Have The Houthis Taken Out Israel’s Iron Dome AGAIN?

Right, so having had around 6 weeks to recover somewhat during the course of the Gaza ceasefire, to elicit repairs and replace their military supplies, especially with Donald Trump handing them more heavy weaponry than ever before, Israel’s air defences, as being able demonstrated by the Houthis of Yemen, are still getting bypassed. We’ve seen strike upon strike target Ben Gurion airport, we’ve seen the sirens being sounded across Israel night after night and now reports that the Houthis have managed to infiltrate Israeli airspace by drone without setting those sirens off at all. So what is the state of the Iron Dome? Have Israel fixed it, have they abandoned it, or have the Houthis simply rendered obsolete?
Right, so the resumption of Israel's military operations in Gaza following the collapse of ceasefire negotiations has been met with renewed resistance from the Houthis of Yemen, we all know this by now don’t we? It all began again whilst Israel was blockading aid into Gaza, the Houthis gave them 4 days to end the blockade or they would resume blockading Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. 4 days passed, the Houthis put their blockade in place and yet despite not having blocked a single ship, Trump launched the first of what have now been several air strikes on Yemen, notably the capital Sanaa, aided by the UK to my eternal shame, hundred of civilians killed as a result.
Following the collapse of that Gaza ceasefire by Israel’s hand, the Houthis have since resumed their nightly rocket attacks across Israel, Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport being a common target and they have been able to reach Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport at that too, a 2,500km distance from Sanaa as that is, in the northern half of Israel as that is, crossing much Israeli airspace to reach and yet the Houthis are reaching it time after time, even if their rockets are it is claimed, being brought down in the end by Israeli forces.
The thing is, if Israel’s air defences were working as they once did, the Houthis shouldn’t be able to get that far should they?
Despite those relentless US airstrikes on Yemen, the Houthis continue to launch hypersonic and ballistic missiles and drones deep into Israeli territory, striking at sensitive targets such as Ben Gurion International Airport and Tel Aviv, so what is the deal with these air defences then? Are Israel’s air defences still weakened from prior engagements, Israel not having repaired them, or found replacement parts, or brought offline batteries back online or have the Houthis developed tactics that have just rendered them ineffective?
Let’s start with the airport, one of the most significant Houthi successes has been their repeated targeting of Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel’s primary aviation hub, basically having rendered it unsafe and of course I covered this in more detail the other day, that the Houthis were effectively blockading Israel’s skies now, by threatening not just the airport, but airlines choosing to fly to it and I postulated that they needn’t necessarily fire another rocket as a result, though clearly they have carried on, but they’ve been reaching the airport every single time too, debris from the most recent strike yesterday with two ballistic missiles having scattered shrapnel across civilian areas. On multiple occasions, ballistic missiles have forced the airport to suspend operations, disrupting both civilian and military logistics. The fact that these strikes continue despite Israel’s apparently advanced Iron Dome and Arrow and David’s Sling defence systems suggests one of two possibilities:
That Israel’s air defences are still degraded from prior conflicts, from before the Gaza ceasefire, including earlier Houthi attacks, Hezbollah’s rocket barrages in the north and those coming from Iraq’s Islamic Resistance, as well as Hamas.
Or and this will be far more concerning to Israel, is the possibility that the Houthis have adapted their tactics and can now simply evade what was purported to be a state of the art air defence.
Favouring that latter notion is the claims being made by the Houthis themselves it has to be said, that some Houthi drones have reportedly reached central Israel without triggering sirens at all, indicating either a failure in early-warning detection, in air defence or the Houthis can now simply evade them should they wish.
Aside from Ben Gurion airport, which, given the repeated strikes on it, you’d figure Israel would get better at repelling such attacks, wouldn’t you? Houthi missiles have also been targeting and reaching areas of Tel Aviv before being intercepted. While Israel claims these interceptions as successes, the Houthis still claim their objectives have been achieved. Even with Israel claiming a win here though, they really aren’t.
