Yemen's Houthis, the Iran-backed rebels threatening to open the third front against Israel in the Gaza war

Israel says it thwarted an airstrike by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on Tuesday. Brigadier General Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Houthis, confirmed that they had launched ballistic missiles and drones against targets in Israeli territory.

The Israeli Army said it had used its 'Arrow' air defense system for the first time to successfully intercept a surface-to-surface missile fired from the Red Sea area.. The 'Arrow' serves to intercept missiles at high altitude, which would indicate that this time the Houthis used a more advanced and long-range missile in the attempted attack.

According to the spokesman for the Houthi forces, this Tuesday was the third operation in support of the Palestinian people.. The attack was carried out “out of a sense of religious, moral, humanitarian and national responsibility.”. and given the weakness of the Arab world and the collusion of some Arab countries with Israel,” said Saree. The general assured that this type of operations will continue until the “Israeli aggression” ends.

The third front

This is the third front that Israel fears in its war with Hamas. The second and much more active is the Lebanese front, where the Shiite Hezbollah militia attacks Israeli territory with rockets, missiles and mortars regularly.. For all this, fear continues to grow of the conflict spreading to the entire Middle East.

“The attack was due to the weakness of the Arab world and the collusion of some Arab countries with Israel.”

And in the distance, Iran. On the 15th, a week after the surprising Hamas offensive, Iranian authorities warned Israel that it should stop its military response.. If not, Tehran said, the Resistance Axis would act.

Indeed, there is an “expansion of conflicts in the region”, in the words of the Iranian Foreign Minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. This Tuesday, the Iranian foreign minister warned that members of the resistance group “would not remain silent in the face of total US support” for Israel and “would not wait for anyone's advice.”. According to Amir-Abdollahian, if the situation gets out of control, “no party will be safe from its consequences.”

The Axis of Resistance

This informal alliance against the Jewish State is made up of different parastatal organizations based in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen that have traditionally been organized around the leadership of Iran.

The Ayatollahs' regime has for years provided training and weapons to Hamas, Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Houthis in Yemen, who are also part of the Axis of Resistance.

“The Axis of Resistance will not remain silent in the face of the United States' total support for Israel.”

Tehran supports the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen, which since 2015 has faced a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, Iran's other major regional rival.. The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (Supporters of God), took the Yemeni capital in 2014 and control wide swaths of the country.

The Houthis take their name from Hussein Badr al Din al Huti, who in 2004 led the group's first uprising.. Among them, the branch of Shiite Islam known as Zaidism predominates, but they also include Sunnis. The Zaidites ruled North Yemen for a millennium, until 1962.

Houthi attacks on Israel

This Tuesday's attack is not the first launched by the Houthis against Israel and its allies.. that is, the United States. So far, they have claimed responsibility for at least three missile and drone attacks.. On October 19, a US warship shot down four cruise missiles and 15 drones heading north along the Red Sea near the coast of Yemen.

According to the US Department of Defense, the shots could have been directed at targets in Israel, something that Houthi Prime Minister Abdelaziz bin Habtour acknowledged days later.. He is a southern Yemeni who is not part of the inner circle of the Houthi movement, which is made up almost exclusively of northern Yemenis, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Israel denounced last Friday that “missiles and drones” launched by the Houthis against its territory hit two tourist towns in Egypt near the border, in an incident that according to Egyptian authorities caused at least six injuries.

The Red Sea and the US deployment

In this state of affairs, the United States has been developing a large deployment of ships and fighters in the Middle East for days in anticipation of a total war in the region.. This also affects the Red Sea. So much so that the White House has decided to keep several ships in those waters.

We reported last week that the Pentagon was going to send the amphibious group 'USS Bataan' to the eastern Mediterranean, made up of three ships carrying thousands of marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.. However, in the end the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and the dock landing ship USS Carter Hall will remain in the Red Sea.

At least three Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers also sail in those waters: the 'USS Carney', the 'USS Thomas Hudner' and the 'USS Roosevelt'.. All of them can use anti-aircraft missiles of the 'Standard' family and 'Tomahawk' cruise missiles.. The US has decided to keep the 'Carney' in the Red Sea.

To place the pieces and the importance of the setting, the waters of the Red Sea bathe the coasts of Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the north, and in the south, Sudan, Eritrea and Yemen.

Iran, Israel's great enemy

The attempted aggression by the Houthis this Tuesday comes a day after the Israeli Government threatened them with retaliation.. At the moment, the Israeli Army has deployed anti-missile ships in the Red Sea area.

Iran and Israel pose a mutual existential threat and compete for hegemony in the region

Iran has been Israel's great enemy since it broke diplomatic relations in 1979 after the Islamic revolution.. Both countries pose a mutual existential threat, compete for regional hegemony and maintain a covert war through sabotage, cyberattacks and assassinations.. So they maintain a 'shadow' conflict in which Hezbollah, Hamas or the Houthis of Yemen are, for the moment, the actors on the Iranian side.