Over the past 15 months, nearly 250 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles have been launched at Israel from Yemen.
Despite five significant Israeli airstrikes coordinated with the US, the UK and other Western coalition partners – targeting pro-Iranian Houthi government sites such as seaports, Sana’a’s airport, oil facilities, and missile depots – the Houthis remain undeterred.
Their persistent attacks, mostly launched in the dead of night, disrupt the lives of millions of Israelis, forcing them into shelters. The Houthis, a local Shiite Muslim faction, claim their actions are a gesture of solidarity with Hamas to oppose Israel’s war in Gaza.
The missiles stopped two weeks ago after Israel and Hamas signed the fragile ceasefire in Gaza which resulted in a gradual release of Israeli hostages for Palestinian terrorists.
Haim Tomer, a former senior Mossad operative, has proposed ideas on how to address this escalating threat, but his outlook remains cautious.
Explaining how Mossad may approach the problem, Tomer recalled an encounter a decade ago with a senior Yemeni official who abruptly fell asleep in the middle of a meeting. The official excused himself and went to an adjourned room.
A third person, knowledgeable about the region, who had facilitated the meeting, told Tomer not to worry. The fatigue was a result of the widespread traditional Yemeni habit, also shared by inhabitants of the Horn of Africa, to chew khat, a stimulant shrub. After a brief nap the official returned to continue the meeting.
Tomer’s secret meeting with the pro-Western Yemenite official was facilitated by an Arab intelligence service, friendly with Israel, and was part of an Israeli Arab and American effort to prevent the takeover of Yemen by the pro-Iranian Houthis. The meeting bore no tangible results.
Today, Tomer believes disrupting the Houthis’s reliance on khat could impair their operations.
“Destroying their khat crops would confuse and hinder their ability to function,” he suggests. In Yemen, an estimated 90 per cent of adult males chew khat daily for several hours a day.
Tomer, a former head of Mossad’s “Cosmos” (Tevel) department – responsible for confidential ties with intelligence counterparts and countries with secret relations with Israel – has long been aware of Yemen’s complexities. Since the outbreak of war with Hamas and Hezbollah on October 7, 2023, Israel’s intelligence agencies have intensified their focus on Yemen after years of neglect.
New units within Mossad and the IDF, supported by surveillance from naval vessels, reconnaissance flights and satellites, have been mobilised to gather intelligence on the Houthi regime. This renewed attention stems from historical ties.
In the 1960s, Israel supported Yemen’s royalists against Egyptian-backed republicans during the country’s civil war, viewing it as an opportunity to weaken Egypt.
British intelligence and former SAS elite unit operatives contacted Mossad and requested that the Israeli Air Force drop weapons for royalist forces.
Israel agreed. An Israeli Air Force Stratocruiser transporter flew 14 sorties in difficulties circumstances along the Saudi Arabian coast, entered Yemen near a mountainous area close to Sana’a, and parachuted weapons.
After the Six-Day War of June 1967, Mossad sent agents to monitor the PLO training camps in Yemen, which were supported by the Soviet Union and advised by the notorious East German Stasi police. Some Mossad agents were exposed and arrested; others luckily escaped.
In the 1990s, thanks to Mossad, world Jewish organisations and pressure from the US administration, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to allow the remaining Jews in Yemen to emigrate to Israel. Many of them eventually went to the US. The deal was clinched after Mossad senior officials met Saleh and his aides and exchanged money.
Israel renewed its interest in Yemen about 15 years ago. Following efforts by Iran’s Al Quds commander General Qasem Soleimani (assassinated in 2020 by the US) to use his Middle Eastern proxies against Israel, Iran began increasing arms shipments to Hamas in Gaza.
These shipments were transported on Iranian ships which stopped at Yemeni ports before continuing to Sudan, where the weapons were unloaded and transported via land routes to Egypt, Sinai and Gaza.
Another supply route involved small Yemeni boats smuggling weapons, drugs, falcons and women.
Based on Mossad’s intelligence-gathering missions, from 2012 to 2019, the Israeli air force and navy destroyed weapons depots in Sudan, sank ships and targeted vehicle convoys.
But what Mossad didn’t realise was the fact that Iran and the Houthis were plotting something much bigger – to destabilise the Middle East and the US-backed regimes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“The first to recognise the Houthis’ potential,” adds Zohar Palti, another senior Mossad official who directed its intelligence operations, “were the Iranians. They adopted the Hezbollah model of armament and assistance. They replicated their tactics from Lebanon and established a Yemeni ring of fire against Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”
The latest Yemeni civil war erupted in 2015, and Iran has provided the Houthis with weapons, funding and military expertise, using them to destabilise Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel.
The bloody war resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties, hunger and enormous destruction among the Yemeni civilian population but failed to achieve its goals.
In September 2019, the Houthis, operating under Iranian guidance, shocked the Middle East and the world by deploying drones for the first time and severely damaging Saudi oil facilities, halting 50 per cent of the kingdom’s oil production. Three years later, they attacked Abu Dhabi with drones.
“The Americans and Europeans did not fully grasp the depth of Iranian-Houthi involvement and their potential impact on Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” adds Palti. “Within four years, the Houthis had built a highly capable military force with advanced weaponry, heavily supported by Iran.
“The Houthis are not just a nuisance for Israel; their attacks disrupt international maritime trade,” Tomer observes. “They carry out sabotage operations in the bays of Oman, Aden and the navigation lanes of the Red Sea leading to the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Eilat.”
He estimates that 85 per cent of the Houthis’ military arsenal comes from Iran, with Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers directly overseeing operations in Yemen.
Palti concurs: “The Houthis pose a significant challenge but are not an existential threat to Israel. We failed to recognise their capabilities earlier. Now, Israel must build a robust intelligence infrastructure, combining local recruitment, cyber warfare and advanced technology.”
Tomer also advocates for a formidable international coalition, including the US, UK, European Union, Israel and regional actors such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, to counter Iran’s influence.
While assassinating Houthi leaders may be considered, Tomer warns such operations require extensive groundwork.
He says: “The successful targeted killings against Hezbollah leaders and military commanders were the result of two decades of laborious effort.
“Yemen, 2,000km from Israel, presents even greater logistical challenges. One needs to recruit local helpers who will be ready to work with us. Thus, it won’t happen overnight.”
A potential turning point, Tomer notes, could come with US political shifts. If the Trump administration pressures Israel into maintaining the ceasefire with Hamas, the Houthis might reciprocate by halting their attacks.
“Israel and the region stand at a crossroads,” concludes Tomer.
“There’s an opportunity to forge a strategic coalition, isolate Iran and its proxies, and pave the way for an Israeli-Saudi-Emirati axis backed by the West.”
