Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has threatened to start targeting the Houthis’ leaders.
“We will inflict a devastating blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen,” Katz said.
“Just as we took care of Sinwar in Gaza, Haniyeh in Tehran and Nasrallah in Beirut, we will deal with the heads of the Houthis in Sanaa or anywhere in Yemen,” Katz warned, referring to the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah assassinated by Israel this year. “We will act both against their infrastructure and against them to remove the threat.”
Katz also took a pot shot at Iran, whom the US and Israel have regularly accused of backing the Yemeni militia, warning that “whoever sponsors the Houthi terror in Hodeidah or Sanaa will pay the full price.”
Iran, which has long denied providing direct military support for the Houthis, said Tuesday that the militia’s operations have forced Israel and the US to alter their calculations.
“Even under the heaviest bombardments from the American-Israeli coalition, they target the heart of the occupied territories with their homemade missiles,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said at a press conference in Tehran. “The Yemenis have proven they need no external assistance. Despite dire economic and military conditions, they have stood firm and resisted,” he added.
The Israel Defense Forces reported early Tuesday morning that they had intercepted a Houthi missile outside Israel’s airspace. Sirens wailed across central Israel amid fears of the missile reaching its target, with over two dozen people injured (one seriously) while running for cover in the panic.
Houthi official Hezam al-Asad vowed the group would continue its attacks “until the aggression against our people in Gaza stops.”
On the diplomatic front, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Monday instructed Israel’s diplomats in the EU and the UK to label the Houthis as a terrorist organization (currently, only Israel, the US, several Gulf states, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Malaysia do so).
“The direct threat to freedom of navigation in one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes is a challenge to the international community and the world order. The first and most basic thing is to define them as a terrorist organization,” Sa’ar said in the directive.
On Tuesday, Sa’ar sent a letter to US UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield asking her to convene an emergency session of the Security Council to condemn the Houthis for their “flagrant violation of international law.”
In addition to their drone and missile campaign, the Houthis have done major damage to Israel’s merchant shipping fleet by imposing a partial blockade of the Red and Arabian Seas targeting Israeli-linked and Israel-allied shipping.
A Houthi missile penetrated Israel’s much-touted missile defenses Saturday, injuring 16 people in Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv. The IDF probe into the incident found that the warning system “was activated late for reasons that cannot be detailed.”
Another Houthi missile landed a direct hit in Tel Aviv last week, again overwhelming air defenses, with the militia characterizing the attack as their “natural and legitimate” right to respond to Israeli aggression.
The militia also scored a major PR victory against Israel’s US allies last week, reporting the shootdown of an F/A-18 jet during an attack on the USS Harry Truman supercarrier. The Pentagon said the jet was downed in a friendly fire incident. Whatever the case, the Houthis have confirmed kills of nearly a dozen US Reaper drones, and are known to have downed a number of US and NATO-made helicopters and fighter jets from the mid-2010s onward in their war against a US-backed Gulf State coalition.