Defence Minister Richard Marles said Australia provided support for the strikes in the form of defence force personnel at the operational headquarters but declined to go into further detail.

Insisting that “Australia must stand up for the rules-based order”, Marles described the strikes as “very important actions” aimed at “maintaining freedom of navigation on the high seas”.

“They are about maintaining global trade that is completely central to Australia’s national interest This decision was not taken lightly,” he told reporters.

Australia last week joined a 12-nation coalition in warning the Houthis they would face consequences if their attacks on vessels continued.

Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson called for the government to list the Houthis as a terrorist organisation, alongside Hamas in the Palestinian Territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and said the legal case for doing so was “strong”.

“For years, they have used violent tactics, including targeting civilians as part of the conflict in Yemen,” Paterson wrote in a letter to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil this week.

Paterson continued: “If the Albanese government remains unwilling to contribute a naval vessel to Operation Prosperity Guardian (the Red Sea operation), a terrorist listing is one of the few remaining tangible tools we have available to put pressure on the Houthis to cease these destabilising actions.”

A spokesman for O’Neil said: “The Albanese government takes advice from security and intelligence agencies about the listing of terrorist organisations.”

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The Biden administration has considered re-listing the Houthis as a terror group after it scrapped the designation in 2021 over fears it would affect the flow of aid into Yemen.

Michael Shoebridge, a former senior Defence Department official, said Australia had probably played a largely symbolic role in Friday’s strikes.

“It is a bit embarrassing to have the US talking about Australia’s contribution when it was probably a few Australian Defence Force personnel sitting at computer screens,” said Shoebridge, the director of Strategic Analysis Australia.

“All the heavy lifting is being done by the US and UK.”

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie urged the government to step up Australia’s contribution to the international effort to rein in the Houthis.

“The prime minister continues to put at risk important alliances with the US and the UK by failing to provide a maritime contribution to the Red Sea,” Hastie said.

“While our AUKUS partners defend vital trade routes against Houthi rebels, Australia is sitting on the sidelines letting our allies do the heavy lifting.”

Meanwhile, Greens defence spokesman David Shoebridge said Australia had encouraged a dangerous escalation of the conflict by supporting the strikes.

“The Biden and Albanese administrations repeatedly say they want to avoid the conflict in Gaza spreading in the region, then they do this,” he said.

“The hypocrisy is astounding and damaging to both nations’ credibility.”

Houthi leader threatens retaliation

Houthi attacks stopped for several days after last week’s warning from the US and its allies, but on Tuesday the rebels fired their largest barrage of drones and missiles, once more targeting Red Sea shipping.

American and British ships and US fighter jets responded by shooting down 18 drones, two cruise missiles and an anti-ship missile.

On Thursday, the Houthis fired a ballistic missile into the Gulf of Aden, which was seen by a commercial ship but did not hit the vessel.

The same day, the rebels, who have carried out dozens of attacks involving drones and missiles since November 19, warned that any American counterstrike would spark a fierce response.

“The response to any American attack will not only be at the level of the operation that was recently carried out with more than 24 drones and several missiles,” said Houthi supreme leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi.

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“It will be greater than that.”

The Houthis say their assaults are aimed at stopping Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. But their targets increasingly have little or no connection to Israel.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution this week demanding the Houthis immediately cease their attacks, and implicitly condemning their weapons supplier, Iran.

With AP