The Israeli bombing of a vital Yemeni port controlled by the Houthi militia is not expected to deter the group from further attacks but is likely to deepen human suffering in Yemen, regional experts said.
Israeli officials said the barrage of airstrikes that hit the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah on Saturday was a counterattack after the Houthis launched a drone that struck Tel Aviv on Friday, killing one Israeli and wounding several others.
The Israeli strikes in Hudaydah killed three people and injured 87, many of whom suffered severe burns, according to a statement from the health ministry in the capital, Sana, which the Houthis control. Photos and videos from Hudaydah showed an enormous fire at the city’s port that sent black smoke billowing into the sky. The port is the main conduit by which food imports, fuel and aid enter the impoverished northern Yemen.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, said that Israel carried out the bombardment “in order to stop the Houthi’s terror attacks” and that it had hit “dual-use” targets including energy infrastructure.
Yemeni scholars and former American officials who study the country were nearly uniform in their assessments that the Israeli strikes would do little harm to the Houthis. Instead, they said, the attack is likely to exacerbate suffering in Yemen, which is already experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after a decade of war. The bombs hit a port that more than 20 million Yemenis depend on.
“The target of the strike does more to hurt the average Yemeni than the Houthis’ ability to launch attacks on the Red Sea or Israel,” said Adam Clements, a retired U.S. Army attaché for Yemen. “Hitting a radar site, a known launch site or another military target could disrupt Houthi capabilities for a few days more than the port.”
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia, took over Yemen’s capital in 2014 and then swept through much of the country. A Saudi-led coalition, aided by American military assistance and weapons, began a military intervention in an attempt to depose the militia and restore an internationally recognized government.
The Houthis not only survived the grinding war that ensued but also thrived, creating an impoverished quasi state that they rule with an iron fist. Hudaydah was a site of fierce fighting during that war, as the Saudi-led coalition tried to wrest control of the strategic port city from the Houthis. But they were forced to pull back under international pressure as Yemen descended into near famine.
Hisham Al-Omeisy, a Yemeni political analyst who was imprisoned by the Houthis in 2017, said that the Israeli strikes “will not deter nor put a dent on Houthi operations.”
The militia has long framed its narrative around opposition to Israel and the United States and has “always wanted to drag Israel into a direct confrontation,” he said.
As a result, an Israeli attack gives Houthi leaders an opportunity to legitimize their claim of being the defenders of Arabs and Muslims, bolstering their recruitment and their grip on power, Mr. Al-Omeisy said.
The Hudaydah port is controlled by the Houthis and is a key source of tax revenue for the group. But it is also a vital piece of infrastructure that more than 20 million Yemenis who reside in the Houthi-controlled north rely on for aid, food imports and other goods.
The Israeli strikes hit a power station as well as gas and oil depots around the port, according to a Houthi spokesman and two regional officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Rebuilding those structures is likely to be costly and time-consuming in a country where so much infrastructure has already been destroyed, said Mohammed Albasha, a senior Middle East expert at Navanti Group, a research organization. He predicted “severe fuel shortages throughout northern Yemen” that could hurt essentials like diesel generators for hospitals.
And damaging the power station in summer, when temperatures can surpass 100 degrees, “will further exacerbate the suffering of the local population,” he said.
Mr. Albasha also raised concerns that “poorly equipped firefighters may struggle to contain the fire, which could persist for days” in an area not far from food and grain storage.
On Saturday night, Muneer Ahmed, a 46-year-old father of five in Hodeidah, said that long lines were already forming at gas stations around the city, driven by fears of a fuel shortage.
“The strikes were so intense that they reminded us of the early days of war,” Mr. Ahmed said.
After the attack, he rushed to move his elderly father, who was near the strikes, to safety. Fishermen and others who earn a living in the port were fleeing as fire engines and ambulances sped toward the scene, he said.
Admiral Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said in a televised statement on Saturday night that the forces had “no intention of attacking the Yemeni people.”
They struck the area around the port because “it is a supply route for the transfer of Iranian weapons from Iran to Yemen and a significant source of income for Houthi terrorism,” he said.
And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement that Hudaydah was “not an innocent port.” The drone attack on Tel Aviv on Friday showed that offensive action was necessary to “curtail the Houthis,” he said.
The Saudi-led coalition made similar arguments when it tried to gain control of Hudaydah, but the United States and other countries pressed it to stop. A U.N.-negotiated agreement in 2018 halted fighting around the city because of the humanitarian consequences.
Houthi leaders have described their attacks on Israel as an attempt to force it to stop its bombardment of Gaza and to allow the free flow of aid there. In addition to firing hundreds of missiles and drones toward Israel, a vast majority of which have been intercepted, the Houthis have also attacked dozens of ships passing through the Red Sea.
A bombing campaign of more than six months by a U.S.-led coalition has not halted those attacks.
Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemeni research fellow at Chatham House, the London research group, said the Israeli strikes “will not have a significant impact on the Houthis ballistic weapons or drone capabilities.”
The Houthis are likely to respond with further attacks on Israel and potentially on U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, he said.
Like other scholars who study Yemen, he said that the Israeli attack was likely to worsen the plight of civilians, describing the approach as similar to the Israeli military’s campaign to eliminate Hamas in Gaza: in his words, “burn the forest to hope to kill the snake.”
“Destroying energy infrastructure certainly won’t help the plight of Yemeni civilians,” said Dana Stroul, the Pentagon’s former top Middle East policy official and now a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It’s important to remember that life under Houthi rule is already miserable.”
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