Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement has warned that Italy will be targeted if it joins the western coalition to attack the Arab country.

Mohamed Ali al-Houthi, head of the supreme revolutionary committee of Ansarullah, made the statement in an interview on Monday with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

The Yemeni official encouraged Italy to pressure Israel into ending its hostilities in the besieged Gaza Strip, which have left more than 27,000 people dead since early October. That would be the only way toward peace in the region, Houthi said.

On Friday, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Rome would provide the admiral-in-command of a US-led maritime task force in the Red Sea aimed at protecting the passage of commercial ships bound for Israel.

Yemen has targeted ships either owned by the regime or sailing toward Israeli ports in a strong gesture sympathetic to the oppressed Palestinians of Gaza over the past few months.

In December, the European Union (EU) agreed to join the US-led mission against Yemen.

Yemenis have made it clear that strikes targeting those ships in the Red Sea will not stop unless the regime ends its genocidal campaign.

Yemen has also made a firm statement that international shipping companies are safe to sail in the area if they are neither owned by the regime nor destined to ports in the occupied Palestinian territories.