Israel has a Houthi missile problem. It’s stuck finding a solution.
| TEL AVIV, Israel
Israelis had begun to feel life take a turn toward what passes for normal during wartime. In Gaza, the fighting with Hamas has been winding down. In Lebanon, the rocket fire from a badly depleted Hezbollah has been halted by a ceasefire.
Yet night after night, millions of Israelis have found it only takes one ballistic missile launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the last fully operational spoke in Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” to upend their feelings of security.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onFor more than a year, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched long-distance missile and drone attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping. After Israel largely subdued its Iran-allied enemies closer at hand, it is struggling to deter the Houthis on its own.
As Israel tries to halt the missile fire by launching difficult long-range strikes against the Houthis, it is joining a list of regional and outside powers that have failed to deter their attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.
The riddle of what to do is feeding a debate here: keep hitting Yemen or strike Iran, though it is considered to have only limited sway over the rebels and could be pushed in its weakened state to work toward a nuclear weapon.
Professor Shaul Chorev, a retired rear admiral in the Israeli navy, argues for an international coalition, not Israel alone, to confront the challenge. “I’m not sure that attacking Iran or attacking Houthi infrastructure is [what] will change the situation,” he says.
Pajama-clad and still half-asleep, millions of Israelis have been scurrying in the middle of the night – in some cases several nights in a row – to seek safety in stairwells and bomb shelters, roused from bed by the wail of air raid sirens.
Sounding the alarm each time has been the firing of a single ballistic missile from almost 1,400 miles away by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the last fully operational spoke in Iran’s anti-Israel and anti-U.S. “Axis of Resistance.”
Israelis had begun to feel life take a turn toward what passes for normal during wartime.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onFor more than a year, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched long-distance missile and drone attacks on Israel and Red Sea shipping. After Israel largely subdued its Iran-allied enemies closer at hand, it is struggling to deter the Houthis on its own.
In Gaza, the fighting has been winding down, though casualties on both sides are mounting and the Israeli hostages are still being held captive. (On Monday, the Israeli army said it killed scores of militants overnight in northern Gaza.)
In Lebanon, the rocket fire from a badly depleted Hezbollah has been halted by a ceasefire. Iran’s land bridge to Hezbollah has been severed by the fall of Syria’s Assad regime.
Yet Israelis have found it only takes one Houthi missile in the dead of night to again wreak havoc and upend feelings of security. Another Houthi missile triggered sirens in the center of the country late Monday night, but was intercepted before reaching Israel, the army said.
As Israel tries to halt the increasing missile fire, it is joining a list of regional and outside powers that have failed to deter the Houthis, including Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The resulting riddle of what to do is feeding an internal debate here: continue to hit long-range targets in Yemen or strike Iran, though it is considered to have only limited sway over the upstart Houthis, who revel in their ability to do harm both to Israel and the world.
Over the past year, Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, including to Israel, have threatened the key trade route connecting Asia to the Middle East and Mediterranean. Some 12% of global trade flows through those waters.
The rebels say their attacks are in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. Meanwhile a complete cessation to the war in Gaza – the Houthis’ condition for holding their fire – remains elusive.
“The Houthis are feeling empowered because in the past year they have managed to hurt the Egyptian economy and the supply chain for Europe,” says Eyal Pinko, a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University and a former intelligence unit head in the Israeli navy.
“U.K. and U.S. attacks and even previous Israel attacks did not do much to make a dent,” Dr. Pinko says. “They are driven not only by Iranian weapons and money but a very deep theological belief that Jews killed Mohammed.” The Houthi motto, Dr. Pinko notes, proclaims, “Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews.”
Houthis’ “zero effort” war
On Friday, after the Israeli air force attacked Yemen for the second time in a week, military analyst Amos Harel declared that Israel “finds itself in a new war,” in which the “Houthis remain the primary threat to the center of the country, with zero effort from their point of view.”
Among the targets in Yemen hit Thursday by a force of 25 Israeli warplanes: the international airport in the capital of Sanaa, power stations, a port, and an oil terminal.
Unlike strikes against neighboring Gaza or Lebanon, such a mission, the fourth against Yemen since the war began, entails “an enormous effort” and intricate planning, Mr. Harel noted in the newspaper Haaretz. The jets require delicate midair refueling to reach their targets.
The Israeli defense establishment, meanwhile, “is trying to figure out how much the Houthis’ actions are independent and what level of encouragement they’re getting from Tehran,” he added.
The night after Israel’s strike, the Houthis responded with another missile, this time triggering sirens around Jerusalem.
According to Dr. Pinko, even assessing the Houthi arsenal, which appears to be regularly replenished by Iran, is a challenge, because until recently Israeli intelligence on the group was limited.
“The United States has made over 50 attacks on Houthi infrastructure and missile infrastructure and has not yet stopped missiles from being launched, so I don’t think the numbers are the issue,” says Professor Shaul Chorev, a retired rear admiral in the Israeli navy who heads The Institute for Maritime Policy and Strategy in Haifa.
And in a country as desperately poor as Yemen, where 80% of the country relies on international aid to get by after a 15-year civil war, it is also difficult to find economic leverage to deter the Houthis.
“There is no simple solution for the Houthis because of the nature of who they are. ... They operate according to a different calculus” from Israel’s other foes, says Jonathan Spyer, director of research at The Middle East Forum, a Philadelphia-based think tank.
Iran option?
It’s unclear just how much leverage Iran has over the Houthis, who like Hamas are more like a client with their own ideology than an Iranian creation. Nevertheless, there are those in the Israeli establishment, including reportedly the head of the Mossad, who are pushing for an attack on economically frail Iran.
Options could include striking energy and economic targets, though there is also talk of hitting Iran’s nuclear program. In a major retaliatory strike in late October, Israel targeted Iranian air defense and missile production sites.
The thinking is that “if Israel wants to address the problem, it has to go to the address of it, which is Tehran not Sanaa, and that in the run-up to [President-elect Donald] Trump’s inauguration and a different international environment, Israel has a desire to start this conversation,” says Mr. Spyer.
“After six months of significant good strategic news for Israel, starting with a string of killings of both Hamas and Hezbollah top leadership ... there is a sense that they have Iran on the back foot. This comes with opportunities and threats,” he says.
The threat is that with their backs to the wall, Iran might work toward a nuclear weapon. But opportunity could lie in an economically stressed Iranian population angry over the billions invested in the Axis of Resistance instead of Iran’s own economy.
Professor Chorev injects a note of caution.
“I’m not sure that attacking Iran or attacking Houthi infrastructure is the center of gravity that will change the situation,” he says. He argues that like the international shipping crisis caused by the Houthis, the prospect of a nuclear Iran should be one countered by an international coalition, including regional and great powers, not by Israel alone.
In the meantime, he says, “for the population, it is about morale. When once a night central Israel has to wake up and take shelter ... this is what terror organizations like to do, to disrupt life, that is their aim. They don’t need to win in this age of asymmetric warfare.”
