The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a new round of airstrikes targeting the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen on December 26. The strikes are the latest attempt by Israel to deter the Houthis from ballistic missile and drone attacks on Israel, which have increased this month.
Israel’s most recent operations did not appear to deter the Houthis, as the group launched ballistic missiles at Israel in the early morning of December 27, around 12 hours after the IDF’s daylight strikes on Yemen. The Houthis have vowed to continue their attacks as long as the war in Gaza continues.
Mohammed Abdul Salam, a Houthi spokesperson, said, “The Zionist regime should know that our people will not abandon their support for Palestine in the face of these attacks.” The Houthis also claimed that their attack on December 27 had targeted Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport and that they used a missile dubbed “Palestine 2.” The group also said it targeted a ship in the Red Sea with a drone.
This month, the Houthis attacked Israel with long-range ballistic missiles on December 1, 16, 19, 21, 24, 25, and 27. The pattern of increased attacks in the second half of the month comes as Hezbollah has ceased attacks on Israel in the wake of an Israel-Lebanon ceasefire on November 27. That ceasefire is due to end in the third week of January after 60 days. For now, it appears the Houthis are the main Iranian-backed front against Israel as others grow quieter. The Houthis have launched an estimated 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel since Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023.
The IDF said on the afternoon of December 26 that Israeli “fighter jets conducted intelligence-based strikes on military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime on the western coast and inland Yemen.” Images released by the IDF from the day of the strike showed F-15 and F-16 jets from the 69th and 107th squadrons, respectively. The Israeli military added that targets included “military infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime for its military activities in both the Sana’a International Airport and the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.”
In addition, the strikes targeted sites at the port of Hudaydah and two other ports on the western coast of Yemen. The IDF has hit Hudaydah’s port in previous attacks. On December 19, the IDF struck tug boats there and hit the same site during a round of attacks on September 29. On July 20, during the first Israeli retaliatory strikes on Yemen, warplanes also targeted Hudaydah port, setting alight fuel storage tanks.
Israel asserts that the Houthis use the ports on Yemen’s western coast to smuggle Iranian weapons. Airstrikes on the airport at Sanaa took place as World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was preparing to depart with a delegation. He was in Yemen because the Houthis detained UN personnel and a WHO staff member in June.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel will continue operations against the Houthis. “We will hunt down all the leaders of the Houthi movement—no one will be able to evade Israel’s long scale,” Katz stated.
Katz followed the airstrikes from an air force command center, alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi, and Israeli Air Force (IAF) Commander Tomer Bar. The IDF released photos of them watching the strikes. The large gathering of high-level officials illustrates the importance Israel attaches to these complex operations, which involve flying numerous warplanes 4,000 kilometers on a roundtrip mission. Nevertheless, the Houthis appear to remain confident about firing individual ballistic missiles at Israel, attacks that set off alarms across the center of the country that send millions to shelters.
Israeli leaders have been outspoken in late December about how Israel will confront the Houthis and remove the threat. “Israel will take all military and diplomatic measures it deems necessary to protect its security,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote on social media on December 26. Additionally, IAF Commander Bar stressed that “we have just seen a tangible demonstration of what we are capable of, and we are capable of much more.”
