British maritime security firm Ambrey said that a container ship targeted by Yemen's Houthis on Tuesday was Liberia-flagged and headed for Somalia.

The Iran-aligned Houthi militia said it had targeted an Israeli cargo ship, the "MSC Silver", in the Gulf of Aden, next to the Red Sea, with a number of missiles.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea did not elaborate, but in a statement said the group had also used drones to target a number of US warships in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea as well as sites in the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat.

"The Houthis characterized the vessel as Israeli. The operator was publicly listed as (in) cooperation with ZIM and regularly called (at) Israeli ports," the Ambrey advisory note said.

Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd, commonly known as ZIM, is a publicly held Israeli international cargo shipping company headquartered in Israel.

The Houthis, who control Yemen's most populous regions, have attacked vessels with commercial ties to the United States, Britain and Israel, prompting retaliatory Western strikes on Houthi military sites in Yemen.

The Houthis have vowed to continue targeting ships linked to Israel in solidarity with Palestinians until Israeli forces stop their war in Gaza.

"There is no danger to international or European navigation so long as there are no aggressive operations, and thus, there is no need to militarize the Red Sea," Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam said in a post on X on Tuesday.

"What the world is impatiently waiting for is not the militarization of the Red Sea, but rather an urgent and comprehensive declaration of a ceasefire in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons that are clear to anyone."

(Reporting by Reuters)