CAIRO — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Saturday they fired missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi airstrikes on the strategic Red Sea city of Hodeida, in an escalation over vital shipping lanes in the Middle East as the United States and Iran compete for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, said in a pre-recorded statement that the attack targeted facilities in the Red Sea cities of Yanbu and Jizan, which belong to Aramco, the world’s largest oil company.

Saudi Arabia’s civil defense said the alerts were sounded several times early Saturday in both cities, but the kingdom had no further comment.

No attacks were reported overnight in Iran, in an apparent break from nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of US strikes, although tensions remain high following an escalation in the Strait of Hormuz.

The Houthis have said they would close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi Arabia-linked shipping in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade of Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Sanaa, Yemen’s rebel-held capital.

“Nothing less than ending the aggression and lifting the blockade, otherwise everything is illusion and mirage,” Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi-led Supreme Political Council that governs rebel-held territories in Yemen, said of what it would take for the Houthis not to blockade Bab-El-Mandeb.

Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping bottleneck connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. About 12% of world trade, including a quarter of container traffic, passes through these straits.

The Houthis attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea this week. In response, Saudi Arabia attacked Hodeidah, the Saudi-led coalition opposing the rebels said on Saturday. Friday night’s attacks hit the port and the state telecommunications corporation, wounding two people, said Anees al-Asbahi, spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry.

The Saudi-led coalition said it did not attack the port, but rather attacked “legitimate military targets” in Hodeida province that “were linked to threats to commercial vessels in the Red Sea.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called for “diplomacy and dialogue” to resolve the Yemen conflict without “military confrontations” in an interview published Saturday by the state-run Iran newspaper.

“Iran had a quiet night,” Hossein Kermanpour, spokesman for Iran’s Health Ministry, posted on X.

US Central Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Unlike the previous 13 nights, no new strikes were announced.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to travel to the United States next week and meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Tuesday, his office said Friday. They last met in Washington in February, weeks before launching the war.

A tenuous ceasefire that halted major operations for weeks appeared to crumble this month. The United States accused Iran of attacking three ships in the Strait of Hormuz and responded by attacking dozens of targets in Iran, which responded by firing on US-allied Gulf Arab states.

The US military has renewed its blockade of Iran’s ports. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has advised residents of neighboring countries to stay away from bases with US troops.

The war has killed more than 3,400 people in Iran, according to its Health Ministry. Eighteen US military personnel, 24 civilians in Israel, and a smaller number of civilians, including foreign workers and sailors, have reportedly been killed across the region.

In Lebanon, more than 4,000 people have been killed since Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants fired on Israel in support of the Islamic Republic two days after the war began and Israel responded with strikes and ground forces. 38 Israeli soldiers have also died.

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Dell’Orto reported from Jerusalem.