Houthi Missiles – No End in Sight

On the early morning of May 4, I set out for Washington, D.C. for a USIEA Board Meeting and Partners Tour. Two hours after I left home, I became locked out of my country. I was a Jew unable to return to his homeland, a prisoner of Zion, a refusenik. A Houthi missile launched from Yemen somehow made it through Israel’s vaunted missile defense shield and hit Ben Gurion Airport, not far from the terminal building and a number of parked airplanes. The missile left a ditch 50 feet deep. 26 ballistic missiles had been fired at Israel since March 18, 2025, when the IDF resumed its offensive in Gaza. All had been intercepted. The 27th missile made it through. 

The missile lightly injured a few people, and the airport was reopened to traffic about an hour later. But the damage had been done. Foreign airlines began cancelling flights en masse in and out of Israel. After only one day, the only non-Israeli airlines flying to Israel were Etihad and FlyDubai, a low cost Emirates subsidy, Ethiopian Airlines, along with a couple of low-cost airlines that I had never heard of – Ryanair, Wizzair and easyJet, the largest of the low-costs, cancelled all flights immediately. Israel was well and truly under siege.

All of this happened while I was in Athens Airport waiting for my flight to D.C. United, the airline I was flying, cancelled all flights in and out of Israel for 3 days to “assess the situation.” I had been down this path before. Since the Massacre of October 7, most foreign airlines had taken Israel out of their plans for months at a time, some of them for years. It was a certainty that United was going to extend their cancellation. I was going to be stuck in the U.S., so I called United and rebooked my flight. Instead of flying to Tel Aviv, I flew to Athens, Greece, the nearest large airport. All of the flights to Tel Aviv from Athens were fully booked, but luckily I found a seat on a flight to Haifa, the capital of Israel’s north on an airline called Air Haifa. This airline had only begun to fly to Athens a few weeks earlier. When I landed in Athens, it was swarming with Israelis who were trying to find a flight – any flight – home. Some were luckier than others: they found flights home via Cyprus with painfully long layovers at outrageous prices. But there’s no place like home, is there? I made it home 24 hours after leaving the U.S., about double what it would have taken had I taken the nonstop to Tel Aviv from Newark. 

It took Israel only 32 hours – a bit longer than my flight home – to respond. The Israeli Air Force (IAF) returned fire with a series of airstrikes targeting Houthi-controlled infrastructure in Yemen. The IAF, in coordination with the U.S., struck oil storage facilities and power stations in the port city of Hodeidah, causing significant damage and fires, and later targeted Sanaa International Airport, hitting runways, control towers, and military sites. The strikes aimed to degrade Houthi military capabilities. The next day, on May 6, President Trump announced a truce with the Houthis, a truce that did not include Israel.

Immediately after the IAF strike, Israel warned Yemenis to stay away from an additional 3 ports in preparation for what would be a “devastating attack.” The Houthis responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel’s heavily populated center at a rate of about one per day. Ten days later, on May 16, IAF fighter jets bombed infrastructure at the Houthi-held ports of Hodeida and Salif. According to the Israeli military, the strikes targeted facilities allegedly used for transferring weapons. One day later, the Houthis fired another two missiles at Israel, doing no damage but sending millions into bomb shelters at 2:00 am. The siege continues.

Israelis cannot help but wonder: Is this ever going to end? No matter how much power the IAF projects, it seems incapable of preventing the next launch. On the other hand, Yemen is too large for a ground incursion to seek out underground ready-to-launch missiles. Is this ever going to end? Some out-of-the-box thinking is in order. Houthi ballistic missiles were produced with no small amount of foreign expertise – Iranian expertise. There is substantial evidence indicating that Iranian technology has been used in Houthi ballistic missiles, based on multiple sources including UN investigations, defense intelligence reports, and forensic analysis of missile debris. Not only do the missiles bear striking resemblances to Iranian missiles, not only did UN experts have examined missile remnants and seized materials used by the Houthis and find components that match Iranian designs and manufacturing techniques, but UN and U.S. investigations have documented Iranian manufacturing labels and Farsi-language markings on missile components recovered from Houthi-fired weapons. Talk about a smoking gun. Iran is providing key missile components to the Houthis. These include guidance systems, propellant precursors, and specialized parts that are not easily produced locally in Yemen. These components are produced in Iran and smuggled via maritime routes from Iranian ports like Bandar Abbas, a major IRGC-controlled hub on the Strait of Hormuz, where missile parts are loaded onto dhows or cargo ships bound for Yemen. The IRGC’s Qods Force oversees logistics, often disguising shipments as civilian goods. 

One way to prevent the Houthis from firing on Israel is by attacking missile production facilities in Iran. Bombing would be a factory in Tehran that produces liquid and solid-fuel propulsion unit, one in Isfahan that produces solid-fuel rocket motors and composite materials for missile casings, and one in Shiraz that produces missile guidance systems. An attack would immediately disrupt the Houthi missile production supply chain, greatly reducing their capability to produce weapons. The Houthis would be limited to using previously-built missiles until their number dwindled. The direct result would be a steady reduction in the frequency of missile attacks on Israel. Depending on the number of missiles currently in Yemen, this could take up to a year. Interestingly, Israel did virtually the same thing to Iran, when it destroyed mixers critical for the production of missile sold rocket motors in October 2024, after 180 Iranian ballistic missiles were fired at Israel. Iran today is particularly vulnerable to attack. Its strategic air defense radars were taken down by Israel and have not yet been replaced. 

Clearly an attack on Iranian missile production facilities carries risk, including Iranian retaliation, increased Houthi aggression, regional destabilization affecting oil markets and allies like Saudi Arabia, and international backlash leading to Israel’s diplomatic isolation, especially given the U.S.-Houthi truce and the U.S.–Iran nuclear negotiations that are currently ongoing. Israel must weigh the potential risks against the potential benefits. The status quo might, in the end, prove to be the best option. All options must remain on the table. Israeli leaders owe it to the Israeli people to widen the aperture and to look for new solutions, especially where old ones have been proven worthless.

Good things,

 Ari Sacher