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US strikes in Yemen boost protection of Israel’s home front | Avi Melamed analysis quoted in this article by Yaakov Lappin | Originally published in The Jewish News Syndicate.
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official, described the dual purpose of the U.S. operations.
“The first objective is to put an end to the balance of terror that the Houthis have imposed on the region and the international system. Over the past year, the Houthis have established a regional balance of terror by attacking maritime trade in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. These Houthi attacks have caused significant damage to global trade,” he stated.
“The second objective of the U.S. attack is to communicate indirectly with the Iranian regime. The U.S. president has sent messages to the Iranian regime expressing a willingness to reach a diplomatic resolution regarding Iran’s nuclear program. However, Iran’s response has been lukewarm.”
He said it appears that the U.S. move against the Houthis is intended to signal to the Iranian regime that it must choose between engaging in a diplomatic process or risking a direct confrontation with Washington.
“This message comes at a particularly difficult time for the Iranian regime, which faces a severe survival challenge due to the combination of the defeat of the ‘Axis of Resistance’—which Iran has established and nurtured for decades—along with immense economic, social, and environmental hardships within Iran itself,” he added.
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
The recent and ongoing waves of American strikes against Houthi terror targets have provided Israel with a strategic advantage by likely decreasing the threat to the Israeli home front from Yemen amid the Israel Defense Forces’ renewed operations against Hamas in Gaza.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have repeatedly threatened to target Israel if combat in Gaza resumed, and in recent days announced a renewal of a Red Sea naval blockade targeting commercial shipping in response to Israel ceasing the entry of aid trucks into Gaza. Throughout the current war, the Houthis fired hundreds of Iranian-made ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles at Israel.
A former Israeli official told JNS on Tuesday, “Israel is prepared for defense against attacks from the third circle [a reference to long-range adversaries]: from the Houthi side as well as from the Iranian direction. Israel possesses both improving independent capabilities against missiles and UAVs, and through regional cooperation led by the United States.”
The official cautioned: “However, there is no hermetic defense in the world, and therefore, residents may also be required to enter shelters given an appropriate alert.”
The Israeli Air Force launched a broad aerial campaign early on Tuesday against Hamas, following intelligence gathered on Hamas targets and activities during the preceding two-month ceasefire.
On Friday, the U.S. launched a series of large-scale airstrikes on Houthi targets across Yemen, which continued into Tuesday morning, according to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is responsible for the Middle East.
The strikes targeted key Houthi facilities—such as training and command centers, drone sites and weapons storage facilities, as well as senior Houthi drone experts, and command and control sites, according to a U.S. military spokesman. According to international media reports, the death toll from the strikes had reached 31 by Monday.
These operations are part of an effort to suppress Houthi aggression in the Red Sea, where the Iranian-backed group has been attacking commercial and military vessels and threatening to renew a sea blockade of Israel. Saudi media outlet Al-Hadath reported on Tuesday that the Iranian spy ship Zargos had been hit and sunk by the United States in the Red Sea.
The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has long been suspected of maintaining a covert presence in the Red Sea through an array of ships, including some acting as intelligence gathering and forward-base platforms. Iran has also used ships to smuggle weapons to the Houthis.
The American strikes followed an announcement by the Houthis on March 11 that they would “resume banning the passage of all Israeli ships” in strategic waterways until Israel allowed aid into Gaza.
American media reports said fighter jets from the USS Harry S. Truman, along with drones and attack planes from regional bases, conducted strikes that eliminated multiple Houthi leaders.
Nachum Shiloh, a Gulf States expert at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, told JNS on Monday that the Houthis’ infrastructure seems to have sustained damage in the U.S. attacks.
However, the part of Yemen controlled by the Houthis “does not really care about infrastructure or is not particularly affected by damage to infrastructure,” he said.
“Yemen is a poor and failing state, where infrastructure is already underdeveloped. It’s not certain that this caused them significant damage in terms of their willingness to continue fighting,” he said.
Speaking a day before the IAF struck Hamas targets in Gaza, Shiloh said, “It could be some sort of American test case to see how the United States can operate in the arena.” He added that “intelligence cooperation between the IDF and CENTCOM is definitely possible” regarding strikes in Yemen.
The IDF has declared that it has improved its readiness against Houthi threats and that it is prepared, Shiloh noted, “meaning that all our defense systems are active and fully set up for both defense and attack. How accurate is that? We will have to see only once things start to unfold.”
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence official, described the dual purpose of the U.S. operations.
“The first objective is to put an end to the balance of terror that the Houthis have imposed on the region and the international system. Over the past year, the Houthis have established a regional balance of terror by attacking maritime trade in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. These Houthi attacks have caused significant damage to global trade,” he stated.
“The second objective of the U.S. attack is to communicate indirectly with the Iranian regime. The U.S. president has sent messages to the Iranian regime expressing a willingness to reach a diplomatic resolution regarding Iran’s nuclear program. However, Iran’s response has been lukewarm.”
He said it appears that the U.S. move against the Houthis is intended to signal to the Iranian regime that it must choose between engaging in a diplomatic process or risking a direct confrontation with Washington.
“This message comes at a particularly difficult time for the Iranian regime, which faces a severe survival challenge due to the combination of the defeat of the ‘Axis of Resistance’—which Iran has established and nurtured for decades—along with immense economic, social, and environmental hardships within Iran itself,” he added.
According to Rear Adm. (ret.) Mark Montgomery, and a senior fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), who served in the U.S. Navy for 32 years, including as director of operations at U.S. Pacific Command, the U.S. attack on the Houthis “is long overdue.”
The Houthis, he said, “have conducted unrelenting attacks on merchant shipping and the U.S. Navy ships protecting them. The United States has spent almost $2 billion on a largely defensive campaign, but it’s time to go on the offensive.”
He added: “To truly complete this effort would require some more challenging strikes against the group’s patrons in Iran. The United States needs to hold Iran accountable for their support to the Houthis, and that means U.S. attacks on Iranian spy ships and logistics lines that enable Houthi attacks.”
Meanwhile, in Gaza on Tuesday, the IDF systematically targeted mid-level Hamas commanders, members of Hamas’s political regime and key terrorist infrastructure.
Hamas casualties included Issam Da’alis, head of Hamas governmental oversight in Gaza (a role similar to that of a prime minister); Bahjat Abu Sultan, who was in charge of internal operations in Gaza and held multiple leadership roles within Hamas’s Interior Ministry and security apparatus; Ahmad Omar al-Khata, director-general of Hamas’s Justice Ministry; and Mahmoud Abu Watfa, the director-general of Hamas’s Interior Ministry. Abu Ubaida Muhammad al-Jamasi, a member of the group’s political bureau, was also killed.
As the IDF continues its operations in Gaza, it must keep an eye on Yemen, but the situation has changed dramatically for the better following American intervention.
Avi Melamed is a former Israeli intelligence official who went on to serve as deputy and then as senior Arab affairs adviser to Jerusalem Mayors Teddy Kollek and Ehud Olmert, operating as a negotiator during the first and second intifadas. He is the author of “Inside The Middle East — Entering A New Era,” and his latest docuseries, “The Seam Line,” available on the Izzy streaming platform, focuses on Jerusalem’s flashpoints and his work during the intifadas.
US strikes in Yemen boost protection of Israel’s home front | Avi Melamed analysis quoted in this article by Yaakov Lappin | Originally published in The Jewish News Syndicate.
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