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Are the Houthis a Direct Threat to Israel’s Security?
People gather near burning Israeli and US flags, as supporters of the Houthis rally to denounce air strikes launched by the US and Britain on Houthi targets, in Sanaa, Yemen, Jan. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
The ongoing Israel-Hamas war (dubbed by Israel the Swords of Iron War) has seen the materializing of what has been until now a vague and somewhat imaginary-seeming threat from the Yemeni Houthi regime. The Houthis (or, more precisely, the Houthi movement, which was named after its founder, Hussein Al Houthi) is an extremist Shia Islamist movement that wrested control of the mountainous region of Yemen from the previous pro-Western government by capturing the capital city of Sana’a in 2015.
Following this coup, the Houthi movement proclaimed itself the legal government of the entire country. Like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the movement has a civilian arm that deals with civil affairs and welfare, as well as a military arm — one that is now indistinguishable from a regular army.
The Houthis practice Yazidi Islam, which is a branch of global Shia Islam. Yazidi Muslims ruled Yemen for nearly a millennium until they were deposed in 1962 by a revolt by an Arab nationalist faction. Thus, the capture of Sana’a by the Houthis and reestablishment of Yazidi control over part of the country can be viewed as a counterrevolution that restored Yemeni Shias to their former position. Yemeni Shias constitute about 65% of the population of northern Yemen.
The extremism of the Houthi movement is reflected in its flag, which, true to its faith, bears no graven images. Instead, it features a five-line slogan: “God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.” It is hardly surprising that the ayatollahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran embraced the Houthi movement from the day of its establishment in 2004, and have supported it ever since with ample funds and arms.
Soon after the capture of Sana’a in 2015, a Sunni Arab coalition of nations headed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates embarked on a military campaign to oust the Houthi regime and reinstate the previous, internationally-recognized government of Yemen (which still controls parts of southern Yemen). The Arab coalition military campaign against the Houthi regime continued until a temporary ceasefire was achieved in April 2022.
During the seven years of warfare, Iran supported the Houthi regime to the hilt, copiously supplying it with money, arms, and military expertise and training by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp and Lebanese Hezbollah. Circumventing the UN Security Council embargo on arming the Houthi regime, the Revolutionary Guards flooded their protégés with light arms, ammunition, rockets, missiles, and UAVs. Moreover, the Iranians delivered machinery and know-how to the Houthi regime to help it establish local defense industries that now provide the Houthi armed forces with some of its equipment, including UAVs and possibly some types of missiles and rockets.
Iran used the Yemen war to test its indigenously designed weapons systems — but at the same time, showed sensitivity to the UN embargo. This is shown by the lengths to which the Iranian regime went to dissociate itself from its arms supply to the Houthi regime. To this effect, they made efforts to disguise the Iranian origin of their supplied armaments. In some cases, the effort was superficial, like painting Houthi-destined ballistic missiles different colors from the Iranian originals. More frequently, the effort was significant and profound.
The prime example of a sophisticated dissociation effort was the development by Iran of UAVs and rockets tailored specifically for Houthi use — that is, not to be used by Iran’s own armed forces (at least at first). The claim was made that these weapons were indigenous Yemeni designs. A case in point is the rudimentary cruise missile Quds 1, first unveiled at a Sana’a arms expo in July 2019. There is clear evidence that the missile was designed and developed in Iran, but the Houthi regime bragged that the weapon had been indigenously designed and produced in Yemen. The Iranians, meanwhile, surreptitiously used the weapon operationally to attack the Saudi oil industry while avoiding displaying it at their own military parades and expos until 2023, when they finally featured it under a different name. The Iranians continue to maintain the fiction that they are complying with the UN embargo, and that the modern and deadly UAVs and missiles used by the Houthis were indigenously designed and built in Yemen by Yemeni scientists and engineers.
During the seven-year war in Yemen, the Houthis launched a significant campaign against Saudi Arabia that included attacks by rockets, ballistic missiles, and UAVs on population centers, military bases, industrial plants, and state symbols. Most of the attacks targeted the southern provinces of Saudi Arabia that border Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s hinterland also came under attack, and its capital city of Riyadh was hit at least eight times by Iran-supplied, Houthi-operated ballistic missiles and UAVs. Oil installations deep within Saudi territory were also subjected to mainly long-range UAV and cruise missile attacks, including the oil terminals at the port of Jeddah, the oil pipeline that connects the oil fields of northern Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea ports, and to oil fields like Shaiba in the eastern part of the Kingdom.
