TEL AVIV—As Iranian-backed Houthi forces increase their strategic reach from Yemen, targeting commercial shipping lanes and threatening regional stability, military analysts and senior Israeli officials are intensifying calls for a decisive shift in strategy. Recent escalations in Houthi drone and missile attacks have exposed the inadequacy of international airstrikes to dismantle the group’s critical infrastructure, prompting debate over the necessity of a ground operation.
The topic gained renewed urgency as the Houthis—empowered by the support of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—continued to deploy sophisticated weaponry, disrupting global maritime traffic through the Red Sea and launching attacks as far as Israel itself. The group, recognized as a terrorist organization and a pillar in Iran’s regional proxy network, has entrenched its operations among Yemen’s challenging geography and civilian population, making aerial campaigns insufficient for permanent resolution.
Air Campaigns: Tactical Success, Strategic Stalemate
Since early 2024, a U.S.-led coalition of Western and regional allies has conducted sustained naval and aerial strikes against Houthi-controlled installations. Israel, though not part of the coalition’s operational arm, has contributed intelligence and early warning data to help intercept projectiles threatening its territory. Despite these efforts, the decentralized and adaptive nature of Houthi forces, combined with the group’s entrenched urban and rural positions, has enabled it to weather bombing campaigns and rapidly regenerate combat capability.
Military history consistently demonstrates the limitations of airpower in counterinsurgency and counterterror contexts. Israeli doctrine and past experience, such as the IDF’s operations in Gaza and southern Lebanon, highlight that airstrikes alone cannot neutralize terrorist groups embedded within civilian populations and fortified terrain. Secure outcomes have invariably required the introduction of ground forces to disrupt command structures, seize key territory, and physically dismantle terror networks.
As one IDF strategic analyst put it, contemporary warfare against resilient terror entities demands a combination of decisive ground maneuvering alongside precise aerial support—particularly when adversaries exploit complex terrain and employ civilians as shields.
The Growth of the Houthi Threat: Iranian Strategy in Action
The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, began as a local insurgency in Yemen’s north but have, since 2014, transformed through significant Iranian logistics, training, and direct support. Iran’s broader axis strategy seeks to encircle Israel and U.S.-aligned states with hybrid warfare tools, channeling financing, advanced weaponry, and regionally experienced operatives into its proxy groups.
The Houthis’ seizure of Sana’a solidified their place in the “Axis of Resistance,” alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other groups facilitated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Their ability to strike Israeli territory and disrupt international commerce cements Iran’s vision of a contiguous threat corridor stretching from Iran to the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, escalating the overall threat matrix facing Israel and its regional partners.
Regional and International Coalition Challenges
Responding to Houthi aggression, Operation Prosperity Guardian has combined the resources of the U.S., U.K., France, and several regional players. Maritime patrols, missile defenses, and airstrikes have disrupted Houthi launches against Red Sea shipping and Israel, but senior Israeli officials maintain that aviation assets alone have not substantiated a lasting change.
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the group’s entanglement among the civilian population further complicate the calculus. Coalition planners have balanced the imperative to prevent regional escalation with the acknowledgment that air-only operations inevitably leave the group’s leadership, supply routes, and direct threats largely intact.
Lessons from Counterterror Ground Operations
Israel’s operational history is replete with examples reinforcing the limitations of air power against entrenched armies and terror groups. Operations such as Defensive Shield in Judea and Samaria, the campaigns in Lebanon, and the responses to the October 7, 2023 massacre—where Hamas terrorists perpetrated the deadliest antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust—have demonstrated that only with boots on the ground can terrorist infrastructure be truly dismantled and civilian security restored.
Senior Israeli military sources emphasize that victory against groups like the Houthis means establishing physical control, disarming militants, and preventing the reconstitution of fighting capability. Efforts to contain threats solely from the air, while limiting friendly casualties, run the risk of perpetual stalemate and continued exposure of Israeli and allied populations to resilient terror actors.
Obstacles to a Yemen Ground Offensive
The complexity of a ground campaign in Yemen far exceeds that of Gaza or southern Lebanon. The country’s vast, mountainous terrain, the complexity of tribal politics, and the Houthis’ ingrained presence among civilians present formidable challenges. Unlike past Israeli incursions, any combat operation in Yemen would likely require a multinational coalition prepared for sustained and costly engagement.
Previous campaigns by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have failed to uproot the Houthis despite years of airstrikes, proxy engagements, and limited ground incursions. Nonetheless, without a commitment to ground operations able to seize and hold key operational terrain, the Houthi threat to international shipping, regional stability, and Israel’s own maritime perimeter will remain unresolved.
International Law and the Ethics of Intervention
From a legal perspective, Israel’s and its allies’ right to self-defense is anchored firmly in international law. Attacks on shipping and deliberate targeting of civilians by the Houthis constitute violations of the law of armed conflict, creating both a moral and legal imperative for action. Distinguishing Israel—a sovereign democracy defending its population—from terrorist organizations such as the Houthis is critical for legal clarity and moral integrity.
Israeli officials stress that any military intervention, including a potential ground operation, would be conducted according to the highest standards of proportionality and discrimination, minimizing civilian harm and adhering to internationally accepted laws of war.
Strategic Imperative: Breaking the Axis of Resistance
The Houthi threat is indivisible from the broader regional challenge posed by Iran’s proxy network. With Iranian-supplied rockets, drones, and strategic guidance, the Houthis join Hezbollah, Hamas, and other designated groups in a concerted campaign to erode Israel’s security and destabilize the Middle East. The ability of these bodies to act in concert—coordinating attacks, sharing technology, and exploiting gaps in international resolve—raises the stakes for any defensive or preemptive action.
Israel’s National Security Council and defense analysts argue that removing the entrenched Houthi presence in Yemen is necessary not only to secure freedom of navigation but to break Iran’s arc of influence. Without decisive action, including ground maneuver, the risk grows of the Red Sea becoming a persistent zone of terror against Israel, its allies, and the broader international community.
The Decision Ahead
Ultimately, military experts and Israeli officials are united by the view that the defeat of the Houthi threat will not be achieved from the air alone. The calculus is less about technological capability than about decision, resolve, and willingness to embrace the complexity, cost, and challenges of ground combat. As regional instability continues to spill over, the international community faces a fundamental question: whether to allow Iranian-backed terror to dictate security realities, or to make the hard choices necessary for enduring peace.
The dynamics at play in Yemen encapsulate the core dilemmas of Israel’s war against Iranian-backed terror: the need to match doctrine to reality, to distinguish between aggressor and defender, and to take action, however difficult, when the stakes demand no less.
