Leaders of Hamas and Yemen’s Houthi rebels met recently to discuss “coordination” of their actions against Israel, sources in the Palestinian factions told AFP late on Friday.

According to these sources in the Palestinian Islamist movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the leaders of those two organizations, as well as the Marxist-oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had an “important meeting” with Houthi leaders “last year.” week”.

During the meeting, the location of which was not disclosed, the leaders of these groups discussed “mechanisms for coordinating their resistance actions regarding the next phase” of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, according to these sources.

Palestinian groups and Houthi rebels have also discussed a possible Israeli operation in Rafah, the last major Hamas stronghold in the southern Gaza Strip, where the UN says 1.5 million people, most of them displaced by the fighting, have gathered, the sources added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the army’s “action plans” for the Rafah offensive.

During that meeting with Palestinian factions, the Houthis “confirmed that they will continue their operations in the Red Sea” to “support the Palestinian resistance,” added these Hamas and Islamic Jihad sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis are part of the “Axis of Resistance,” a group of movements hostile to Israel and the United States that is backed by Iran and that also includes Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi militias.