The United Arab Emirates, too, was a victim of several missile and UAV attacks from Houthi-controlled Yemen. These attacks targeted the construction site of the UAE’s nuclear power reactor and Abu Dhabi as well as the Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports. In the most recent attack in January 2022, Houthi-launched UAVs and missiles caused several casualties in an Abu Dhabi suburb. The Saudi Armed Forces spokesperson disclosed in December 2021 that a total of 851 UAVs and 430 rockets and ballistic missiles had been launched by the Houthis against Saudi targets since the start of the Yemen war in 2015.
The longest range reached by Houthi missiles during the Yemen war was about 1,200 km. How far their UAVs and cruise missiles struck is not precisely known, but it seems that their maximum range was about 1,000 km. At the time of the ceasefire, the Houthi regime had in its possession a significant arsenal of long-range weapons that could threaten the entire territory of Saudi Arabia. Their range was not, however, sufficient to hit Israel, the southernmost point of which is about 1,700 km away from the nearest point in Yemen.
Several Israeli analysts foresaw that once the war with Saudi Arabia abated, the Houthi regime would turn its long-range capabilities against Israel. One clear warning of Houthi intentions was provided by a video clip released by the Houthi regime in 2019 that featured the newly unveiled Quds 1 cruise missile. This propaganda video had Hebrew subtitles threatening Israel, ending with the words — in Hebrew — “In the future, many more (missiles).” It was clear that the range gap could be bridged by extending the reach of the cruise missile and introducing heavier ballistic missiles.
As predicted, extended-range missiles were unveiled at a military parade held in Sana’a on September 22, 2023, barely two weeks before the Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. At the parade, the Houthis unveiled two new missile types: the Quds 4 cruise missile, which has a longer range than earlier variants (the exact range was not specified); and a new, larger ballistic missile dubbed the “Toufan” that was clearly the 1,900 km Iranian Ghader F — an extended-range version of the liquid propellant Shahab 3. Since the Houthis don’t need missiles with ranges beyond 1,200 km to threaten Saudi Arabia, it was clear that the intended target of the two new missiles was Israel.
This threat first materialized on October 19, 2023, when a salvo of UAVs was launched from Yemen towards Israel. This salvo was apparently intercepted and destroyed by US warships stationed in the Red Sea. In another attack on October 27, some Yemeni-launched UAVs reached the Gulf of Aqaba. Two of them struck towns in Egyptian Sinai and others were shot down by Israel Air Force (IAF) fighter aircraft. Four days later, a Houthi-launched ballistic missile that targeted Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city, was intercepted and destroyed by the Arrow anti-missile system. Subsequently, two more Houthi-launched ballistic missiles were destroyed by Arrow interceptors well before they could hit Eilat. Further UAV attacks were foiled by the IAF, and from video footage released by the IAF of these interceptions, it seems the intercepted threats were Quds 4 cruise missiles. According to media reports, some of the UAVs launched against Israel were intercepted and destroyed by Saudi Air Defense command.
The impression is that while the nominal range of the Quds 4 cruise missile covers southern Israel, including Eilat and points north, in real life its range is only marginally sufficient to reach Eilat. One clue suggesting this to be true is the debris of a Houthi cruise missile found in the deserts of southern Jordan, about 200 km short of Eilat. It might have failed to reach Eilat because of a technical glitch, but it also might have run out of fuel earlier than anticipated.
It appears that Israel’s Air Defense Command prepared in time to face potential missile threats from Houthi Yemen. This has enabled it (with the help of the US Navy) to parry all Houthi-launched cruise and ballistic missile attacks up to now. At the same time, there is little doubt that the Houthis, aided by their Iranian patrons, will make further efforts to improve their performance and break through the defensive arrays of the US Navy and Israel’s Air Defense Command (and probably that of Saudi Arabia’s air defense too). The Houthi regime formally declared war on Israel on October 31, 2023, so it stands to reason that it will persist in its efforts to hit Israel with its missiles, both to show solidarity with Hamas, a fellow Iranian proxy, and to dilute Israel’s air defenses against the rockets, missiles and UAVs of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Houthi missile threat is clearly destined to become a permanent feature of Israel’s missile threat environment. Israel’s Air Defense Command will probably redeploy its assets for instant readiness against the threat from the south, a threat that has now became as tangible and dangerous as the missile threats from Gaza and Lebanon.
Dr. Uzi Rubin, a senior researcher at The BESA Center, is a former founder and director of the Arrow project in the Defense Ministry and an expert on missile defense systems. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
The post Are the Houthis a Direct Threat to Israel’s Security? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.