From Defense to Deterrence: Israel’s Strike on the Houthis

For nearly two years now, Israel has been absorbing attacks from the Houthis in Yemen: ballistic missiles, suicide drones, and long-range threats aimed at our southern cities, our airport, our largest population centers, and our sovereignty. Most of the time, the attacks are a nuisance, but sometimes real damage is done. A missile that hit Ben Gurion Airport in May 2025, nearly completely shut down global air traffic for three months. Not all airlines have yet returned. The Houthis don’t even bother to hide the reason: they’re doing it in “solidarity” with Hamas. But let’s be honest – the Houthis aren’t fighting for Gaza, and they certainly don’t care about the Palestinians. They are another pawn in Iran’s regional game: a violent proxy, trained and armed by an Iranian terrorist organization called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), used to encircle Israel with a self-defined “ring of fire.”

And until last week, they thought they were untouchable.

They were wrong.

With one decisive operation, Israel struck at the heart of the Houthi regime, removing senior political and military leaders who were directly responsible for the terror campaign. This wasn’t just another strike. It was a turning point. For the first time, Israel is not just swatting away threats from Yemen. It is dismantling the system that creates them. Here is a list of the officials that Israel hit in one attack on one building:

• Prime Minister

• Minister of Welfare

• Minister of Agriculture

• Finance Minister

• Justice Minister

• Minister of Information

• Minister of Education

• Foreign Minister

• Deputy Interior Minister

• The Minister of Defense and the Head of the Joint Chief of Staff were in the building at the time, but there are still question marks as to whether they were killed.

We’ve been here before. For years in Gaza, we played defense: Iron Dome after Iron Dome, precision strike after precision strike, always with one hand tied behind our back. And then something changed. We took the gloves off. We started targeting Hamas’s leadership, not just the launchers, not just the tunnels, but the people who built them. And slowly, piece by piece, Hamas started to collapse. It wasn’t just a military degradation; it was a moral victory. The idea that terror could hide behind children, behind mosques, behind civilian misery, well, it started to crack.

One year ago, we applied that very same clarity to Hezbollah, decapitating their leadership in one weekend. And now we are applying that same clarity to Yemen.

The Houthis are not freedom fighters. They are not misunderstood tribal warriors. They are an Iranian missile base masquerading as a political movement. And the longer they believed they could fire on Israel with impunity, the stronger they became, not just in capability, but in arrogance. That ends now.

Targeted killings work. We’ve seen it time and again. When you remove the leaders – especially in organizations held together by cults of personality, tribal loyalty, and outside money – you don’t just make noise. You create chaos. You throw the enemy off balance. You make every Zoom call a gamble and every meeting a potential last. You introduce fear where there was once bravado.

This is what’s happening now in Yemen. And this is why it matters:

First, it shows our enemies that distance is no shield. The myth that you can hide 2,000 kilometers away and still wage war against Israel is just that – a myth. If you threaten our people, we will find you, and we will end you. It’s that simple.

Second, it restores the principle of deterrence. Not just in Sanaa or Saada, but in Tehran. The Iranians are watching very closely. They wanted to test Israel’s resolve, to stretch us thin across multiple fronts. What they’re seeing instead is that we are answering on every front clearly, surgically, and with increasing momentum.

Third, it sends a message to our allies and neighbors: Israel is not just defending itself. Israel is leading. The Houthis have fired on Saudi Arabia. They’ve attacked the UAE. And now they’ve crossed a line with us. Israel is showing what must be done when diplomacy fails, when UN resolutions collect dust, and when civilian lives hang in the balance.

This must be the beginning, not the end. One strike is not a strategy. But a consistent campaign – targeted, precise, and unrelenting – can break the back of this proxy, just as we did to Hamas and just as we did to Hezbollah. We must keep pressing. Every Houthi leader who wakes up tomorrow morning should be wondering if he’ll see the next sunset.

That’s how you defeat terror. Not just with firepower, but with resolve. With clarity. With a deep belief that we are fighting not only for our survival, but for the moral right of a nation to live in peace, without being hunted from two thousand kilometers away.

This is not just war. This is justice. And justice is finally coming to Yemen.

Good things,

Ari Sacher