TEL AVIV, Israel – Rockets from Gaza have largely stopped. A ceasefire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has held. But repeated fire from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a distant enemy, is proving a persistent threat to Israel.
The Iran-backed Houthis are stepping up their rocket attacks, sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis scrambling for shelter in the middle of the night, scaring off foreign airlines and sustaining what could be the last major front in the Middle East wars .
“It’s like musical chairs,” said Yoni Yovel, 31, who left the northern Israeli city of Haifa late last year to avoid rocket fire from Hezbollah, only to see his apartment in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa neighborhood badly damaged by a Houthi missile .
Israel has repeatedly bombed ports, oil infrastructure and the airport in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, some 2,000 kilometers away. Israeli leaders have threatened to kill central Houthi figures and have tried to rally the world against the threat.
But the Houthis continue to persist. In recent weeks, missiles and drones from Yemen have struck almost every day, including early Friday morning, setting off air raid sirens in large parts of Israel. In some cases the projectiles have penetrated Israel’s advanced air defense system, recently toppling an empty school and shattering the windows of apartments near an empty playground where a rocket landed.
Because most rockets are intercepted and because the fire is usually one rocket at a time, the attacks have not caused major physical damage, although some attacks have been fatal during the 15-month war in Gaza, when the Houthis attacked in solidarity with Hamas. .
But the rocket fire is threatening Israel’s economy, keeping many foreign airlines away and preventing the country from restarting its hard-hit tourism sector.
Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have virtually closed an Israeli port in the city of Eilat and prompted ships destined for that purpose to take a longer, more expensive route around Africa to Israeli ports on the Mediterranean.