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TEL AVIV – Amid negotiations on a hostage deal for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and with a truce with Hezbollah in Lebanon largely intact, Jerusalem has an opportunity to focus additional military resources to shrink Yemen’s Houthi leadership to the size it needs to be, according to former Israeli officials.
“Israel must accelerate and expand its attacks [in Yemen]not just the national infrastructure but also the political leadership,” retired Major General Amos Yadlin, former head of Israeli military intelligence and president of MIND Israel, told Fox News Digital.
“Targeted killings are an option if there is good intelligence to enable such operations. The Houthi leaders should meet with Sinwar and Nasrallah and the sooner the better,” he added.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shares the screen with Abdul Malik Badruddin Al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis. (Getty Images)
Killed in an attack by the Israeli Defense Forces Hezbollah’s master of terrorism Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon on September 28, while Israeli ground troops eliminated Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on October 17, and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh in Iran last summer.
Houthi terrorist leaders:
The Houthis are led by Abdul Malik Badruddin Al-Houthi (Abu Jibril), who was declared a specially designated global terrorist by the US State Department in 2021.
According to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), other top officials include Abdul Khaliq Badruddin Al-Houthi (Abu Yunis), commander of the Republican Guard (Presidential Reserve), who was also blacklisted by the US in 2021; Muhammad Ali Al-Houthi (Abu Ahmad), member of the Supreme Political Council; and Abdul Karim Amiruddin Husayn Al-Houthi, Minister of Interior and Director of Ansar Allah’s Executive Office.
An undated picture of Houthi terrorist leader Abdul Malik Badruddin Al-Houthi. FDD’s Long War Journal notes that the State Department designated him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2021. (FDD’s Long War Journal)
Joe Truzman, research analyst for FDD’s Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital that intelligence-driven assassination operations take time and that to date the Israelis have been preoccupied with Gaza and Lebanon.
“But it can be done. We’ve seen Israel target nuclear scientists and military personnel in Iran. It can happen again in Yemen. If the Houthis continue these attacks, Israel will focus more on them,” Truzman said.
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Israel and a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank JINSA, described to Fox News Digital the intricacies of such attempts.
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An image obtained from Yemen’s Huthi Ansarullah Media Center shows a huge column of fire erupting after an IDF attack on the Yemeni rebel-held port city of Hodeida on July 20, 2024. (Ansarullah Media Center/AFP via Getty Images)
“You have to make sure the target is in the place you’re bombing. If there are three houses, how do you know which one it’s in? You need real-time information,” said Amidror, who noted that it was relatively easy for Israel to hit Nasrallah from the moment when his whereabouts were known.
“It took 15-20 minutes to strike [the Hezbollah headquarters] in Beirut because it is so close to Israel,” he said. “Yemen is a huge logistical operation, requiring the refueling of planes, let alone the tactical issues on the ground. It takes a completely different kind of intelligence.
“Both Nasrallah and Sinwar were known enemies and we had been collecting information on them for years, but the Houthis were not a priority,” Amidror continued. “The way forward is to start intensifying intelligence gathering by building bridges with those who can provide it.”
Wednesday night, The IAF engaged the targets some 1,200 miles away in Yemen, after a Houthi missile hit an elementary school in Ramat Gan, east of Tel Aviv.
The IDF’s profile picture shows Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah, who the IDF confirmed was killed in an attack in September. (IDF Spokesperson Unit)
The pre-dawn strikes were carried out in two waves, targeting the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea, the ports of Hodeidah and Salif, as well as the D’Habban and Haziz power plants in Sana’a, according to reports.
In July, a Houthi drone killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, prompting the IAF to attack the Yemeni port of Hodeidah. Israeli aircraft also carried out dozens of strikes in the Hodeidah area in September.
In all, the Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel since Hamas massacred 1,200 people on October 7, 2023. Since then, the Houthis have also attacked more than six dozen commercial ships – notably at Bab-el-Mandeb, the southern sea gate of Egypt’s Suez. channel.
“The distance to Yemen is the longest range the IAF has ever flown, but they could increase that with additional refueling,” Brig. Gene. (rez.) Relik Shafir, a former IAF pilot who participated in Operation Opera, the attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, told Fox News Digital.
“It’s uncomfortable for a pilot to sit in an F-15, F-16 or F-35 for seven hours. You have to be fully aware and at the highest level of concentration,” he continued. “Israel can strike far enough for any existing enemy, and the air force uses guided missiles that fire with an accuracy of two or three feet.”
Deceased Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar on a poster in Tehran, Iran, on August 13, 2024. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a warning to the Houthis: “We will strike at their strategic infrastructure and decapitate their leaders. As we have done [former Hamas chief Ismail] Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah, in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon – we will do it in Hodeida and Sanaa.”
Jerusalem had previously refrained from claiming responsibility for the July 31 killing of Haniyeh, who was traveling to the Iranian capital for the inauguration of the country’s president.
On Friday, US Defense Department spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said the Israelis “certainly have the right to defend themselves.”
Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and his bodyguard were killed in an assassination blamed on Israel on August 1, 2024, in Tehran. (Cem Tekkesinoglu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The Houthis “are a danger to everyone in the Middle East,” former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy told Fox News Digital. “In the end, most countries in the region will be interested and willing to cooperate in efforts to end these attacks that have no justification whatsoever.”
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Israeli Air Force planes launch attacks in Yemen. (IDF)
Halevy insisted that “terrorist activities of any kind are a challenge that must be met with an appropriate response. The Houthis have suffered losses and if they continue to provoke us, we will have to do more.”
In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition launched a military intervention against the Houthis at the request of then-Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was ousted from Sana’a last September. Yemen’s civil war remains at a standstill, with the internationally recognized government, led by the Presidential Leadership Council since 2022, based in Aden, in the south of the country, since February 2015.
A source close to the government told Israel’s public broadcaster Khan on Saturday that Jerusalem should launch assassinations of Houthi leaders, while Saudi newspaper Al-Arabiya reported that senior Houthi officials had fled Sana’a out of fear of being targeted.
“We need to understand more deeply what it is that would cripple the Houthis’ ability to operate,” former Israeli national security adviser Eyal Hulata told Fox News Digital. “For this we need more intelligence, more assessments and coordination between different parties.”
Houthi fighters hold heavy machine guns mounted on vehicles at a rally in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images)
The big question, Hulata asked, is whether the Houthis will continue to pose a threat if Israel and Hamas agree to a ceasefire.
“If they become a major enemy, Israel will have to deal with it by channeling the resources it wanted to avoid – and perhaps still hopes to,” he said.
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On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israelis to be “patient” as he signaled that Jerusalem was preparing to step up its campaign against the Houthis.
“We will take strong, decisive and sophisticated action. Even if it takes time, the result will be the same,” he promised. “Just as we have acted strongly against the terrorist arms of the Iranian axis of evil, so we will act against the Houthis.”
