In the Houthis, Israel faces an evolving threat far beyond its borders

As Houthi projectiles sent residents of central Israel to bomb shelters four nights in the past week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday to respond to ongoing attacks by the Yemeni rebel group. However, with limited intelligence on an enemy with few valuable assets, eliminating the Houthi threat may be a new challenge for Israel.

In the last two weeks, the Houthis shot five ballistic missiles and four drones into Israel, with falling fragments causing property damage across the country. A school in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan was destroyed by falling shrapnel, and Israelis were injured as they ran to bomb shelters. Israel struck Red Sea ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa last Thursday, its third strike on Houthi military targets, but has otherwise not mounted a military response to the group.

The Houthis have fired more than 300 projectiles at Israel since Hamas attacks on October 7 last year, most of which either failed to reach Israel or were intercepted. Iran-backed rebels have also attacked ships transiting the Gulf of Aden, provoking major disturbances to international transport.

Lighting candles in his office on the first night of Hanukkah on Wednesday, Netanyahu promised that “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 in the Middle East.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued his own warning, vowing that Israel “will not accept that the Houthis continue to fire at Israel: we will take care of their leaders in Sanaa and anywhere else in Yemen.”

However, Mossad chief David Barnea did incentive Netanyahu and Katz to focus on Iran rather than its Yemeni proxy, expressing uncertainty that Israel will be able to stop the Houthis, according to Israel’s Channel 13.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, said a continuation of Israel’s efforts so far is unlikely to succeed.

“Yemen is like Somalia,” he said. “It’s worse than Gaza. They have no infrastructure. We must understand the nature of the enemy. They are not a country where you can attack their goods. I’m something else.”

Yaakov Katz, a senior fellow at the Jewish People’s Policy Institute and author of books on the Israeli military, said Jewish Insider that Israel has relatively limited ability to attack the Houthis.

“They’ve never been a target for our intelligence gathering, so when you look at the targets selected so far, it’s all been infrastructure, like ports,” he said. “There is no indication that Israel is targeting secret bases with missiles or rockets or killing top leaders. They are not capable of doing the things they could do against Hezbollah and Hamas.”

However, since the Houthis began attacking Israel, Katz said, the IDF has opened an intelligence department focused on Yemen. The IDF has had difficulties found Israelis who speak, read and write Yemeni, which is different from Arabic, and recently opened a Yemeni language course, according Ma’ariv. The last wave of immigration to Israel from Yemen was in the 1950s, and few Yemeni Israelis continued to speak the language, in contrast to Farsi and some Arabic dialects.

The distance between Israel and Yemen is also a factor limiting the IDF’s ability to operate, Katz said.

In addition, Israel has relied heavily on Western allies, including the US and Britain, to take the lead in responding to Houthi attacks in light of threats to international sea lanes.

Guzansky said that on a recent trip to Washington, he heard from Biden administration officials who felt they could have done more to address the challenge.

“There’s still a month until Biden steps down; maybe they will do more now. Maybe Trump will do more. There is still a lot to do,” he said.

As for Israel leaving the Houthi issue to other countries, Guzansky said “there is a limit to what Israel can do. It’s a distant arena. We are a small country… We have an excellent air force, but it is small.”

Guzansky also pointed out that Israel has more pressing priorities: “The Houthis were marginal and still are. We have to take them proportionately… The Houthis were prioritized correctly – but now they are appearing.”

“The government needs to ask itself what it’s prioritizing,” Katz said. “If you’re going to work in Yemen, is that at the expense of something you have to do in Iran or other threats closer to home? … I think Israel only wakes up when something really bad happens.”

Guzansky said there are a number of approaches Israel can take to respond to the Houthis.

“End the war in Gaza, reach an agreement, and that’s the most likely way to stop the Houthis,” he said.

Another possible solution is to try to internationalize the problem as much as possible. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar did measures taken in that direction, instructing Israeli embassies in Europe to advocate for host countries to designate the Houthis as a terrorist group and urging the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on Houthi attacks and Iran’s continued support. Sa’ar wrote that the Houthis “threaten freedom of navigation and international trade. They are a threat not only to Israel, but also to the region and the whole world.”

Like Barnea, Guzansky also said Israel may try to hit the Houthis by targeting Iran. However, he said, “it is not clear that (an attack on Iran) will have an impact on the Houthis because (Iran’s) influence is not total.”

In addition, he said, “If you attack Iran, you better attack their nuclear sites.”

Guzansky warned against entering a war of attrition with the Houthis, in which Israel continues to conduct limited strikes against Houthi infrastructure.

“It won’t end,” he said. “The question is whether we want a war 2,000 kilometers from us. We can’t continue it in time. We can’t do it every day, but they can shoot a missile or a drone every day. Drones cost $1,000-$5,000, and each hour of gas to fly an Air Force plane costs more than that. There is a built-in asymmetry.”

“I’m worried that this is the trap they want us to walk into. A war of attrition would be perfect” for the Houthis, Guzansky added.

Another option, Guzansky said, would be to pay the Houthis to stop their attacks. The 2022 Saudi Arabia-Houthi ceasefire agreement included hundreds of millions of dollars sent from Riyadh to Sanaa, and the Houthis have not attacked Saudi Arabia in over two years.

Such a truce would likely be unpopular in Israel, where the government has allowed Qatar to pay Hamas for years, but the funds did not prevent the October 7 attacks.

“It’s not a morally good solution, but perhaps the most realistic,” Guzansky said.

Guzansky argued that “none of the possibilities are perfect and they’re not going to end (the shootings), but maybe a mix of them all will do the trick.”

He also postulated that “no final solution will solve the problem tomorrow morning. It’s a headache… It can’t be solved.”

“(The Houthis) will remain a security problem for the Arabian peninsula, the Middle East and the world,” Guzanksy said. “They’re sitting on a very crucial choke point.”