Tel Aviv – As a ceasefire agreement for hostages is being negotiated between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and as a mostly truce with Hezbollah in Lebanon holds, Jerusalem has additional military resources to cut Yemen’s Houthi leadership down to size. There is an opportunity to direct, as former Israeli officials have said.
“Israel must intensify and expand its attacks [in Yemen]Not only on national infrastructure but also on political leadership,” retired Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, former head of Israeli military intelligence and president of MIND Israel, told Fox News Digital.
He said, “If there is good intelligence to enable such operations then targeted killings are an option. The leaders of the Houthis should meet with Sinwar and Nasrallah and the sooner the better.”
US Navy ships repulse Houthi attack in the Gulf of Aden
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shares the screen with Houthis leader Abdul Malik Badreddin al-Houthi. (Getty Images)
On September 28, an attack by Israel Defense Forces killed Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon, while Israeli ground troops killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on October 17 and recently Hamas leader Ismail in Iran. Haniyeh was killed. Heat.
Houthi terrorist leader:
The Houthis are led by Abdul Malik Badruddin al-Houthi (Abu Jibril), who has been designated by the US State Department as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2021.
According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), other top officials include Republican Guard (Presidential Reserve) commander Abdul Khaliq Badreddin al-Houthi (Abu Younis), who was also blacklisted by the US in 2021; Muhammad Ali al-Houthi (Abu Ahmed), member of the Supreme Political Council; and Abdul Karim Amiruddin Hussein al-Houthi, interior minister and director of Ansar Allah’s executive office.
An undated photo of Houthi terrorist leader Abdul Malik Badruddin al-Houthi. FDD’s Long War Journal notes that he was designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the State Department in 2021. (FDD’s Long War Journal)
Joe Truzman, a research analyst for FDD’s Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital that intelligence-based killing operations take time and to date, the Israelis have been busy in Gaza and Lebanon.
Truisman said, “But it can be done. We have seen Israel targeting nuclear scientists and military personnel in Iran. This could be repeated in Yemen as well. If the Houthis continue these attacks, Israel will have more The attention becomes focused on them.”
Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser in Israel and senior fellow at the Washington-based JINSA think tank, told Fox News Digital about the complexity of such efforts.
US military conducts successful air strikes on Houthi rebel forces in Yemen
A handout photo from Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah media center shows a massive column of fire following IDF strikes in the Yemeni rebel-held port city of Hodeida on July 20, 2024. (Ansarullah Media Center/AFP via Getty Images)
“You have to make sure the target is where you are bombing. If he has three houses, how do you know which house he is in? You need real-time information,” Amidror said. Those who said it would have been relatively easy for Israel to attack Nasrallah the moment his exact location was known.
“It took 15-20 minutes to attack [the Hezbollah headquarters] In Beirut because it’s so close to Israel,” he said. “Yemen is a huge logistics operation, requiring refueling jets, not to mention the tactical issues on the ground. A completely different kind of intelligence is required.
Amidrour added, “Both Nasrallah and Sinwar were sworn enemies and we collected information about them over many years, but the Houthis were not our priority.” “The way forward is to intensify intelligence gathering by liaising with those who can provide it.”
On Wednesday night, the Indian Air Force struck targets some 1,200 miles away in Yemen, following a Houthi missile attack on an elementary school in Ramat Gan, just east of Tel Aviv.
The IDF profile photo shows Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah, whom the IDF confirmed was killed in an attack in September. (IDF Spokesperson Unit)
According to reports, the pre-dawn attacks were carried out in two waves, targeting the Ras Isa oil terminal, Hodeidah and Salif ports on the Red Sea, as well as the D’Habban and Hajizz power stations in Sanaa.
In July, a Houthi drone killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, prompting the Indian Air Force to strike Yemen’s Hodeidah port. Israeli jets also carried out dozens of strikes in the Hodeidah area in September.
Overall, the Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 people. Since then, the Houthis have also attacked more than six dozen commercial ships – particularly in Bab-el-Mandeb, Egypt’s southern maritime entrance to the Suez Canal.
“The distance to Yemen is the longest distance flown by the IAF so far, but they can extend it with more refuelling,” said Brig. General (Res) Relik Shafir, a former Indian Air Force pilot who participated in Operation Opera, the attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, told Fox News Digital.
He further added, “It is uncomfortable for a pilot to sit in an F-15, F-16 or F-35 for seven hours. You need to be fully aware and at top levels of concentration.” “Israel can attack any existing enemy at great distances and the air force uses guided missiles that fire with an accuracy of two or three feet.”
Dead Hamas terrorist chief Yahya Sinwar on a poster in Tehran, Iran, August 13, 2024. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a warning to the Houthis, “We will attack their strategic infrastructure and decapitate their leaders. Just like we did.” [former Hamas chief Ismail] In Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah, in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon – we will do it in Hodeidah and Sanaa.”
Jerusalem had previously avoided taking responsibility for the July 31 killing of Hanieh, who was on a visit to the Iranian capital for the inauguration of the country’s president.
On Friday, US Defense Department spokesman Major General Pat Ryder said the Israelis “certainly have the right to defend themselves.”
On August 1, 2024, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and his bodyguard were killed in an assassination blamed on Israel in Tehran. (Cem Tekesinoglu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told Fox News Digital the Houthis are “a threat to everyone in the Middle East.”,“Finally, most countries in the region will be interested and willing to cooperate in efforts to end these attacks, which have no justification whatsoever.”
Israeli air strikes target Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, port city Hodeida
Israeli Air Force planes leave for attack in Yemen. (IDF)
Halevy stressed that “Every kind of terrorist activity is a challenge that must be responded to appropriately. The Houthis have suffered losses and if they continue to provoke us, we will have to do more.”
In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition launched a military intervention against the Houthis at the request of then-Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who was ousted from Sanaa the previous September. Yemen’s civil war has remained deadlocked since February 2015, with the internationally recognized government, based in Aden in the south of the country, headed by the Presidential Leadership Council until 2022.
A source close to that government told Israel’s Kan public broadcaster on Saturday that Jerusalem should start killing Houthi leaders, while Saudi outlet Al-Arabiya reported that senior Houthi officials had fled Sanaa out of concern that they would be targeted. Will be made.
“We need to understand more deeply what it is that will weaken the Houthis’ operational capability,” former Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata told Fox News Digital. “For this we need more intelligence, more assessment and coordination between different parties.”
Houthi fighters fire heavy machine guns at vehicles at a rally in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)
Hulta said the bigger question is whether the Houthis will continue to pose a threat if Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire.
He said, “If they become a major enemy, Israel will need to address it by directing resources toward something it was hoping to avoid – and perhaps is still hoping to do.”
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On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israelis to have “patience” while informing that Jerusalem was preparing to increase the intensity of its campaign against the Houthis.
He vowed, “We will take forceful, firm and sophisticated action. Even if it takes time, the result will be the same.” “Just as we have taken forceful action against the terrorist weapons of Iran’s axis of evil, we will take similar action against the Houthis.”
