SO FAR, ISRAELI AND US ATTACKS AGAINST THE HOUTHIS HAVE NOT BEEN EFFECTIVE ENOUGH

Critical and opportune: Time to take the Houthis out of the equation

Addressing the threat may provide a critical opportunity to secure strategic alliances that could dramatically alter the future of the region. 

 

By Aaron Goren and Enia Krivine

 

JNS

Jan 2, 2025

 

U.S. sailors aboard the “USS Harry S. Truman” prepare ordnance for strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, December 2024.

 

Sirens blared across central Israeli communities in the early hours of Tuesday morning, wrenching millions of Israeli civilians out of their beds for the seventh time in two weeks as another Houthi missile targeted the Jewish state. Based in Yemen, more than 1,500 miles away from Tel Aviv, the Houthis present a new kind of challenge to the Israel Defense Forces. Addressing the threat may provide a critical opportunity to secure strategic alliances that could dramatically alter the future of the region.

During Israel’s most recent round of airstrikes against the Houthis last week, the IDF hit Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, putting its international airport out of commission. This is the fourth round of airstrikes that the IDF has launched since the Houthis began attacking Israel in October 2023. Israel has sought to target Houthi infrastructure, disrupt Iranian weapons shipments and degrade the terror proxy’s ability to import oil.

Despite these missions, the Houthis remain undeterred. Less than a day after the IDF attacks last week, they continued launching missiles.

They are a radical Shi’ite group that seized power in Yemen in 2015 and acts as Iran’s proxy arm in the country, launching hundreds of drones and rockets at Israel while the IDF was locked in battle with Hamas and Hezbollah.

Houthi maritime aggression escalated precipitously during the course of Israel’s war against Hamas. Its method is to exploit a natural geographic choke point, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a narrow waterway between Djibouti and Yemen that serves as the gateway to the southern entrance of the Suez Canal. In the past year, shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb has fallen by more than 50%.

 

Sixteen ships came under Houthi attack passing through the Bab el Mandeb strait in June 2024

 

In November 2023, the number of transits through the Suez Canal was 2,068, but in October, that number had fallen nearly 58% to 877. Ships avoiding the Red Sea, often by sailing around the southern tip of Africa, face extra costs of $1 million in fuel, one to two more weeks at sea, and an additional 11,000 nautical miles of wear on the vessels themselves.

In response to attacks by the Houthis, the U.S. military launched “Operation Prosperity Guardian” in December 2023. A year on, earlier this month, as the Houthis fired an explosive drone towards central Israel, the U.S. Navy was locked in combat with the Houthis just south of the Bab al-Mandeb.

Following the U.S. Navy operation, the Houthis redoubled their efforts to attack Israel.

The IDF has the capability to launch more comprehensive strikes, facing little danger from the Houthis’ limited air-defense array. A severe degradation of Houthi capabilities could not only allow Israeli families to sleep soundly at night—no longer running to shelters in the dark—it could also lead to the reopening of one of the world’s key merchant waterways.

There is another indirect but equally critical benefit in a potential Israeli take-down of the Houthis. A decisive campaign against the group can act as an Israeli carrot to Saudi Arabia, which, before Oct. 7, was edging ever closer to an elusive normalization deal with the Jewish state, once thought impossible.

The Saudis have endured thousands of Houthi ballistic-missile attacks themselves, far more than Israel. They launched their own unsuccessful campaign against the group that lasted several years and, indirectly, resulted in the death of an estimated 377,000 people in Yemen by the end of 2021 and earned the kingdom sharp international criticism, including from the Senate and then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Despite this, the Saudis have reportedly re-engaged in Yemen; there have been unconfirmed reports that Saudi forces have been attacking the Houthis throughout December, and there is likely some level of military coordination between Jerusalem and Riyadh, given the Saudi equities in Yemen and the proximity of the rogue state to the kingdom.

Israel eliminating the threat of an Iranian proxy on Saudi Arabia’s borders the same way they eliminated the threats of Hamas and Hezbollah from their own may entice the kingdom to cement an alliance with the Jewish state. In addition, the Saudis will be dealing with an incoming Trump administration that has stated that expanding normalization is an “absolute priority.” 

If Saudi Arabia, the center of gravity in the Sunni Arab world, normalizes relations with the Jewish state, it will likely spur a broader normalization between Israel and the Sunni Arab world.

While dealing with the immediate threat of Houthi strikes on Israeli population centers, Jerusalem can also cement ties with Riyadh and facilitate prospective U.S. efforts to expand regional normalization, thus providing a bulwark against Iranian aggression and paving the way to a more stable and prosperous Middle East.