“We’ve had enough. “Israel will not stand by and wait for the world to react,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said this Monday during an emergency session of the Security Council convened at the request of Israel in the face of the increase in Houthi attacks.
“We will not accept calls for containment. Let me remember what has happened to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to [Bachar al] Asad and those who thought of destroying us. This is the final warning. It is not a threat, but a promise: you will share the same unfortunate fate,” the ambassador warned.
Missile and bombing exchanges have increased in recent days, with both sides promising escalation. “We are committed to continuing our military operation in support of Gaza and will not stop until the genocide and siege ends. “We are going to escalate the attacks against Israel,” one of the Houthi leaders promised the BBC last week.
For his part, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: “We are determined to cut off this terrorist arm of the Iranian axis of evil. We will continue until we finish the job.” Its Defense Minister, Israel Katz, has assured that Israel will “hunt” all Houthi leaders, language similar to that used with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
In the last two weeks the Houthis have launched seven missile attacks and Israel launched several attacks against the airport in Sanaa, the capital, last Thursday; the port of Al Hodeida; and several power plants. The Israeli response was criticized by the UN for the civilian nature of these infrastructures.
Julien Harneis, UN resident coordinator in the country, said at a press conference that Sana’a Airport is a civil airport used for only one daily operation — a flight with an A320 aircraft of the national airline Yemenia to Amman (Jordan). —, a route that is also the result of an international negotiation.
“The level of security and control at this airport is one of the highest in the world that I have ever seen,” said Harneis, insisting that “this can be easily verified.”
Regarding the ports, Harneis recalled that 80% of food and 90% of medical supplies that enter the country do so through the port of Al Hodeida, “which is a civil infrastructure” and “is absolutely vital,” and Israel’s recent attacks have disabled it by 50%.
Additionally, the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was at the airport at the time of the attack. The director said that he and his team “they narrowly escaped death” and a UN worker was injured. “If the missile had deflected slightly, it could have hit us in the head.”
“We have no control over who is where. We have no intention of bombing to harm NGOs or the UN, on the contrary, but if you are in areas where there are Houthis, you must be careful because we will not sit idly by,” Danon warned during the Security Council meeting.
The Houthis are holding around a hundred humanitarian workers – 17 UN agents and the rest NGO workers – generically accused of ‘espionage’ and the director of the WHO was in the country to negotiate their release.
In addition, the UN uses the airport for its flights with humanitarian materials or for specific missions to the country, and it is the only exit point for many Yemenis with serious medical complications to travel to be treated in Jordan.
The attacks on the ports and airport “pose a serious risk to humanitarian operations at a time when millions of people need survival aid” in a country that is not only the poorest in the Arab world, but is also suffering a devastating civil war. for more than ten years, declared the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres. 80% of the population in Yemen needs some type of humanitarian aid.
“On paper, the Houthis are Israel’s weakest enemy — certainly weaker than Iran and Hezbollah, which no longer directly confront it, and arguably also weaker than Hamas, which continues to fight the army in Gaza, but which has lost most of its rocket-launching capacity. Paradoxically, it is this same weakness that makes it so difficult for Israel to stop their disruptive missile and drone launches and the naval blockade they are imposing on the country,” writes in Haaretz analyst Amir Tibon.
“Iran may be threatened with attacks on its oil industry and nuclear program; Hezbollah fears losing its control over Lebanon; But it is not clear what exactly the Houthis stand to lose by continuing their war against Israel, and whether they even care,” explains Tibon. “Israel appears to suffer from a lack of quality targets to attack in Yemen. This has caused some within the military and intelligence community to advocate for a different approach: instead of retaliating against the Houthis, Israel should punish Iran for its actions. “It is a riskier policy, but if Israel is already sending its pilots such long distances, it may well take on the added risk.”
Since November 2023, a month after the start of the war in Gaza, the Houthis have attacked merchant and military ships in the Red and Arabian Seas, as well as targets in Israel, taking advantage of Yemen’s strategic position in that important sea lane for international trade. .
#Israel #threatens #allout #front #Houthis #Yemen
