Israel carried out airstrikes early Thursday in Yemen in response to a Houthi attack hours earlier, the latest move by Israeli forces to weaken Iran and its proxies in the region.
The first wave of strikes hit military targets in the ports of Al-Hudaydah, As-Salif, and Ras Isa, while the second wave focused on targets in Sana’a, according to Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman.
Israeli military officials said they conducted “precise strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen, including ports and energy infrastructure in Sana’a, which the Houthis have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military action.”
The strikes killed nine people, according to Al-Masirah, a TV channel affiliated with the Houthis. It came after Israeli military officials said they had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen. The missile, which was not cleanly intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems, hit a school, though it was outside of regular educational hours and no one was hurt.
“Israel’s long hand will reach you as well,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a warning to Houthi leaders following the strikes. “Whoever raises a hand against the State of Israel – his hand will be cut off. Whoever harms us – will be harmed sevenfold.”
The Houthis have launched several missiles at Israel from Yemen over the past year or so. The attacks began in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel, which the Houthis said was in support of the Palestinians. They also began targeting vessels transiting the areas off of Yemen’s coasts, a primary route for shipping commerce, forcing many companies to avoid the area to instead sail around the Cape of Good Hope, the southernmost part of the African continent.
The United States and the United Kingdom have also carried out airstrikes targeting the Houthis’ arsenal and positions, but they have had little impact in stopping the attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Israel has conducted some strikes on the Houthis as well, however it has been a much less direct conflict than theirs with Hamas and Hezbollah. Israeli forces have decimated Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, including taking out several senior leaders of both, including Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah, and Israel has asserted its military prowess with targeted strikes inside Iran as well.
“The fact of the matter is this all came about because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, and some may say stubbornness, to stick to the fight, to keep pressing against Israel’s adversaries in Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north, and of course, they’ve struck the Houthis,” former Defense Secretary Mark Esper told the Washington Examiner.
Israel and Hezbollah are holding up a tenuous ceasefire agreement that both sides have alleged the other has violated. Hezbollah and Hamas’s ranks have been much harder than the Houthis.
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The Biden administration is pushing Netanyahu to get a ceasefire deal accomplished with both Hamas and Hezbollah, “and certainly with regard to Hezbollah, Bibi ignored President Biden and pressed the case,” Esper added. “We had the killing of Nasrallah. Then we had the pager attacks. It all happened fairly quickly, Israel invades, the next thing you know, Israel has taken out, by their account, most of Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles and launchers, and, of course, took out their leadership ranks.”
The recent fall of the Assad regime in Syria has also been a strategic win for Israel and the U.S., though the actions of the country’s new leaders could determine just how much of a victory it actually was. Assad was an ally of Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia, and with him in power, Iran had a direct land route to get weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Iraq and Syria.