Israel struggles to deter escalating attacks from Yemen's Houthi rebels as other fronts calm

[January 03, 2025]  By TIA GOLDENBERG

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — 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 kilometers (1,200 miles) away. Israeli leaders have threatened to kill central Houthi figures and have tried to galvanize 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 defense 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 as the Houthis attack in solidarity with Hamas.

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.

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 Oct. 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 centers and the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv. The launches have intensified in recent weeks.

A man works next to damaged building near the site where a missile launched from Yemen landed Jaffa district, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

“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.

“We will hunt down all of the Houthis' leaders and we will strike them just as we have done in other places," said Defense 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 told The Associated Press 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."

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 neutralized 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 maneuver, and in Yemen we can't do that. The scale here is different,” said Eyal Pinko, a former Israeli defense 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.

Pinko also said the Houthis have learned over years of fighting against a Saudi-led coalition how to bounce back from airstrikes.

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.

Against Hamas, yearslong intelligence helped target and erode the group's forces. With Hezbollah, Israel penetrated deep into the organization, allowing it to unleash an offensive last year that detonated the pagers of rank-and-file members and decimated its senior ranks in secret bunkers. In Iran, Israel struck Hamas’ top leader in an apartment in Tehran and knocked out many of its air defenses in an October strike that left parts of the capital exposed.

But the Houthis' hideouts, weapons and infrastructure are less known to Israel, making its counterstrikes somewhat less effective. Hagari recognized that Israel’s intelligence in Yemen was “an issue” and said the military was working to improve.

Until then, some in Israel are steeling themselves for a war of attrition with the distant enemy.

“There's no quick fix,” Citrinowicz said. “Even if the war in Gaza ends, this is a threat that will not disappear.”

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