaza, and humanitarian aid deliveries to the north and south of the Gaza Strip.

"We do not want escalation in the Red and Arabian Seas," Abdulsalam said. It was the United States and Britain that were militarizing the Red Sea with their warships, he added.

"Our communication ... continues to clarify our position, and confirm that all commercial ships in the Red and Arabian Seas are safe, with the exception of Israeli ships or those heading to Israel, only and only," he said.

Israel has regularly denied having links to vessels that have come under attack in the Red Sea, and several international shipping lines have paused deliveries or switched to longer, most costly routes.

"Our position comes from religious, moral and humanitarian principles ... as well as in response to the calls of the people of Palestine ... to support the oppressed in the Gaza Strip," Abdulsalam said.

The U.S. military said on Sunday a U.S. fighter jet shot down an anti-ship cruise missile which the Houthis fired towards the USS Laboon in the southern Red Sea. "There were no injuries or damage reported," the U.S. Central Command added.

The Houthi movement controls much of Yemen after nearly a decade of war against a U.S.-backed and Saudi-led coalition.

The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday demanded the Houthis immediately end attacks on ships in the Red Sea and implicitly endorsed a U.S.-led task force that has been defending vessels while cautioning against escalating tensions.

Lebanon's Hezbollah chief: US strikes on Yemen harm world shipping

Secretary-General of Lebanon's Iran-allied Hezbollah movement Hassan Nasrallah delivers a televised speech to mark the third anniversary of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of the predominantly Shia Muslim Popular Mobilization Forces.

Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, said on Sunday that the recent US attacks against the Houthi militia in Yemen would harm world shipping in the Red Sea.

The United States and its allies earlier this week launched a series of strikes targeting the Iran-aligned Houthis after they had repeatedly attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis have vowed retaliation.

“The recent aggression on Yemen represents a US-British folly and an American inconsistency,” Nasrallah said in a televised address. The United Kingdom took part in the first attack and the action was backed by the Netherlands, Canada, Bahrain and Australia.

“At the time, the Americans call for not widening the war, they are expanding it,” he added.

“What the Americans did in the Red Sea would harm the international navigation as a whole,” added the Hezbollah chief.

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war on October 7, the Houthi rebels, who control large parts of Yemen, have repeatedly attacked Israel with drones and missiles.

Most recently, they have also repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea - one of the most important shipping routes for world trade, as it leads to the Suez Canal.

Nasrallah said the Houthis would continue to target Israeli ships or those heading to Israeli ports.

There has also been an uptick in confrontations between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the border between Israel and Lebanon since the start of the Gaza war, leading to casualties on both sides.

US delivers 'private message' to Iran after Yemen strikes

President Biden says the US has delivered a "private message" to Iran about the Houthis in Yemen after the US carried out a second strike on the group.

"We delivered it privately and we're confident we're well-prepared," he said without giving further details.

The US said its latest strike was a "follow-on action" targeting radar.

Iran denies involvement in attacks by the Houthis in the Red Sea.

However Tehran is suspected of supplying the Houthis with weapons, and the US says Iranian intelligence is critical to enabling them to target ships.

Joint UK-US airstrikes targeted nearly 30 Houthi positions in the early hours of Friday with the support of Western allies including Australia and Canada.

A day later, the US Central Command said it carried out its latest strike on a Houthi radar site in Yemen using Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Britain had "no choice" but to take military action against the Houthis in Yemen, in response to their attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

Writing, he said UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had agreed to a request by the US to assist with the "limited and targeted" strikes.

A Houthi spokesman told Reuters the strikes had no significant impact on the group's ability to affect shipping.

The Houthis are an armed group from a sub-sect of Yemen's Shia Muslim minority, the Zaidis. Most Yemenis live in areas under Houthi control. As well as Sanaa and the north of Yemen, the Houthis control the Red Sea coastline.

The official Western government line is that the ongoing air strikes on Houthi targets are quite separate from the war in Gaza. They are "a necessary and proportionate response" to the unprovoked and unacceptable Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, they say.

In Yemen and the wider Arab world they are viewed rather differently.

There, they are seen as the US and UK joining in the Gaza war on the side of Israel, since the Houthis have declared their actions to be in solidarity with Hamas and the people of Gaza. One theory even says that "the West is doing Netanyahu's bidding".

It is still possible that these airstrikes will have a chilling effect on the Houthis. They will certainly degrade their capacity to attack ships in the short term.

But the longer these airstrikes persist, the greater the risk that the US and UK get sucked into another conflict in Yemen.

It has taken the Saudis more than eight years to extricate themselves from there after it intervened in the country's civil war - and the Houthis are now more entrenched than ever.

About 15% of global seaborne trade passes through the Red Sea, the US says. This includes 8% of global grain, 12% of seaborne oil and 8% of the world's liquified natural gas.

The US says the group has so far attempted to attack and harass vessels in the Red Sea and the gulf of Aden 28 times.

Some major shipping companies have since ceased operations in the region, while insurance costs have risen 10 times since early December.

London and Washington have backed Israel following the 7 October attacks by Hamas in which about 1,300 people were killed and some 240 were taken hostage.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign of air strikes and ground operations against Hamas in Gaza have killed 23,843 Palestinians so far, according to the Hamas-run health ministry on Saturday, with thousands more believed dead under rubble.