Houthi rebels have backed the Gaza ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas, with the Yemeni group’s spokesperson saying they will halt their military operations against Israel as well as commercial ships in the Red Sea if the truce comes into force on Sunday.

“If Israel stops the aggression in Gaza, and if the US, UK and Israel stop the aggression against Yemen, the Houthis will stop their operations, including attacks against navies and commercial ships,” Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Al Jazeera on Saturday.

The UK and the United States have carried out numerous strikes on targets inside Yemen to deter the Houthis. Washington also slapped sanctions on the group linked to Iran.

Israel, however, continues to kill women and children [in Gaza], so the Houthis were forced to launch a missile attack, he said, apparently referring to the missile strike launched earlier on Saturday.

The Israeli army said it intercepted two missiles launched towards Israel from Yemen in the morning and the afternoon. The one in the morning targeted central Israel, while the second was launched towards the south of the country, military statements said.

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The Houthis also announced they had fired a missile towards central Israel in the morning. They had repeatedly asserted that they would stop their attacks if Israel halted its military offensive in Gaza. The 15 months of nonstop Israeli bombardment has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians and turned Gaza into rubble.

Israel has bombed Houthi-controlled ports, including the Hodeidah port considered a lifeline for the war-torn nation, and power plants.

Houthi attacks backing Palestinians

The group has been launching rockets towards Israel since October 2024, in what they say is a show of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The Houthi rebels also targeted navies and commercial ships linked to Israel and its allies passing through Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade.

Israel justified its devastating military offensive saying it was aimed at defeating the Hamas armed group, which carried out an attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed about 1,100 people. The Palestinian fighters also took some 250 people captive.

But Israel was accused of war crimes and waging a genocidal war against Palestinians by rights groups. The International Court of Justice in February 2024 said the Israeli offensive “plausibly” amounted to genocide. Israel has rejected the accusations.

Israel and Hamas announced a ceasefire agreement on Wednesday that will halt the 15-month war that has devastated the Palestinian enclave, with nearly 90 percent of its 2.3 people displaced and a substantial number of them suffering hunger.

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A brief ceasefire in November 2023 saw the release of 110 Israeli captives and some 240 Palestinian prisoners.

In the first phase of this ceasefire, 33 Israeli captives will be freed in exchange for nearly 1,900 Palestinian prisoners, according to Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

But the Israeli army has intensified strikes on Gaza since the deal was announced, killing at least 123 people. The Israeli army said it conducted raids on 50 “terror targets” across Gaza on Friday.

The spokesperson of al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, says the group is making the final arrangements for the release of captives but intensified Israeli bombing risks killing them.