{"id":838303,"date":"2026-10-25T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=838303"},"modified":"2026-10-25T13:48:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T17:48:31","slug":"saudi-jets-hit-historic-lighthouse-on-mayun-island-in-bab-el-mandeb-authorities-in-houthi-controlled-sanaa-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/838303","title":{"rendered":"Saudi jets hit historic lighthouse on Mayun Island in Bab el-Mandeb, authorities in Houthi-controlled Sanaa say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/figure>\n

[file photo] The lighthouse on Mayun Island in the Bab el-Mandeb strait, in an undated photo shared on X on October 23, 2026, after the strike was reported. Image: @Eng45bassam via X<\/em><\/p>\n

Saudi warplanes struck the lighthouse on Mayun Island in the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Friday, authorities in Houthi-controlled Sanaa said, calling it an attack on a civilian facility that guides ships.<\/p>\n

A military source quoted by the Saba news agency in Sanaa said Saudi jets targeted the lighthouse on the island, which is also known as Perim and sits in the narrow channel between Yemen and Djibouti where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden. The Yemen Press Agency, citing the same kind of military source, said the raids caused "extensive damage" to the lighthouse, which it called a vital facility for guiding ships and oil tankers through the strait. The extent of the damage could not be independently verified, and no images of the strike itself have been published.<\/p>\n

The Interior Ministry in Sanaa said the lighthouse, known as the Bab el-Mandeb lighthouse, is more than 170 years old, is supervised by the Coast Guard Authority and plays a central role in guiding ships at night. It said hitting it was a blatant attack on a civilian facility whose importance goes beyond Yemen's borders, to the safety of ships and sailors and the trade that passes through the strait, and it held international maritime bodies "legally, humanitarianly, and morally responsible" to take a clear position.<\/p>\n

On Saturday the Foreign Ministry in Sanaa went further. It said the strike was "a blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law," called on the International Maritime Organization to condemn it and take practical measures to protect navigational facilities, and warned Saudi Arabia against what it called the militarization of the Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea. In the same statement it said that navigation in the strait "remains secure" and that it is Saudi Arabia that threatens it.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia and the coalition it leads in Yemen have not commented on the lighthouse. On X, the argument went on without them. The strike on "the historic lighthouse on Mayun Island" and other navigational landmarks in the strait "represents an attempt to disrupt maritime traffic," Bassam wrote on X, adding that it "will be met with a firm response." A Saudi user wrote in Arabic on X that the Houthis had used the Mayun lighthouse for surveillance and for targeting ships passing through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb, a claim the coalition itself has not made.<\/p>\n

The strike came as fighting moves closer to the strait from two directions. Yemen's civil war reignited in July after four years of relative calm, and last month the Houthis seized the country's entire western coastline, according to AFP. The Saudi-backed government then announced a counter-offensive, and on October 10 military sources from the government told AFP that Mayun was still in Houthi hands even as their forces advanced around the strait. A day earlier Al Arabiya had reported, citing military sources, that government forces had taken full control of Perim, a claim the Houthis denied.<\/p>\n

Now the Houthi-led forces are pushing on the land side. The Yemen News Portal reported on Sunday that they had begun encircling Al-Shatt, the center of the Al-Madaraba and Ras al-Ara district of Lahj, hours after taking the Nabiq valley at its edge, as part of a plan to cut off the southern forces that advanced near Bab el-Mandeb. The portal said the district has the most important stretch of coast where the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea meet, and that new Saudi airstrikes on Sunday hit reinforcements of the Saudi-backed National Shield forces coming from Aden, without making clear whether that was a mistake. Pro-government accounts, for their part, reported heavy airstrikes on Houthi positions in Mokha and Al-Wazi'iya and Houthi reinforcements moving toward Mokha from the Taiz fronts.<\/p>\n

The diplomatic pressure is also building. Meeting in Istanbul on Friday, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan condemned "in the strongest terms" the Houthi escalation and the attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb, and called on the group to stop all military actions and return to the political process. The four ministers said disruption of sea lanes threatens supply chains of energy, fertilizer and food, hurting vulnerable people in the region and beyond. Landlocked Ethiopia moves most of its trade through Djibouti, on the other side of the strait.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h4>\n