Escalation in Israel-Houthi fighting after rebels 'fire cluster munitions'

Yemeni group continues regular attacks despite weakening of its main supporter Iran

Smoke rises from the site of Israeli strikes on Sanaa, Yemen, on August 24. EPA

Israel’s retaliatory fighting with Yemen’s Houthis took a new turn after the group launched a missile with a cluster bomb warhead for the first time last week, which Israel followed with a strike on the Houthi-controlled capital and threats from senior ministers of strong retaliation.

Fragments from the missile hit a home in central Israel on Friday but did not cause any injuries, Israel's ambulance service said. Israel’s military bombed Sanaa on Sunday, killing six people and injuring more than 80. Targets included the presidential palace, two power plants and a fuel storage facility, which the military said were used for Houthi “military activity”.

The Houthis began firing on Israel shortly after the beginning of the war in Gaza and have also attacked shipping in the Red Sea, causing major disruption. Israel has since carried out strikes on the country. The US also launched strikes, which President Donald Trump declared concluded in May.

The deployment of the new weapon raises questions about the efficacy of the campaign against the group, which continues to fire on Israel even after its major backer, Iran, was greatly weakened by 12 days of fighting with Israel in June.

“It's very hard for Israel to operate 2,000km away from its territory," Yoel Guzansky, senior researcher at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies think tank, told The National. "This is different to the Iran campaign, before which Israel had been collecting intelligence, developing a target bank and training the air force for years.”

Damage at an oil company facility in Sanaa after an Israeli air strike. AFP

While missile attacks from Israel’s other adversaries, such as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, have either ceased or been greatly reduced, Houthi projectiles continue to send many thousands of Israelis into bomb shelters every week.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the Israeli strikes that “the terrorist Houthi regime is learning, the hard way, that it will pay, and is already paying, a very heavy price for its acts of aggression against the state of Israel”. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the attacks represent “a plague of darkness and a plague on the Houthis".

Israel risks entering a costly “attrition war” with the group that is not in the country’s interests, Mr Guzansky said. “With Yemen it's a new thing. They came out of nowhere and started to attack Israel. We need to start our retaliation and build intelligence from scratch. It’s not something you do quickly,” he added.

“I think the fact that Israel attacked the presidential palace shows the campaign is symbolic. We don't have enough quality targets in Yemen, we are going after secondary targets, but we cannot find command control centres or target senior leaders.”