(JPost) The IDF’s impressive strike against Yemen’s Houthis on Sunday, Sept. 29 was the most powerful one against the terror group since the beginning of the war, sources told The Jerusalem Post ahead of the IDF announcement.
Dozens of Israeli aircraft, including F-15I fighter planes, participated in the operation, striking 1,800 kilometers from Israeli territory after the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles on the Tel Aviv and central Israel areas in recent weeks, including one on Saturday.
The Houthi Health Ministry said the attack resulted in the deaths of four fighters and the wounding of 29, without any attempt to distinguish between Houthi members and civilians.
The targets of the strikes were oil reserves in Ras Issa and also the port of Hodeidah. Additional targets included power plants and a seaport used to import oil, which the Houthis used to transfer Iranian weapons to the region, in addition to military supplies and oil, IDF reported.
The IDF noted that the Houthis have cooperated with Iraqi militias, who are Iranian proxies, to attack.
Pressed, multiple military sources implied that Israel is still trying to avoid directly striking these militias. This is done to prevent unnecessarily complicating the situation in that country for the US, which Jerusalem hopes can maintain its influence there.
In a statement published to the Al Masira X account, visual spokesperson for the Houthis Mohammad Abdul Salam said, “The American-backed Zionist aggression is condemned, denounced and rejected and cannot affect the will of the Yemeni people. What the Yemeni people confirm in their million weekly demonstrations is that they will not abandon Gaza and Lebanon.”
In the situational assessment during the strikes in Yemen, Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said, “We know how to reach very far, we know how to reach even farther, and we know how to strike there with precision.”
IDF Air Force Chief Tomer Bar, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant all congratulated the pilots and vowed that Israel’s long arm would strike any enemies who continued to harass the Jewish state.
The IDF said its intelligence arm selected targets based on where Iran has been delivering weapons to the Houthis, mixing civilian locations with military use to attack Israel.
The IDF added that the Houthis have been attacking Israel throughout this past year, not only this past month.
The missile attack on Saturday set off sirens throughout central Israel, including in Tel Aviv. Despite the recovery of shrapnel on Route 375 near Tzur Hadassah, there were no reported injuries.
Until July, the IDF had outsourced responses to the Houthis to the U.S., which was fighting the group over various maritime aggression issues. However, after the Houthis killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, the Jewish state struck back directly for the first time.
