Iran Looks to Houthi Proxies to Escalate Fight With Israel

NY Times-Dec8th2023

By Farnaz Fassihi, Ronen Bergman and Eric Schmitt

The Houthis, Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen who have launched recent drone and missile attacks on Israeli and American targets, are emerging as an unpredictable and dangerous wild card in the Middle East — the proxies that Iran considers most suited to widening the war with Israel.

Analysts close to the Iranian government said the Houthis’ base in Yemen makes them ideally positioned to escalate fighting in the region, in the hopes of pressuring Israel to end its war with Hamas in Gaza.

The analysts’ assessment tracks with descriptions of a plan by Iran and its network of militias to increase attacks on Israeli and American targets in the region, according to two Iranians affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Houthis, the analysts said, are Iran’s chosen proxies because from Yemen they are both close enough to the Red Sea’s strategic waterways to disrupt global shipping, and far enough from Israel to make retaliatory strikes difficult. Unlike Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has struck Israel from Lebanon, the Houthis are not beholden to domestic political dynamics — making them effectively accountable to no one.

Two senior Israeli defense officials said their intelligence confirmed that Iran’s leaders were pushing the regional militias to intensify their attacks against Israel. They said Israel’s defense and intelligence circles were alarmed by the recent Houthi attacks and considered the threat serious enough that military intelligence had established a special unit dedicated to threats coming from Yemen. In recent years, they said, Israeli intelligence had also predicted the next war would be fought on multiple fronts, mentioning the Houthis and other Iranian proxies.

Already, the Houthis have used their proximity to major shipping lanes to attack commercial vessels and threaten U.S. warships. A further escalation along the same routes could disrupt global shipping, analysts said.

“We think Houthis in Yemen will become more of a threat to Israel in the long term than Hamas or even Hezbollah,” said Nasser Imani, a political analyst in Tehran who is close to the government. “Iran considers them a major player and part of the collective strategy of the resistance axis.”