Leaders of the Iran-backed Yemeni terrorist group Ansarullah, commonly known as the Houthis, threatened unnamed Arab states on Tuesday with an “answer” to their alleged cooperation with neighboring Israel, part of a larger statement of belligerence promising “unprecedented” attacks on Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck Houthi strongholds in Yemen for the first time this weekend in response to the terrorists bombing a residential community in Tel Aviv, a significant escalation in the conflict between the country and the terrorists. The Houthis claim to be the government of Yemen but are a rogue terrorist entity that forced the legitimate government out of the capital, Sana’a, as part of an ongoing civil war that began in 2014. Houthi leaders have engaged in terrorist bombings of neighboring Saudi Arabia for years in response to that nation’s support for the legitimate Yemeni government, though active hostilities are on pause since the two sides conducted successful peace talks in September 2023.
The Houthis declared war on Israel a month later in response to the fellow Iran-backed terrorists of Hamas invading Israel and slaughtering 1,200 civilians, in addition to committing a wide variety of atrocities including gang-rape, torture, abduction, and infanticide. The IDF has since been embroiled in a self-defense operation in Hamas’s stronghold of Gaza, which the Houthis and other jihadist terrorists claim is a “genocide” against Palestinians used as human shields by Hamas terrorists.
The Houthi war on Israel had mostly consisted of attacks on random commercial ships attempting to navigate near the Red Sea prior to the Tel Aviv bombing. The Houthis have claimed attacks on over 70 vessels in the Red Sea region since November, many of them with no obvious connection to Israel, America, or Britain, the three nations Houthi leaders have promised to attack. Some have been owned or operated by, or carried the cargo of, companies linked to Houthi allies such as Iran, Russia, and China.
Houthi leaders promised an escalation in terrorist violence on Tuesday, primarily against Israel but also against Arab state that they considered too friendly to Israel.
“The Zionist enemy has opened the gates of hell by targeting Yemen’s Hudaydah port, and that the ports, military and security centers deep inside the occupied Palestinian territories will be under the fire of the Yemeni army,” Houthi “political bureau” member Hezam al-Asad said on Tuesday, according to the Iranian propaganda outlet PressTV. The Israeli strikes in response to the Tel Aviv bombing occurred in the port city of Hudaydah, or Hodeidah, which the Houthis control and use to import weapons and launch attacks on commercial ships.
Al-Asad did not limit his threats to Israel.
“Certain Arab countries have crossed the red lines by supporting the Zionist enemy by opening land corridors instead of the Red Sea and opening their airspace and calling the Hamas movement terrorist,” the Houthi official said, according to the PressTV translation. “We warn them that their answer is on the way.”
PressTV quoted another Houthi leader, Ali al-Qahoum, promising “surprises” in the next week and hinting at the Houthis bombing “a wide range within occupied Palestine,” the inaccurate term jihadists use for Israeli territory.
“Your choices will be either migration and return to where you came from or staying in shelters,” al-Qahoum told Israelis. “American and British protection will not help you, and the hand that violates Yemen’s sovereignty and attacks its resources and people will be cut off.”
The Houthi attack on Tel Aviv used a modified Iranian drone and struck a residential area, killing a civilian and wounding eight, the IDF confirmed on Friday. The drone avoided detection, meaning it landed in the area without alarm systems activating and warning civilians to take cover. IDF leaders promised to “thoroughly examine” what occurred to prevent a warning from sounding. A report by the Times of Israel stated that “human error” prevented the warning sirens from going off, even as the drone appeared on radar systems.
A residential building in Central Tel Aviv was struck by an Iranian UAV launched from Yemen, leading to at least one civilian casualty and many injured.
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) July 19, 2024
We will continue operating to better protect Israelis against terrorism on all fronts. pic.twitter.com/SqGdcDRVT7
On Saturday, the IDF confirmed that it had struck Hodeidah.
“A short while ago, IDF fighter jets struck military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime in the area of the Al Hudaydah Port in Yemen in response to the hundreds of attacks carried out against the State of Israel in recent months,” the IDF said in a statement. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari assured, however, that Israel was not seeking a war with Yemen, observing, “Yemen is a big country. Only part of it is run by the Houthis.”
Neighboring Arab states – notably Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Saudi Arabia – have attempted to avoid becoming major players in the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, though all have issued some form of condemnation of the IDF operations in Gaza. Bahrain and the UAE have normalized relations with Israel, however, as the result of the “Abraham Accords,” agreements brokered under the auspices of the administration of former President Donald Trump. Saudi Arabia has reportedly pursued some form of diplomatic stability with Israel behind closed doors and was reportedly close to normalizing ties in September 2023.
An unnamed Saudi official complained in statements published by the Israeli national broadcaster KAN in April that Iran, through Hamas, “engineered the war in Gaza to destroy the progress in relations” between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
“Iran’s behavior is irresponsible. We all know that Iran is a country that sponsors terrorism, and it should have been stopped a long time ago,” the Saudi official lamented.
While the Saudis have condemned Israel’s self-defense operations, the Houthis have repeatedly threatened to resume attacks on Saudi soil since they declared war on Israel.
“We conveyed a message to Saudi Arabia that it would be a target [for Yemen’s retaliatory strikes] if it allowed the US aircraft to use its territories or airspace in the aggression on Yemen,” Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a top Houthi leader, said in March.
In May, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the top leader in the Houthi organization, condemned unnamed Arab nations for attempting to “negotiate security agreements with America for protection,” calling such a move “astonishing.”
“We do not have any hostile intentions towards any Arab country, but we will not accept any Arab regime causing harm to our people in service of Israel and obedience to America,” al-Houthi said more bluntly in June. “Any Saudi position against our people at this time is definitely serving the Israeli enemy and supporting it in obedience to America.”
