Houthis only emboldened by Israeli attacks

Israeli forces attacked “vital civilian infrastructure” at the port of Hodeidah in Yemen on Saturday in response to a Houthi drone strike in Tel Aviv, according to Mwatana, a leading independent Yemeni human rights organization.

The Israeli military claimed that it hit “military targets,” but Mwatana reports that the strikes did extensive damage to oil facilities, fuel tanks, and the port’s wharf and cranes, all of which are critical to supplying the civilian population in north Yemen with much-needed fuel and food.

The group also said that the strikes knocked out the central power station providing power to the entire city. Houthi authorities say that the strikes killed at least three people and wounded 87. Yemen researcher Nick Brumfield commented on the Israelis’ choice of targets: “The Israeli attack on Hudaydah’s oil storage was not an example of the Houthis hiding weapons in civilian infrastructure and it getting bombed. As best as I can tell, this is Israel purposefully targeting vital civilian infrastructure in and of itself.”

The Israeli government used the same tactics in Yemen that it has employed to such devastating effect in Gaza.

The Israeli response represents a major escalation against the Houthis, who have been launching drones and missiles at Israeli targets without success since shortly after the war in Gaza began. The attacks have taken their toll: Israel’s Eilat port is now bankrupt as all shipping has been redirected elsewhere, to safer routes, and the U.S. Navy has spent over $1 billion in resources intercepting the Houthis’ far less expensive weapons in the Red Sea.

Like the ineffective U.S.-U.K. bombing campaign against the Houthis that began in January, these Israeli strikes play into the hands of the Houthis, the armed militia group and political movement that has been the de facto government of north Yemen for the last ten years. Direct conflict with both the U.S. and Israel is a significant boost for the Houthis’ domestic political standing, and their opposition to the war in Gaza has likewise raised their international profile.

Journalist Iona Craig observed on BlueSky that the strikes are a gift to the Houthis: “For a group whose existence, evolution and expansion depends on being at war they’re being gifted everything they need.”

In addition to being a disproportionate response to the drone attack, the strikes on Hodeidah seem certain to provoke the Houthis to launch more attacks on Israel. Hodeidah was a frequent target of Saudi coalition airstrikes before the 2022 truce took effect, but this did nothing to stop Houthi attacks on Saudi and UAE targets. After more than nine years of foreign governments bombing Yemeni cities, it should be clear that it doesn’t achieve anything except to inflict misery and death on Yemeni civilians.

According to Haaretz, the Israeli military knows that striking Yemen is unlikely to deter the Houthis from launching more drones and missiles. Escalation against the Houthis isn’t going to make Israel more secure, but it will further strain Israel’s resources as it brings the region closer to a wider war. As long as the U.S. continues backing Israel’s war in Gaza and wages its own military campaign in Yemen, the U.S. is at considerable risk of becoming further embroiled in that wider war.

The people that will suffer the most from Israel’s strikes are, as always, the civilian population of Yemen that has already endured a decade of war and deprivation. Craig added, “While helping the Houthis, the only damage such performative strikes do is to the Yemeni people by targeting the main entry point of food in a country that imports more than 70% of its food supplies and 90% of its wheat.”

Indeed, the U.S. has refrained from targeting the port in its bombing campaign because of concerns that doing so would worsen the country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis.

The Israeli strikes in Yemen will make it harder for the Biden administration to pretend that Houthi attacks on Red Sea commercial shipping have nothing to do with the war in Gaza. The administration wants to keep these conflicts in separate boxes to maintain the illusion that it has prevented the war in Gaza from destabilizing the region, but they are all obviously connected. It does no one any favors to ignore this reality.

If the U.S. wants to see an end to the Houthi attacks on shipping and those directed at Israel, it should stop trying to bomb its way to de-escalation and put real pressure on the Israeli government to end its campaign in Gaza. The war in Gaza is the main driver of all these other conflicts, and none of them will be successfully resolved until there is a lasting ceasefire and an end to the blockade that has been strangling the Palestinian people there.

At the very least, the U.S. should be pressing the Israeli government to avoid any further escalations against other countries in the region. Among other things, that requires delivering a clear message to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu when he comes to Washington this week that the U.S. will not bail him out if he goes to war in Lebanon. The region cannot afford any more conflicts, and the U.S. must stop stoking existing ones with more weapons and support.