Witnesses told the AFP news agency they saw Houthi forces entering the strategically important port city of Mocha on Thursday while chanting “death to America, death to Israel”.

Iran-aligned Houthis seized control of Yemen’s port city of Mocha on Thursday, military sources told Reuters, posing a ​further threat to global energy supplies hours. Four Yemeni government military sources said the Houthis had ‌gained further leverage over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the southern outlet of the Red Sea and one of the world’s most important shipping routes, and were launching attacks on the strategic islands of Hanish.

An unnamed military source also said the Houthis also seized Zuqar Island in the southern Red Sea “after rocket attacks and a ground assault carried out using boats transporting fighters”.

If the Houthis can continue to hold Mocha and use their hold over Zuqar island in the Hanish chain of islands.

Zuqar island was long disputed by Eritrea and Yemen and finally awarded to Yemen by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 1998.

From there they could threaten shipping close to the bab el Mandeb – the mouth of the Red Sea and a critical lane for shipping via the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean.

Al-Jazeera reports that Saudi attempts to evade the Iranian blockade of the straits of Hormuz could also be endangered.

Saudi Arabia’s crude and condensate loadings at the Red Sea port of Yanbu — a key port to bypass the ⁠⁠⁠⁠Strait of Hormuz — have rebounded this month, having hit a six-month low in August, according to ship-tracking ⁠⁠⁠⁠data from Kpler and Vortexa. However, Thursday’s rapid gains by Houthi forces along the Red Sea coast threaten Saudi exports.

Yanbu loadings increased to 3.7 million barrels per day (bpd) in September from 3.2 million bpd in August – the lowest since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran, according to Vortexa. Kpler ‌‌‌‌estimated lower loadings at 2.9 million bpd in September, compared with just 1.5 million bpd a month earlier.

Yanbu loadings declined in late July ‌‌‌‌and ‌‌‌‌August because of intensifying attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Prices of oil have already spiked, but not to the levels seen earlier this year when the US-Iran war was at its height.