An Israeli navy missile boat seen off the coast of Eilat in the Red Sea, IDF handout.
Israel has rushed warships to the Red Sea, where US naval assets are also patrolling, after Yemen's Houthis declared "war" earlier this week. The Houthis had also reportedly launched a ballistic missile at Israel, and released a video showing the launch. In total
the Houthis are believed to have attempted three drone and missile attacks on Israel. One of the initial projectiles days ago had been intercepted by a US warship off Yemen, and another was stopped
as follows:
The Israeli military on Tuesday used its Arrow missile defence system for the first time to intercept an "aerial threat" over the Red Sea, believed to have been a ballistic missile.
According to newly released Israeli military images, Sa'ar-class corvettes are now patrolling near Eilat port in the Red Sea.
They will be monitoring skies over the Red Sea and around Israel after the Yemeni rebel group widely seen as backed by Iran has vowed to "help the Palestinians to victory."
While apart from Gaza, Israel has been most focused on the Hezbollah threat on the northern border - having engaged in daily exchanges of fire with the militant group in southern Lebanon - the Yemeni action raises the specter of the situation spiraling into a broader regional war.
Sporadic fire along the occupied Golan Heights, and Israel's attacks south of Damascus, also raises the possibility of the Gaza war spilling into Syria.
According to fresh reporting in The New York Times, the Houthis are already escalating their attacks on
faraway Israel:
Yemen's Houthi militia claimed an attempted attack on southern Israel on Tuesday, saying it had launched a "large batch" of ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones toward Israeli targets.
The Iran-backed militia carried out the attempted assault in response to what it called "brutal Israeli-American aggression" in Gaza, the Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said on the social media platform X. Mr. Sarea said the attack was the third operation conducted by the Houthis "in support of our persecuted brothers in Palestine," and threatened further missile and drone assaults.
The Houthis have been locked in a war with Saudi Arabia (and allies UAE & the US) since 2015. In 2014 the Shia rebel group overran the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, sparking the Saudi-UAE intervention to uphold the pro-Saudi government.
Many tens of thousands have been killed over the last half-decade of fighting, with the country also on the brink of starvation. Disagreement persists among analysts over whether the Houthis possess missiles that could effectively reach Israel.
The US and Israel have long accused Tehran of shipping weapons to the Houthis. It's believed that their surprisingly sophisticated missile arsenal comes from the Iranians, and these have been used to attack Saudi Arabia several times, including strikes on Saudi Aramco oil facilities.
Comment: Contrary to the last claim made by Durden, much of the Houthis' retaliation against Saudi Arabia
involved rudimentary drones. And despite Saudi Arabia and the US causing what the UN called the 'world's worst humanitarian catastrophe' in Yemen, the Houthis still managed to not only fend them off, but they even managed to cause
sufficient disruption, to these infinitely better funded and supplied countries, that Saudi Arabia was actually reluctant to continue on with their criminal, US-backed, war.
See also:
Yemen's Houthis announce attacks against Israeli settlements will continue until aggression stops, warns US against direct involvement
I'm posting this two-segment video to set the record straight; there is credible information that indicates Israel, with the backing of the United States, intends to assassinate Syria's President Bashar al-Assad if Hezbollah opens a wide front from southern Lebanon.
To put this in proper context; since 2011, the U.S. waged a secret covert operation in Syria to topple Assad and install a friendly government in Israel. To achieve this goal, the U.S. and its regional allies spent tens of billions in arming and training multinational takfiri terrorist groups.
According to the New York Times, the secret program (Timber Sycamore) was one of the most expensive CIA covert operations in the history of the agency. However, Syria emerged victorious and the terror groups were mostly destroyed with the help of Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah.
While President Trump ended the covert operation in 2017, the Pentagon sent troops to the Eastern shore of the Euphrates to occupy the oil and gas fields and hence, disallow the Syrian government from using the revenues of the oil to reconstruct the war-torn country.
The pro-Syria alliance believes the CIA's attempt to remove Assad was urged by Israel because a pro-Israeli government in Damascus means the isolation of Hezbollah and eventually the Palestinian militant groups fighting against Israel.
With the escalation of the conflict in Palestine and the carpet bombing of Gaza, it is believed that Hezbollah has mobilized its elite forces and kept 1/3 of the Israeli army busy on the northern front by firing ATGMs and rockets at the Israeli forces. But if Israel wages a full-scale invasion of Gaza, it is believed that Hezbollah will intervene and wage a ground offensive on the settlements in northern Israel.
If Hezbollah's offensive materializes, my information indicates that Israel will bomb Damascus and try to kill Assad. Will Israel dare to do that? I believe with the current mentality governing Tel Aviv, everything is possible.
NOTE: the above text is an analysis based on my personal knowledge and different sources. It is not wishful thinking or scaremongering. It is simply a political analysis based on the available information to me.
Comment: Contrary to the last claim made by Durden, much of the Houthis' retaliation against Saudi Arabia involved rudimentary drones. And despite Saudi Arabia and the US causing what the UN called the 'world's worst humanitarian catastrophe' in Yemen, the Houthis still managed to not only fend them off, but they even managed to cause sufficient disruption, to these infinitely better funded and supplied countries, that Saudi Arabia was actually reluctant to continue on with their criminal, US-backed, war.
See also: Yemen's Houthis announce attacks against Israeli settlements will continue until aggression stops, warns US against direct involvement