The Houthi drone attack in downtown Tel Aviv should be a wakeup call for Israel to make a “realistic” assessment of its real military capabilities, veteran Israeli defense observer Amir Bohbot suggested in op-ed for the Jerusalem Post on Saturday.
Pointing to the ongoing war in Gaza, which put the Israeli military and especially its Air Force on high alert for over nine months now, Bohbot expressed concern that the conflict has “compromised the IDF’s ability to engage in a large-scale, multi-arena war of high intensity.”
“It is important to recognize the looming threat of a major war,” the observer wrote, pointing to the powerful forces arrayed against Israel in the region, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen, militias in Iraq and Syria, and Iran –leader of the anti-Israeli, anti-US Axis of Resistance. These forces have amassed as many as 5,000 drones and missiles to strike Israel in an all-out conflict.
Israel faces “significant gaps” between the threats it faces and the solutions for ameliorating them, according to the observer. “The emerging threat of drone swarms, capable of mass attacks on large areas, poses a huge challenge to modern Western armies. So far, I have not heard that the IDF’s multi-year [defense] plan, which has been delayed for a long time, places sufficient emphasis on these threats,” Bohbot stressed.
The Israeli defense observer did not offer any “solutions” to the problem, apart from a vague reference to possible investments in offensive weapons.
The Jerusalem Post contributor’s concerns were echoed by Tel Aviv-based New York Times correspondent Patrick Kingsley, who suggested in his own piece Saturday that Israel “has few options to retaliate” to the Houthi drone attack, “which made clear the weakness of its air defense system” against slow-moving, low-altitude, low heat-emitting drones.
“Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, has vowed revenge for the attack, but analysts said this weekend that Israel had few obvious options against a militia that shares no common border with Israel and has appeared undeterred by earlier displays of force by Western powers,” Kingsley suggested, referring to the ongoing campaign of US-UK strikes in Yemen amid the Houthis’ self-imposed partial blockade of the Red Sea.
“One immediate, short-term response…might be a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, a move that could halt attacks from Hamas’s allies, like the Houthis and Hezbollah in Lebanon. While the Houthis’ opposition to Israel long preceded the war in Gaza, the group had rarely attacked Israeli interests before it began,” he added.
Israel-based Washington Institute fellow Ehud Yaari dismissed the prospect of Israeli airstrikes against the Houthis having any impact. “What would be the benefit? If we enter the scene and we contribute our own strikes to dozens and dozens of strikes carried out by the US and the UK, that’s not going to shift to this scale,” he told the Times.
As for Israeli air defenses, the NYT pointed out that they’ve “repeatedly struggled to identify, track and destroy drones, particularly those fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon” before Friday morning’s Houthi strike.
“We can’t hermetically close all the borders,” former Israeli Air Force general Relik Shafir said, pointing to the difficulties distinguishing drones from the “clutter” of small planes and other aircraft. “What the drones can do is infiltrate every now and then through the defenses. And this is the result.”
General Shafir expressed support for the Gaza truce idea, saying it may “prompt some kind of a lull for a while.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected calls for a ceasefire, and dismissed as false a report earlier this month that Israeli generals want a truce in Gaza and are ready to accept Hamas remaining in power – a prospect Netanyahu’s coalition allies have fervently rejected.
Hezbollah Sword of Damocles Hangs Over Israel
While the IDF remains bogged down in Gaza, Israeli officials including Prime Minister Netanyahu have been warning for over two months that Israel is “prepared for a very intense operation” against Hezbollah, sparking fears of an all-out war.
“The Israeli occupation forces admitted for the first time that it has a shortage of tanks because of damage of the fronts in Gaza and the north,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address on Wednesday amid the ongoing tensions with Israel. “If your tanks enter southern Lebanon you won’t suffer from a shortage of tanks since you won’t have tanks at all,” he warned.
Nasrallah cautioned that if Israel continues “to target civilians” during its ongoing air and missile strikes in southern Lebanon in its skirmishes with Hezbollah, the militia will be pushed “to launch missiles at [Israeli] settlements that were not previously targeted.”