One day after a Houthi suicide drone evaded Israel’s defense and struck a building in Tel Aviv, killing one and injuring ten others, Israel struck back against Yemen for the first time since after months of attacks by the Houthis on Israel’s population centers.
The Israeli Air Force reached the Yemeni port of Hodeida in western Yemen over Shabbat, striking the Houthi controlled oil infrastructure and electrical plants. In a statement, the Israeli military said: “Fighter jets struck military targets of the Houthi terror regime in the area of the Hodeida Port in Yemen, in response to the hundreds of attacks carried out against the State of Israel in recent months.”
Video from the blast, shows large parts of the port burning throughout the night, with the fires still going strong into the morning.
The strike against Yemen can be seen as the beginning of the next phase in Israel’s war against Iran. After all, the Iranian ring of fire is designed to do the work for the Ayatollahs instead of Iran itself. Distracting Israel while Iran assembles a bomb is the point of all of these attacks. From Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, and Yemen, Iran wants to remain free to finish its nukes while its proxies take on Israel.
This is why the most important part of the strike the IAF carried out against Yemen yesterday, was not the destruction it wrought on the Houthis, but the message it sent Iran. The Hodeida port is farther than Tehran and so if the IAF can reach Western Yemen, Israel can surely reach Iran’s nuke sites and capital.
With Iran one to two weeks away from enough uranium to make a bomb, the next stage in Israel’s war of survival against Iran’s proxies should also be waged against the Ayatollahs themselves.