Israel Going It Alone Against Houthis In Yemen With Long-Range Strikes

Israel carried out its latest airstrikes against Sanaa International Airport in Yemen on Wednesday, its second long-range attack targeting infrastructure controlled by the Houthis since the U.S. ended its two-month air campaign against the group in early May. The strikes are another reminder that Israel again faces the Houthis alone and seemingly has no other way of retaliating against the group for its missile and drone attacks than bombing fixed targets that are part of Houthi-controlled Yemeni infrastructure.

As Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip continues, so do near-daily Houthi ballistic missile and drone attacks targeting Israeli cities from over a thousand miles away. Israel’s sophisticated air defenses intercept these incoming munitions most of the time. Still, Houthi munitions occasionally slip through—most recently, a ballistic missile impacted outside Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport on May 4. These attacks often result in hundreds of thousands of Israelis scrambling into shelters.

Before Israel’s strike on Sanaa on Wednesday, the Houthis launched three attacks in four days and a total of seven missiles and several drones in the 12 days since Israel’s last long-range airstrikes against Yemen on May 16.

Wednesday’s attack saw Israeli fighters, supported by tankers due to the long distance to their target, bomb and destroy the last commercial plane in Sanaa airport used by the Houthis. Israel last bombed the airport on May 6 in retaliation to the above-mentioned attack on Ben Gurion, destroying its terminal and six planes.

The Sanaa strikes followed Israel’s May 16 strikes. On that occasion, it retaliated for a similar series of Houthi attacks targeting Israel by sending 15 fighter-bombers that dropped 35 bombs on Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Hodeidah and Salif ports. The Israeli military said it targeted the ports to harm the Houthis economically and undermine any effort to import additional Iranian armaments or parts.

All of these developments occurred within a month and serve as a stark reminder of how much can change in the region within a matter of weeks. For example, the U.S. launched Operation Rough Rider in mid-March after surging air and naval assets in the Red Sea and deploying strategic B-2 Spirit bombers on the Indian Ocean’s Diego Garcia within striking distance. It discouraged Israel from launching any additional attacks against the Houthis, urging it, “Leave it to us.”

Despite weeks of strikes and vows to target the Houthi leadership, a Houthi ballistic missile still hit Ben Gurion on May 4. Mere hours after Israel responded with ferocious strikes against Sanaa airport and Hodeidah port, President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire with the Houthis after they agreed to stop targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The truce did not condition the group to cease attacking Israel and “leave it to us” essentially became “you’re on your own” overnight.

While U.S. air defense assets in the region, including THAAD missile batteries deployed to Israel, will help intercept attacks where they can, Israel cannot expect the U.S. to launch airstrikes against the Houthis on its behalf anytime soon. Incidentally, the THAAD batteries deployed to Israel failed to intercept Houthi ballistic missiles on at least two confirmed occasions, including the May 4 incident, when a comparable Israeli Arrow system also malfunctioned.

Like the U.S., Israel operates the fifth-generation F-35 Lighting II stealth jet but lacks any aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, or regional bases to strike Yemen. Consequently, each time it retaliates against the Houthis, its fighters must fly over a thousand miles with support from tankers to hit their targets, which, as mentioned above, are invariably fixed. Furthermore, as the early weeks of Rough Rider demonstrated, Israel cannot afford to underestimate Houthi air defenses, which at one stage threatened a U.S. F-35. Israel may find it extremely difficult to rescue any pilot shot down over Yemen given the distance involved.

Rough Rider struck over 800 suspected Houth-related targets in its first month. Upon its conclusion, U.S. officials said the operation killed several “mid-tier” Houthi fighters and destroyed substantial quantities of weaponry and munitions. However, it failed to eliminate the leadership nor undermine the group’s continued capability to target Israel repeatedly.

Following the May 16 Israeli airstrikes on Hodeidah and Salif, Israeli Defense Minister Katz threatened to kill Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi if his group continued targeting Israel.

Experts believe he is sequestered in the Houthi’s Saada stronghold in Yemen’s mountainous far north, where only trusted locals have access to him.

Katz specifically mentioned the late leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah when threatening the Houthi leader. Israel assassinated the long-time Hezbollah leader in his Beirut bunker in September 2024 following its detonation of thousands of booby-trapped Hezbollah pager devices that injured and killed several of the group’s members and crippled its command and control. Before that covert operation and a devastating accompanying Israeli air campaign, Hezbollah was the primary strategic threat to Israel given its enormous arsenal of surface-to-surface missiles and rockets right on its doorstep aimed at its major cities and infrastructure.

While Katz invoked Hezbollah’s string of strategic defeats, it’s unclear if Israel can replicate them against the Houthis. For example, unlike Hezbollah, Israel has significantly less intelligence on the Houthis and has to fight them much further away and over different terrain than Hezbollah in Israel’s near north. Given the greater distances and different terrain, Israel cannot feasibly deploy armor and troops as it can in Lebanon or Gaza. It isn’t known to have mounted any commando raids in Yemen. And it’s unknown whether or not it has conducted any significant covert operations.

Israel probably doesn’t have any ace up its sleeve against the Houthis as game-changing as the paper operation against Hezbollah. Nevertheless, one cannot readily dismiss such a scenario–after all, nobody predicted the pager operation in the first place.

It’s likely for now that Israel will have to settle for sending its fighter jets hundreds of miles every few weeks to hit what little is left of the economic infrastructure in the beggared Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen.

“We operate according to a simple principle: Whoever harms us – we will harm him,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared after Wednesday’s strike. “Whoever does not understand this with force – will understand this with more force.”

It’s conceivable that if Israel’s repeated retaliatory strikes on Yemen fail to deter the Houthis, which seems likely, it could become more tempted to order its air force to fly a similar distance to attack the group’s primary backer, Iran.