Rockets from the south, from the Gaza Strip, ruled by Hamas, and from the north, from the southern region of Lebanon, ruled by Hezbollah. It is the daily double alert that Israel has had to face for some time, but since October 7th it has become more intense than ever before. But what also caused concern in the Jewish state today was the explicit entry into the field of another force that wants to join the “pincers” of Hamas and Hezbollah: Yemen, or rather, the Houthi militia, which has joined forces in the wake of the bloody civil war declared war as the government, which tore the country apart for years. For the first time since the start of the conflict, Israel had to activate the Arrow air defense system over the skies of Eliat – the far southern city that runs along the Red Sea and borders Egypt – to shoot down a missile from Earth-Earth from Yemen . The IDF then announced that it had also shot down two other “enemy objects” – likely drones – launched over the Red Sea. The mission is of course accomplished. But the self-proclaimed Houthi government in Sanaa has nevertheless asserted its rudimentary “entry into war,” and Netanyahu’s cabinet will not be able to ignore it. “These drones belong to the state of Yemen,” said Prime Minister Abdelaziz bin Habtour, claiming military action and sovereignty over the Gulf state in one fell swoop. “The Yemeni armed forces will continue to carry out ever-increasing rocket and drone attacks in support of our oppressed brothers in Palestine until the Israeli aggression ends,” Yahya, a Yahya militia spokesman, shouted into a Saree television microphone a short time later. Rockets coming from the country, most likely intended for Israel, had already been intercepted by US forces stationed in the area about ten days ago. But what does Yemen have to do with the war between Israel and Hamas?
pic.twitter.com/YTxyWSnrsk
— Lounge Digest (@loungedigest) October 31, 2023
Intercom Tehran
The common thread when reading the more or less credible performance of the third explicit actor in the war with Israel is always the same: Iran’s maneuvers. The Houthis are an armed Islamist group that was founded in the 1990s and has grown over the years to gain control of the capital San’a thanks to growing support from the Iranian regime, which shares its Shiite affiliation. The militia’s name derives from that of its founder, Husayn Badr al-Dīn al-Ḥūthī, who became a martyr in the eyes of its members after he was killed by Yemeni state forces in 2004. At the local level, he is fighting for control over the militia. At the regional level, the Houthis have been one of Iran’s most important assets in expanding its influence since the beginning of the millennium. From a Shiite perspective, their main opponent – at least until the ceasefire signed months ago with the mediation of Beijing – is the Sunni front led by Saudi Arabia: Since then, their local allies have included the devastating civil war in Yemen in 2014. And from a political-theological perspective, the biggest enemies of the Islam in a fundamentalist reading: the USA and Israel. It is no coincidence that in his press conferences since the start of the war, Netanyahu also specifically mentions the Houthis as proxies for the “Axis of Resistance,” which Iran would use with political, financial and military support to wage war “from a distance” against the Jewish state . And if the threat posed by the militia is anything to go by is seen as less dangerous than that of Hamas and even more dangerous than that of Hezbollah, Tehran also appears to have managed to supply the Houthis with weapons over the years , which can worry the Jewish state in the south as well as the military and other US ships stationed or transiting in the region: We are talking about surface-to-surface missiles like the one “tested” today, but also about anti-ship missiles , sea mines and radio-controlled explosive boats.
Also read:
