For over a year, Israel has repeatedly struck vital facilities in north Yemen, including ports, Sanaa International Airport, power stations, and cement factories.
On Sunday, the Israeli army targeted two power plants, including the Haziz power station, and a fuel depot in the capital Sanaa.
The Haziz facility was struck a week earlier and rendered our of order. Israel said at the time it had destroyed an energy infrastructure, threatening that what happened is just the “beginning”.
The recurring Israeli strikes on infrastructure in Yemen, nearly 2,000 kilometres from Tel Aviv, highlight Israel’s aerial supremacy and long-reaching military power.
However, Yemeni analysts and civilians say that the targeting of civilian facilities reflects both Israel’s strategy of collective punishment and an intelligence failure in Yemen.
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Since launching its first strikes on Yemen in July last year, in response to Houthi missile and drone attacks, the Israeli military has not confirmed killing any Houthi leaders in its operations.
Fuad Mussed, a Yemeni political researcher, said Israel seeks to cripple Yemen’s public infrastructure, worsening the humanitarian crisis in a country already plagued by a decade-long civil war.
“Unlike the American strikes, which targeted the Houthis, Israel has been demolishing critical civilian facilities. While the US raids destroyed Houthi arsenals, missile launchers and drones, Israel has bombed ports, power stations and cement factories,” Mussed told Middle East Eye.
‘Israel does not have precise information to strike Houthi members. So it strikes factory workers, counting it a victory’
– Mansoour Ahmed, Hodeidah resident
While US President Donald Trump has primarily targeted Houthi military assets, these operations have resulted in significant civilian casualties. Between March and May, US air strikes killed at least 224 civilians – almost as many as in the previous 23 years of US operations in Yemen.
The losses and destruction caused by Israeli attacks are hard to conceal or downplay. Yet, according to Mussed, the strikes have not weakened the Houthis.
“The Houthis employ these strikes in their narrative and present themselves as a force confronting a foreign enemy. They recruit more fighters in preparation for a prolonged war,” analyst said.
“This is a Houthi gain.”
On 22 August, the Houthi group said it carried out three operations, including firing a ballistic missile armed with a cluster warhead towards Ben Gurion Airport.
It was the first time the Houthis had launched such a missile towards Israel. The Israeli military said the missile fragmented mid-air, landing in the backyard of a house in the central Israeli town of Ginaton, causing light damage.
Over the past 23 months of Israel’s war on Gaza, the Houthis have launched several hundred missile and drone attacks. Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the movement’s leader, recently said that they have carried out 1,679 attacks on Israel and Red Sea targets, employing drones, missiles, and war canoes.
One significant impact of these repeated attacks was that Israel’s Eilat port reduced operations by 90 percent, bringing it to the brink of financial collapse.
‘Evident intelligence failure’
Mansour Ahmed, a resident of Bajil city in Hodeidah, vividly recalls the earth-shaking and ear-splitting blast from the Israeli air strike on the Bajil Cement Factory on 5 May.
“Destroying a cement factory is an evident intelligence failure. Israel does not have precise information to strike Houthi members. So it strikes factory workers, counting it a victory,” Ahmed told MEE.
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The strikes killed at least four people and injured dozens, with no Houthi officials reported among the victims.
Houthi-controlled ports in the western Hodeidah governorate have repeatedly been targeted by Israeli strikes since last year, with fuel storage facilities destroyed, vessels damaged, and cargo unloading docks devastated.
In December, Houthi authorities said Israeli raids on the ports of Hodeidah, from 20 July to 19 December, caused material losses estimated at approximately $313m.
The port city of Hodeidah, overlooking the Red Sea, is a lifeline to millions of people. It receives fuel vessels and commodity shipments, supplying the rest of Yemen’s Houthi-controlled north.
In late December, Defence Minister Israel Katz vowed to eliminate Houthi leaders. He said that just as Israel had killed Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, “we will deal with the heads of the Houthis in Sanaa or anywhere in Yemen”.
Israel’s targets in Yemen, however, continue to be civilian infrastructure.
Ahmed said sarcastically, “Houthi leaders do not sleep in the cement factory or work at the Hodeidah ports. Israel flexes its aerial power but cannot hide its intelligence failure in Yemen.”
‘Not enough to subdue the Houthis’
The Israeli raids on Yemen have been destructive and callous, but not enough to subdue the Houthi movement, Abdulsalam Mohammed, the head of Abaad Studies & Research Center, told MEE.
“The heart of the Houthi power is the tribal fighters, advanced weapons, and the difficult terrain. So, the air strikes alone cannot annihilate the Houthis. The strikes, paralleled with a ground battle, possibly can,” he said.
‘The Israeli military does not know how to strike the Houthis directly, so it inflicts suffering on Yemeni civilians’
– Ammar Saleh, Sanaa resident
An Israeli entry into a ground battle in Yemen remains a far-fetched scenario.
In December, an anonymous Israeli official told The Washington Post that the battle against the Houthi movement in Yemen may be more difficult than previously thought. He said the Houthis “are more technologically advanced than perceived by many.”
Ammar Saleh, a schoolteacher in Sanaa, praised the Houthis’ for its support for Gaza’s besieged people amid regional and international inaction over the ongoing Israeli genocide.
“Every missile fired towards Israel is a message of courage and resistance. It is a stance against the Israeli arrogance and aggression,” Saleh said.
Saleh hopes that Israel will end its “monstrous war” on Gaza. “I feel that if Gaza continues to suffer, we [Yemenis] will suffer as well.
“The Houthis will not stop their attacks on Israel as long as the genocide in Gaza continues. In return, Israel will keep devastating our infrastructure, increasing our misery,” Saleh said.
Today, he remains mentally braced for sudden escalations or air strikes, anticipating further attacks on Yemen.
“The Israeli military does not know how to strike the Houthis directly, so it inflicts suffering on Yemeni civilians by destroying infrastructure,” he added.
