A Hezbollah spokesman said on Tuesday that the Houthis are planning a “fifth stage” in their war against Israel, which will include gas rigs and energy facilities.

The representative from Iran’s Lebanese terror proxy told the Hezbollah-affiliated Al Akhbar newspaper that Iran’s terror proxy in Yemen plans “surprise operations in areas that have not been reached so far, also an escalation in attacks on Israeli ships and those related to Israel. It will also include new, advanced, high-quality, long-range weapons that cannot be intercepted.”

The gas and energy targets are planned in retaliation for the Israeli attack in Yemen and include the Leviathan and Tamar natural gas fields in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel.

The Yemeni rebel group – in cooperation with other members of the Axis of Resistance, Iranian-backed paramilitary groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria – is said to be planning to attack the Israeli Mediterranean ports of Ashdod, Ashkelon and Haifa, as well as the Red Sea port of Eilat.

Israeli gas fields in the Mediterranean are now said to be in the Houthis’ crosshairs, as are oil tankers carrying fuel from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to Israel via the eastern Mediterranean.

The Houthis are also reportedly planning to attack maritime trade in the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, and the rebel group wants to use long-range missiles to target ‘enemy maritime trade’ along the African coast towards the Cape of Good Hope.

This route is much longer than the one through the Suez Canal, but has become increasingly popular since the Huthis began attacking ships passing through the Red Sea that they claim have links to Israel, the United States or Britain.

With reports from JNS.