There you go! Nobody cares for Yeman or the Houthis. Bomb the sheet out of them. Drill it!
Besides, those miserable Houthis are messing with the shipping lanes and delaying my Amazon order. Light them up.
Israel Intensifies Strikes on Houthis, Hits Yemen Airport and Power Stations
Netanyahu pledges to halt Iran-backed rebel group’s missile attacks
By Dov Lieber and Saleh al-Batati, WSJ (with help from El Snitzer-al-Charcuterie in Jerusalem)
Updated Dec. 26, 2024 2:57 pm ET
Israel escalated its strikes against the Houthis in Yemen on Thursday, launching an array of attacks on the capital and elsewhere in the country that officials said was intended to deter the last Iran-backed group to pose a direct threat.
Israeli warplanes struck the San’a airport and hit two power stations, pounding infrastructure that the military says the Houthis use to bring Iranian weapons and officials into Yemen.
The Houthis have continued to lob ballistic missiles at Israel in recent days, even after the Israeli military largely defeated the two main foes on its doorstep—Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon—and saw its archenemy Iran retreat from its stronghold in Syria.
Now, an emboldened Israel is turning its attention to the Houthis, who have gained legitimacy at home and in the Arab world for missile and drone attacks on Israel and on ships in and near the Red Sea. The group says the campaign is aimed at supporting Palestinian militants fighting Israel in Gaza.
“We are determined to cut off this terrorist arm of Iran’s evil axis,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. “We will persist in this until we complete the task.”
The Houthis represent a difficult challenge for Israel both because of how far away they are and because they are a relatively new foe that Israeli intelligence hasn’t focused on until now, analysts say.
The Israeli military largely controls the Gaza Strip, and its forces moved across the border into southern Lebanon during the fight with Hezbollah. But Yemen is more than 1,000 miles away.
For most of the war in Gaza and Lebanon, Israel has relied on a U.S.-backed coalition with forces closer to Yemen to deter the Houthis, but those efforts have fallen short.
This was the fourth time since July that Israeli planes have struck targets in Yemen, and the second time in about a week. Previous Israeli strikes in Yemen have mostly targeted energy infrastructure, such as fuel depots, which Israel says the Houthis use for militant activities.
In the past seven days, the Houthis have fired ballistic missiles at the densely populated Tel Aviv region late at night on four occasions, sending residents fleeing to bomb shelters. Israel has intercepted most of the Houthi attacks over the past year, but recently some projectiles have eluded its defenses.
On Dec. 19, a warhead from a Houthi missile struck a school in central Israel, collapsing the building but causing no casualties. Following that attack, Israel struck Houthi-controlled areas, including ports and energy infrastructure.
On Saturday, another Houthi missile struck a park in Jaffa, a part of southern Tel Aviv, lightly injuring 16 people.
After a candle-lighting ceremony to mark the first night of Hanukkah on Wednesday night, Netanyahu pledged to address the Houthi threat.
“The Houthis will also learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime and others have learned, and this will also take time. This lesson will be learned across the Middle East,” he said.
A Houthi spokesperson said the Thursday strike on the airport in San’a hit the control tower and arrival hall minutes before a flight landed. Three people were killed and an assistant captain of a United Nations plane was injured by the strikes, said Houthi officials. The World Health Organization, a U.N. agency, said a crew member was injured.
In addition to the airport, the Israeli military said it hit two power stations and what it said was military infrastructure in ports located on Yemen’s western coast.
The Israeli strikes occurred while the Houthi militant leader Abdul Malik Al Houthi was speaking publicly about his group’s fight with Israel. “Our operations against Israel are ongoing, effective and will not stop until the Israeli aggression stops,” he said during that speech.
Following the Israeli strikes, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam said that the targeting of the airport in San’a and other civilian infrastructure “is an act of Zionist aggression against the entire Yemeni population.”
Israel’s military said that while the Houthis rely on Iran for funding and weapons, the group acts autonomously. “This is a further example of the Houthis’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes,” the military said.
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