Houthi fighters at a rally in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 18, 2024. (Credit: Mohammed Huwais/AFP)
Tensions between the Houthis and Israel are mounting, with both sides launching subsequent attacks on each other's territory. Yemen's Houthi rebels claimed responsibility on Thursday for firing two missiles into Israel in response to Israeli airstrikes on Yemeni ports and energy infrastructure that killed nine people. Israel, in turn, claimed that its airstrikes were in response to ongoing Houthi attacks.
In the last year, Yemen, more than 1,500 kilometers south of Israel, has been bombed by Israel, the U.S. and the U.K. amid the Houthi rebels' campaign attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea in support of Palestinians in Gaza, where several human rights groups say Israel is carrying out a genocide.
The Houthis are part of the Iran-led coalition dubbed the 'Axis of Resistance' which also includes Hezbollah and Hamas, the latter who described the Israeli strikes as a “dangerous development.” Iran described the strikes as a “flagrant violation of international law.”
“Two Israeli military targets in the Yafa area [the Arabic name for Jaffa, a neighborhood of Tel Aviv] were targeted by two Palestine 2-type hypersonic ballistic missiles” and were “accurately hit,” said Houthi spokesperson Yahia al-Saree, quoted by a Houthi-run media outlet. He implied that the firing was in retaliation for Israeli raids, referring to “a legitimate response to Israeli aggression against civilian installations in Sanaa [the capital] and Hodeida [west].”
On Thursday, as well as on Monday, the Israeli army announced that it had intercepted missiles launched from Yemen before they entered Israeli territory. However, on Thursday, a missile headed toward central Israel struck a school in Ramat Efal in the western part of Tel Aviv.
The impact was captured on several security cameras and shows a significant impact and subsequent blast. While a military spokesperson claimed the damage was from falling shrapnel, the building sustained so much damage as to need to be completely demolished and rebuilt, according to the Times of Israel. The military said later that according to an initial probe, the school was likely hit by the missile warhead after a partial interception. Warning sirens were triggered “in several areas in the center” of the country due to “the possibility of falling debris following the interception,” and “millions” of civilians took refuge, the army said. There were no reported injuries.
The next morning the Israeli army announced its attacks on Yemen. “Israeli air force fighters ... struck military targets belonging to the terrorist Houthi regime on the west coast and in the hinterland of Yemen.” The strikes targeted “ports as well as energy infrastructure” in the capital Sanaa, which the Houthis use to support their military operations, the army claimed. The Israeli attack, involving 14 fighter jets and other aircraft, came in two waves, with a first series of strikes on the ports of Salif and Ras Issa and a second series hitting the capital Sanaa, military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters. Two sources at the port of Hodeidah told Reuters that an Israeli strike destroyed a tugboat, but the port has several others capable of towing ships to the dock.
"We made extensive preparations for these operations with efforts to refine our intelligence and to optimize the strikes," he said. On Tuesday, Israeli public radio (KAN) reported that Israel was preparing for a military offensive against the Houthis, which, with the removal of Bashar al-Assad from the Syrian presidential seat and the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon, elevates the importance of the Yemeni rebels among Iranian allies in the region.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, still relatively new to the position, commented in a post on X: “I warn the leaders of the Houthi terrorist organization: Israel's long hand will reach you as well. Whoever raises his hand against the State of Israel will have his hand cut off, whoever strikes will be hit seven times harder.” A senior Houthi official, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, said on X that the Israeli strikes would not deter the group. “Yemen's operations against Israeli and American terrorism will continue.”
In the Thursday raids, the Haziz power plant, just south of the capital, and the Dhahban power plant, on the northern outskirts of Sanaa, were targeted, Al-Massirah reported, adding that the fire at the Haziz power plant has been brought under control. On the west coast, strikes targeted the port of Hodeida and the oil infrastructure of Ras Isa, where Al-Massirah reported two dead and one wounded. Seven people were also killed in an Israeli strike against the port of Salif on the west coast, according to Al-Massirah.
Most Houthi attacks on Israel have been thwarted or caused only material damage, but in July, the death of an Israeli civilian killed in Tel Aviv by the explosion of a drone fired from Yemen led to a retaliatory air raid on Hodeida, killing six people and causing extensive damage.
The Houthis, who control large swathes of Yemen, including Sanaa, also regularly attack ships they believe to be linked to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, despite 'preventative' strikes by a coalition of U.K. and U.S. forces 'in defense' of global economic trade.