On 19 December, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced that the Yemeni group had carried out a hypersonic ballistic missile strike on central Israel.
One week later, the Israeli military retaliated by striking Sanaa International Airport, the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations, and the infrastructure of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib ports.
These tit-for-tat military actions set off a renewed spiral of escalation between Israel and the Houthis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Houthis will follow Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s path to defeat.
Houthi Political Bureau official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti has to escalate strikes on Israel until it ends “the genocide in Gaza”.
Despite this fiery rhetoric, Israel’s expanded military intervention against the Houthis is unlikely to produce a conclusive victory. Iran’s sustained clandestine support for the Houthis and the Yemeni group’s ability to create a siege mentality around Israeli strikes will help keep the stalemate intact.
Nevertheless, the intensifying Israel-Houthi conflict has the potential to metastasise beyond Yemen’s borders and threaten Western commercial maritime assets.
Israel's uphill struggle for a military triumph
Although Israeli air defences have been largely effective in limiting civilian casualties from Houthi missile strikes, the attacks continue to be a thorn in Israel’s side. The Eilat port is a reliable transit hub and some Israeli vessels have been forced to circumnavigate Africa along circuitous routes.
The strikes have caused foreign airlines to cancel flights to Israel and tourism to dry up. These hits to the Israeli economy are unlikely to let up as some Houthi missiles and drones can breach Israel’s highly sophisticated defences.
Why is Israel finding it so difficult to defuse the Houthi threat? A lack of preparedness for Houthi drone and missile strikes is one contributing factor. Even though Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi in March 2018 that “we are prepared to send fighters in any Israeli war against Lebanon or Palestine” and formed a robust alliance with Hezbollah, Israeli officials paid relatively little attention to the Houthi threat.
When the Houthis attacked an Egypt-bound Saudi oil tanker in August 2018, Netanyahu military action against Iran if it blocked the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and left Israel’s policy towards the Yemeni group unclear. The expansion of Houthi drone and missile capabilities continued under Israel’s radar until the Gaza war began in October 2023 and has left Israel playing catch-up to a certain degree ever since.
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The severe limitations of airstrikes against the Houthis are another critical factor. During the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen, the coalition was only able to achieve meaningful territorial gains against the Houthis when it airstrikes with ground force deployments.
The sporadic intensity of Israeli, US, and British airstrikes on Houthi aerial assets is a climb-down compared to what it has previously faced, and the Houthis are well-prepared to weather the storm.
“If we have learnt anything from the past decade, it is that the air campaign alone failed to deter the Houthis. It has emboldened them,” Nadwa al-Dawsari, a Yemen expert and non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute, told °®Âţµş.
This means that Israel will have to commit to a much more expansive military intervention and forge a wide-ranging multilateral coalition to seriously degrade Houthi capabilities.
How Iran might support the Houthis against Israel
As Assad’s fall from power and Israeli airstrikes severely degraded the capabilities of Iran’s Axis of Resistance, Yemen’s strategic importance has risen for Tehran. In his New Year's speech, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the Houthis and Hezbollah as “symbols of resistance” and declared that Yemen would prevail.
Former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander Hossein Allahkaram that Yemen has replaced Syria as the backbone of Iran’s Axis of Resistance.
Ibrahim Jalal, a Yemen expert and non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, believes that we should take this Iranian rhetoric seriously.
“The Houthis spearhead the escalation of the Axis of Resistance,” Jalal told °®Âţµş, arguing that Hezbollah’s decimation, Assad’s fall, and Iraqi militia restraint will lead to more Iranian assistance to the Houthis.
Although the Houthis claim that they are self-sufficient in weapons production, Iran has arms shipments to Yemen in recent days. The close resemblance between the Palestine-2 missile and Iranian Fattah-class missiles significant attention, even though experts doubt that the Houthis possess hypersonic capabilities.
The Houthis can also solicit Iranian support through other means. If the Houthis decide to launch a larger-scale missile barrage against Israel, Iranian security expert Hassan Hanizadeh that they would likely receive support from Iraq’s Hashd al-Shaabi and Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba militias.
The Houthis and the Islamic Resistance of Iraq military operations against Israel in May 2024 and the Houthis operate a political office in Baghdad.
Prospects for escalation in the Israel-Houthi conflict
The intensification of hostilities between Israel and the Houthis has the potential to reignite the ongoing Yemeni civil war. The Southern Transitional Council (STC), a UAE-aligned south Yemeni separatist organisation, has consistently lobbied for more robust military action against the Houthis.
Although the Houthis appear to have an iron-clad grip on power in northern Yemen backed by vast military arsenals and thousands of loyal foot soldiers, Assad’s fall has caused some Houthi opponents to envision a similar rapid-fire regime change.
For now, however, the Houthis are confident that their hold on Sanaa is secure and that their rivals will be able to make little headway. Sanaa-based journalist and filmmaker Nasser Arrabyee told °®Âţµş that “the Israeli strikes are strengthening the Houthis” because all Yemenis stand with Hamas and Palestine against “the Israeli occupation, genocide and ethnic cleansing”.
Arrabyee noted that even stalwart Houthi opponents, such as the recently deceased Al-Islah leader Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, support Yemeni strikes against Israel.
There is also a growing risk of the regionalisation of the Israel-Houthi conflict. At a 30 December UN Security Council meeting, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attempted to forge a multilateral coalition against the Houthis and a common understanding on the group’s standing as a foreign terrorist organisation. Sa’ar the threats posed by the Houthis to Red Sea shipping and the Suez Canal in his pitch for international support.
Saudi Arabia’s perceived association with Israel’s war against the Houthis could drag it into the conflict. In July, the Houthis Saudi Arabia and the US of forcing the Central Bank in Aden to block financial transactions in Sanaa and warned of “war on Riyadh” if its financial pressure continued.
Saudi Arabia’s wariness about a military intervention in Yemen caused it to defuse the crisis through diplomacy and sign an “economic de-escalation accord” with the Houthis. Nevertheless, the Houthi-run Al-Masirah outlet to spread conspiracy theories about British MI6 and Saudi intelligence collaboration, and frame Saudi Arabia as an aggressor against Yemen.
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The perception amongst many Yemeni analysts is that a renewed Houthi-Saudi Arabia conflict is only a matter of time. Al-Dawsari told °®Âţµş that a Saudi-Houthi “escalation” is inevitable and contended that “Saudi Arabia is a strategic target for the Houthis, regardless of Israel’s involvement and the current ceasefire”.
While Houthi attacks on maritime shipping assets by 44% during the second half of 2024, it continues to pose a threat to commercial activity. As the Houthis broaden their campaign against the commercial assets of Israel’s wartime partners, pro-Houthi commentator Hussain al-Bukhaiti told °®Âţµş that Germany and Turkey’s Red Sea ships could be the next targets of the Houthi “blockade”.
Al-Bukhaiti highlighted Germany’s military support for Israel and Turkey’s role in transiting oil and munitions to Israel’s war machine as contributing factors.
As Lebanon’s fragile ceasefire holds and negotiations with Hamas on a hostage release deal in Gaza gain momentum, Yemen is an escalating frontline in Israel’s proxy war with Iran.
As neither Israel nor the Houthis gain an upper hand through military means, the longsuffering Yemeni people stand to be the biggest losers.
Dr Samuel Ramani is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank and the CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk. Samuel is the author of two recent books on Russian foreign policy: Russia in Africa and Putin's War on Ukraine, and is a regular commentator on Middle East affairs for the BBC, Sky News, Al Jazeera, and CNN International
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