The intercepted missiles still pose a threat, as falling shrapnel can cause damage and injuries in civilian areas and the psychological impact is significant, undermining Israeli claims of invulnerability, people having to scramble for shelters often in the middle of the night.
With the Houthis claiming their objectives are being achieved though are they deliberately ensuring their missiles are being intercepted near populated zones to maximize civilian fear rather than cause damage? It’s a thought I’ve had before, the Houthis have risked their own lives to rescue crews from damaged shipping in the Red Sea, if they had no issue with civilian casualties, why would they do that? Is their aim more psychological than anything else, do let me know your thoughts on that.
It certainly isn’t something being reciprocated by pro Israel forces attacking Yemen of course, Where the US claims previous attacks have been to target Houthis weapons depots, too often the strikes have been on places like Sanaa and Hodeidah, where far more harm has been done to civilians than the Houthis. Apparently the idea now is to try and target Houthi leaders and yet if they can’t find the weapons, which continue to be fired towards Israel, how can they find anything in Yemen? The US lacks intelligence in Yemen, they tried infiltrating the Houthis last year and in less than a day their spies had been found and sent packing. Even the mainstream Murdoch Press has said the US is basically on a hiding to nowhere here, a quote from the Times reading:
‘“The key elements of the Biden administration’s offensive were to deter and degrade. The difference with what we are seeing now, there does seem to be more willingness to conduct targeted strikes on Houthi leadership,” said Adam Baron, a Yemen expert and a fellow at the New America think tank.
“There have been a few mid-level people killed,” he said. “Judging from the administration’s rhetoric it doesn’t seem for a lack of trying. Let’s not forget the Houthis are pretty good at hiding.”
The Houthis had insisted they would stop their attacks only when Israel ended the war in Gaza, and had suspended their campaign during a ceasefire that unravelled this month. If Trump hopes to establish deterrence by ending the attacks on his terms, as Biden had sought to, or by forcing the Houthis’ Iranian patrons to rein them in, he risks the opposite outcome.’
Of course if the US is going to escalate against the Houthis, that goes both ways.
Once again, the Houthis have escalated attacks on US warships in the Red Sea, notably the USS Harry S. Truman, demonstrating their ability to project power beyond Israel and embarrassingly for the US, keep on firing at Israel all at the same time:
‘The forces issued a statement on Wednesday, declaring that their missile, drone, and naval units had jointly executed a military operation targeting hostile warships in the Red Sea, including the American aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, “from which aggression against Yemen was being launched.”
“The confrontation persisted for several hours,” with Yemeni forces actively engaging and managing developments within the operational area, they added.
Separately, the troops launched drone strikes against Israeli military sites in the occupied city of Yaffa near Tel Aviv with several armed unmanned aerial vehicles.’
And then of course there is the Trump administration just giving the Houthis a hand whether they want one or not.
Most recently, a classified Houthi strike plan was accidentally sent to The Atlantic magazines Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg via a group chat on the social media platform Signal, that he had accidentally been included in, which included Trump’s dumbass sidekick JD Vance and the Fox News castoff turned Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, the sharing of this plan being a violation of the US Espionage Act, so someone’s head ought to roll and if not, well that’ll be Trump laying favourites and handing out pardons I suppose? Such incompetence is par for the course for those Trump surrounds himself with, he can’t stand not being perceived as the smartest in the room, so it’s a really low bar to be a Trump cling-on isn’t it?
Israel’s inability to fully neutralize Houthi strikes, combined with the US’s ineffective bombing campaigns, imply the Houthis are here to stay and will carry on regardless of what the US do, or what Israeli air defences don’t do or can’t do. If the US wanted to do something that was actually effective, they’d tell Israel to get out of Gaza, but we all know that isn’t going to happen.
For more on the Houthis ability to shut down Ben Gurion airport and their declaration to have closed Israeli airspace check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you have not already done so, so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new daily content as well as support the channel at the same time which is very much appreciated and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.