According to American media, Israel is preparing to escalate its attacks and raids against the Houthis in Yemen, as all indications point to a possible long campaign that would take the battle far from Israel's borders, and with direct support from the United States.

The Houthi movement, which controls parts of Yemen and is backed by Iran, was previously seen by the Israeli security establishment as a more manageable threat than Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to intelligence experts in Washington. The Houthis began their attacks on Israel in support of Hamas, shortly after the movement led an offensive on the Gaza envelope on October 7, 2023.

Since then, the Houthis have fired on or intercepted commercial and naval vessels transiting the Red Sea. In recent weeks, they have also stepped up their attacks on Israel, sending missiles flying toward Israeli cities, most of which have been intercepted but have forced millions of people into shelters almost every night.

The Houthis are “more technologically advanced than many people realize” and should not be “underestimated,” an Israeli official told The Washington Post, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

With Iranian support, the Houthis have been able to take “practical steps” in pursuing their ideology, which calls for confronting the United States and Israel, he said. Experts say their drones, rockets and missiles have been able to circumvent air defense systems that Israel once boasted of, and have brought to the fore a perennial Israeli military dilemma: how to defeat an enemy armed with a relatively cheap and effective stockpile of weapons. “The Houthis want a war of attrition on Israel, to keep shooting so they can say, ‘We are the real resistance,’” Yoel Guzansky, a former Israeli National Security Council official who is now a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told The Washington Post.

But calculating the cost is complicated for Israel. The Houthi drones and missiles cost around several thousand dollars each — while each Israeli interception costs at least tens of thousands of dollars.

“Because it’s very cheap for them to try to get a drone or a missile into Israel every few days or weeks, they can win this,” Guzansky said. “The question now is, how does Israel avoid falling into their trap?”

The Israeli occupation government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, claims that it is leading Israel in a war on seven fronts: Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran.

Unlike other elements of the Axis of Resistance, the Houthis are more than 1,000 miles from Israel, experts say, and are located in mountainous areas without any “center of gravity” of infrastructure — places or assets that are such a focal point for their operations that hitting their positions would render them helpless.

Experts believe that the Houthi group represents an unconventional armed group that has been able to harm the Israeli interior, but it is difficult to pinpoint its exact locations in Sana’a. Therefore, it is not unlikely that Israel will follow the policy of assassinations against Houthi leaders, which it previously used in an effective manner against Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, provided that the United States provides assistance in locating these leaders, especially since it classifies this group as a terrorist group.

Israel has intensified its strikes on Yemen in recent weeks in response to the Houthis. An Israeli airstrike hit Sanaa International Airport on Thursday as World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was about to board a flight there — prompting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to call on Israel and the militants in Yemen to halt their military actions and exercise restraint.

“The airstrikes on Sana’a International Airport, Red Sea ports and power plants in Yemen are particularly worrying,” Guterres said in a statement on social media.

Local media reported that the attack killed at least three people at the airport, and injured a member of the plane's crew contracted with the World Food Programme, among dozens of others.

Tedros said on Friday that the United Nations had evacuated him and his infected colleague to Jordan, "where he will receive further medical treatment."

“Attacks on civilians and humanitarian workers everywhere must stop,” Tedros wrote on Twitter. Orbach said Israel’s situation was further complicated by the fact that the United States and Britain, which had led efforts to deter Houthi attacks on Israel and on Red Sea shipping lanes, appeared to be backing down, perhaps to save their interceptor missiles and drones.

Experts believe that there is a scarcity of interceptor missiles due to other wars in the world in which the United States plans to use them, and there is also a belief that the West is reluctant to reignite this war because it means a large-scale humanitarian disaster.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a briefing on Friday that Israel “has the right to defend itself” against Houthi attacks. He declined to comment directly on the airport strike but said “how they defend themselves matters.”

"We want to see them conduct their operations with minimal impact on civilian infrastructure and certainly with much less risk to the civilian population," Kirby said.

But Israeli officials have said they cannot afford to allow the Houthis to continue attacking Israel while the country faces Iranian-backed proxies on several other fronts.

In Gaza, Israel has escalated its attacks on the besieged enclave in an unprecedented manner. In Lebanon, Israel continues to blatantly violate the November 27 ceasefire agreement. In Syria, the Israeli occupation forces continue their aggression without mercy, occupying Mount Hermon, Quneitra and a number of villages.