Israel struggles to deter escalating attacks from yemen’s houthi rebels

Israel struggles to deter escalating attacks from yemen’s houthi rebels

The Iran-backed Houthis are stepping up their missile attacks, sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis scrambling for shelter; the rocket fire is posing a threat to Israel’s economy, keeping many foreign airlines away and preventing the country from jump-starting its hard-hit tourism industry.

The rockets from Gaza have mostly fallen silent. A ceasefire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has taken hold. But repeated fire from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a faraway foe, is proving a stubborn threat for Israel.

The Iran-backed Houthis are stepping up their missile attacks, sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis scrambling for shelter in the middle of the night, scaring away foreign airlines and keeping up what could be the last major front in the Middle East wars.

“It’s like musical chairs,” said Yoni Yovel, 31, who left the northern Israeli city of Haifa late last year to avoid rocket fire from Hezbollah only to see his apartment in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa neighborhood heavily damaged by a Houthi missile.

Israel has repeatedly bombarded ports, oil infrastructure and the airport in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, some 2,000 km away. Israeli leaders have threatened to kill central Houthi figures and have tried to galvanise the world against the threat.

But the Houthis persist. In recent weeks, missiles and drones from Yemen have struck nearly every day, including early Friday morning, setting off air raid sirens in broad swaths of Israel. In some cases, the projectiles have penetrated Israel’s sophisticated aerial defence system, most recently toppling an empty school and shattering the windows of apartments near an empty playground where one missile landed.

Because most missiles are intercepted and because the fire is usually a single missile at a time, the strikes have not caused major physical damage, although a few attacks have been fatal during the 15-month war in Gaza.

But the rocket fire is posing a threat to Israel’s economy, keeping many foreign airlines away and preventing the country from jump-starting its hard-hit tourism industry.

Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have all but shuttered an Israeli port in the city of Eilat and have prompted ships destined for it to take a longer, more costly route around Africa to Israel’s Mediterranean ports.

Symbolic reminder

The Houthi strikes are also a symbolic reminder for Israel of the Iran-backed enemies that encircle it, known as the “Axis of Resistance,” and the last major holdout. And because Israel’s counterstrikes have yet to deter the Houthis, their persistent attacks defy Israel’s image as a regional military powerhouse.

“They are the only ones who are active now,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. The Houthis, he said, “are a challenge of a different kind.”

Shortly after Hamas launched its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Houthis began striking Israel-linked ships in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait along Yemen’s coast. Those attacks expanded to include other ships with no ties to Israel, disrupting cargo and energy shipments that are critical for worldwide trade. The Houthis said it was part of their campaign aimed at pressuring Israel and the West over the war in Gaza.

In response, U.S. and partner forces have launched multiple rounds of coordinated airstrikes against Houthi launch sites and weapons storage sites.

Throughout the war, the Houthis have also been firing missiles and drones at Israel, at first focusing on Eilat and eventually broadening attacks to include major population centres and the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv.

“There was thunder the other night and my daughter thought it was a missile. She woke up and started screaming,” said Ibrahim Sosa, 53, whose home in Jaffa is near the site of a recent missile landing.

Israel has retaliated repeatedly and vowed to escalate if the attacks don’t stop.

Will hunt down leaders

“We will hunt down all of the Houthis’ leaders and we will strike them just as we have done in other places,” said Defence Minister Israel Katz, shortly after Israeli jets struck Yemen last week.

The Israeli strikes have been deadly, with several people killed.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that Israel’s strikes focused on “military infrastructure which was used and directly contributed to Houthi terror activities, including to smuggle arms and finance their terror activities.”

Mr. Hagari acknowledged the battle would be complex. And despite massive Israeli air power, the Houthis have continued their assaults. That stands in contrast to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran — three other enemies Israel has largely neutralised over the past 15 months.

“Israel has many years of familiarity with those enemies. There is intelligence and there is the important element of a ground manoeuvre, and in Yemen we can’t do that. The scale here is different,” said Eyal Pinko, a former Israeli defence official and senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, an Israeli think tank.

Yemen does not border Israel, and Israel cannot easily stage a ground invasion as it has in Gaza and Lebanon to dismantle enemies’ infrastructure. Israel has to orchestrate complex air missions to fly to Yemen, which are costly and limited in what they can achieve.

While the Houthis have been active as an insurgent force for years, Israel hasn’t seen them as a priority or invested as much in gathering intelligence against them.