The Houthi militia of Yemen has fulfilled this Friday with the tit-for-tat that its leaders had announced the day before by attacking the David Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv with a ballistic missile, hours after Israel and other infrastructures linked to Ansaru Allah (Supporters of God), the real name of the group. The missile was intercepted, according to the Israeli army, but, like – when another projectile injured 20 people near the city – the attacks claimed by that militia targeted the heart of Israel; the urban region that concentrates almost half of its 10 million inhabitants. On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sealed the Houthis’ growing stature as an enemy by describing them as “Iran’s terrorist arm,” which his country threatened to “cut off.”
Since the beginning of the Israeli bombings in Gaza, hours after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023 – which left 1,200 dead and 250 people kidnapped – one of the arguments of the Israeli Government to present itself as a “civilized” country surrounded by “barbarians”, in Netanyahu’s expression, has been alluding to the “seven fronts” that his country claims to have open. They are Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, the Shiite militia party Hezbollah in Lebanon, the pro-Iranian militias of the so-called Islamic Resistance in Iraq, the pro-Iranian groups in Syria, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. All led by Iran, Israel’s nemesis, in the alliance dubbed the “axis of resistance”, the core on which Tehran’s regional policy and its confrontation with the Jewish State and the United States have revolved.
Among these enemies designated by Israel, the most peripheral, more than 2,000 kilometers away, are the Houthis. However, the strategic location on the shores of the Red Sea of the territory controlled by this militia—30% of Yemen, which concentrates 70% of the country’s population—was a window of opportunity to gain prominence in that confrontation and, incidentally, international weight that the militia decided to take advantage of as of November 2023, with the argument of solidarity with Gaza.
that were transiting through the Gulf of Aden towards the Suez Canal. In theory, only those related to Israel, although two months later, general traffic through that vital maritime artery had already fallen by 30%, according to the International Monetary Fund. The Houthi drone attacks against Israel last year also culminated on July 19 when one of them hit a building in Tel Aviv and caused the first fatality. That attack unleashed a first Israeli aerial bombardment against the strategic Yemeni port of Al Hodeida.
The escalation has definitely increased in tone and, above all, has become more visible due to the almost total collapse of Iran’s axis of resistance. With the arsenal of the group’s crown jewel, Hezbollah, greatly depleted by Israel’s war in Lebanon and without the possibility of resupplying itself with the Iranian weapons that were previously in transit; With Hamas on its knees in ravaged Gaza, where the death toll in Israeli attacks is around 45,400, the Houthi militia has acquired the prominence it sought. The group that for decades was seen as “” is now an “international actor,” emphasizes Yemen expert Leyla Hamad.
A phrase from Netanyahu this Thursday confirmed that these militants are one of the few regional enemies that Israel considers still to be defeated: “We will finish the job,” said the Israeli prime minister. Only Iraq’s pro-Iran militias also seem to still be standing within the battered axis of Iranian resistance.
Iran itself appears weakened; militarily, due to the last Israeli attack in October and missile production facilities, but, above all, due to its difficult internal situation. In the midst of a serious economic crisis that has resulted in power outages since November, the detachment of a large part of the Iranian population towards its regime makes it unfeasible for the country to embark on an all-out war with Israel.
internal key
The Houthi attacks against Israel do not represent “a real threat to Israel,” emphasizes Hamad, author of Yemen, the forgotten key to the Arab world (Essay Alliance). Not only is the Arab country more than 2,000 kilometers from Israel, but most of the projectiles and drones claimed by the group are intercepted by Israeli anti-aircraft defenses and the anti-missile shield. The statements from this militia are sometimes received with skepticism. For example, when it states that some of its missiles, like the one this Friday against the Ben Gurion, are hypersonic (capable of quintupling the speed of sound), a technology that they have only demonstrated, according to the American think tank Stimson.
Researcher Fernando Carvajal, member of the UN Group of Experts on Yemen between 2017 and 2019, even believes that the real authorship of the launch of the missiles that the Houthis claim as their own could correspond to the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, much closer geographically. to Israel and that they maintain much closer coordination with Iran.
“The Houthis often take credit for other people’s actions to attract attention. Israel knows this, but the escalation with these militants helps Netanyahu’s propaganda, who needs war to stay in power. By attacking Yemen, Israel is demonstrating its military capacity,” emphasizes Carvajal from Los Angeles. For the Israeli army, “Yemen is a training ground that demonstrates to the Arab world and Iran that Israel is capable of effectively attacking long-range targets.”
The motivations of the Yemeni militiamen when confronting the Israeli giant also have an internal reading. “There is an ideological component of commitment to the Palestinian cause, massive among Yemenis,” Hamad emphasizes. The Houthis’ support for Gaza “has been very convenient for them at a time when their legitimacy and authority were at a minimum due to the war they are having with the internationally recognized Government of Yemen, the humanitarian crisis and” in Yemen. Of the more than 34 million inhabitants of the Arab country,
One of the benefits obtained by the militia, more than legitimized in the eyes of part of its population by its aura of supporting the Palestinians, are the successful “recruitment campaigns of the Houthis to fight against Israel, although it is obvious that these troops are not going to fight against that country” and that have nourished the ranks of the group, highlights the expert.
The militants have also reinforced their weight against Iran and the rest of the members of the dying axis of resistance with their attacks. A December 10 report considers it likely that Tehran “will give priority in the short term to shifting the center of gravity of the resistance axis to the east, to Iraq and Yemen.” In June, the Houthis announced the launch of joint military attacks against Israel with pro-Iran militias in Iraq. That same month, both groups claimed responsibility for an attack against the Israeli port of Haifa and another against Ashdod. A month later, Yemeni militants opened an office in Baghdad.
