For a brief moment as Lebanon and Israel signed a ceasefire pact a little over a month ago, the Middle East appeared to have stepped away from the abyss of all-out war.
Yet now Israel is weighing its next battle against Iran’s last proxy standing: the Houthi rebels of Yemen, who are in the firing line despite being more than a thousand miles from Tel Aviv.
The Iranian proxies that surrounded Israel have fallen in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and even Iraq, where Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shia cleric, recently urged Baghdad to achieve military autonomy in a thinly veiled reproach to its Iran-backed militia. Extinguishing this ring of fire around Israel has left Iran exposed, with no air defence systems and signs of deep Israeli infiltration.
A week ago, for example, Israel admitted to the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, inside Tehran. The destruction of Hezbollah, Iran’s insurance policy that surrounded Israel with 150,000 rockets on their northern border, has left the regime without its most fearsome deterrent.
Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, was killed by Israel in Tehran last July
OSAMAH YAHYA/EPA
However, one group remains. The Houthis, who control nearly half of Yemen including its capital, Sanaa, have been firing missiles indiscriminately into Israel at an increasing rate, scaling up their weaponry over time. On New Year’s Eve a Houthi leader wrote on X in Hebrew: “Surprises are coming up.”
Israel says that it is gearing up for another war. “Until a few weeks ago, we retaliated once, twice,” an Israeli security source told The Times. “But it’s fair to say that we no longer see it as just tit-for-tat. Now we’re going fully in, and that means there is a plan with escalation steps. It connects to a bigger strategy.
“There is definitive intent on the Israeli side and by its international partners to fully take them [the Houthis] on, there is full-fledged set of actions and capabilities that are being built now and will be executed at the right time.”
Armed tribesmen during an anti-USA and anti-Israel gathering on the outskirts of Sanaa
AHYA ARHAB/EPA
Houthi fighters fire missiles towards Israel from Yemen
EPA
While there are suggestions that the Houthis, who ascribe to Zaydi Islam, an offshoot of Shia, are acting independently from Iran, Israel’s security establishment believes they remain in lockstep with their financial and military backers.
The rebels joined the war in support of Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, on the day Hamas attacked Israel, killed 1,200 people and took 250 captive in October 2023. Since then Israel has killed more than 45,000 people in its war on Hamas, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The Israeli army is set to re-evaluate its campaign in Gaza. Its present stated goal is to pressure Hamas to accept a “good” ceasefire deal that will include lower-profile prisoners in any hostage exchange. Pressure from the incoming US administration to free all American hostages will play out too.
The Houthis are the only Iranian-backed proxy left standing to continue the Tehran regime’s fight against Israel. The Israel Defence Forces and intelligence services are discussing whether to attack them alone, pursue international co-operation or go for the jugular by taking aim at Iran itself, the country that has supplied the Houthis with the power to target Israel with hypersonic missiles.
Israel has struck Yemen four times but the Houthis appear undeterred, leading Binyamin Netanyahu to say Israel is only “just getting started”.
Houthi fighters and Israeli troops have traded missile strikes back and forth. Israel struck a power station in Sanaa in December
OSAMAH ABDULRAHMAN/AP
Israel has gone to war for similar reasons before. In 1967, when Egypt blocked Israeli shipping from the Straits of Tiran, which lead from Bab el-Mandeb on the Yemeni coast to the Israeli port of Eilat in the Red Sea, it was the casus belli for a war that not only changed the character of Israel but reshaped the region. Lyndon Johnson, the US president at the time, said: “The right of innocent maritime passage must be preserved.”
Now the same waterway is under attack, disrupting vital global shipping and threatening American interests including military bases in Eritrea and Djibouti. The Biden administration has added the Houthis to the US terrorist list and expanded their sanctions, attacking key military targets in an effort to curb their ability to strike commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea.
On this front, there is already some co-ordination between Israel, Britain and the US. Their attacks inside Yemen have been taking place on an almost alternate basis, one at a time. Israel believes closer collaboration is likely, particularly after Donald Trump becomes president on January 20.
Netanyahu, the 75-year-old prime minister, has been leading the charge against a nuclear Iran for the past two decades. He and Trump are probably already discussing the prospect of an attack on nuclear facilities, seeing time as short because foreign officials say Iran has accelerated its enrichment of nearly bomb-grade uranium.
Israel believes Iran is at its weakest point on the world stage and at home, where the Islamic Republic has lost credibility for pouring money into proxies that did not pay off. Local news outlets are reporting protests and strikes in the markets — an omen that heralded the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979. With the dollar now above 810,000 rials, inflation is at 600 per cent since 2019. Schools have closed and unemployment and poverty are raging.
Iran has armed and financed the Houthis
YAHYA ARHAB/EPA
Israel’s economy has also been downgraded, but the ceasefire in Lebanon edged it away from meltdown. With a little under four weeks left to withdraw troops under the terms of the ceasefire, the IDF is signalling that the Lebanese army is not ready to take over. Israel may yet be bogged down in Lebanon for longer still.
“Israel did the dirty work, clearing the scene of substantial Hezbollah capability and influence,” a Middle Eastern source said. “But the Lebanese administration and military are not taking advantage of situation. It’s up to them to protect their country, and they are not doing their part. We have to closely monitor the situation, and anything can change.”
Israel is looking to make up for the intelligence failure of October 7 and is on the offensive.
“Post-October 7 Israel doesn’t take risks,” the Israeli security source said. “The military got into Syria, it took out their navy, their air force, their ammunition, because [the new government] has to prove that they are no threat. Until we see that, we have to see them as a threat.
“It is very clear to see that Israel intelligence has a reach both near and far. The fact that there was a failure in Gaza is no doubt, but we did know Hamas had those capabilities, but thought intentions not to use it. Now, we act on capabilities, not intentions. We’ve changed the equation.”