In a significant broadening of Israel’s campaign against Iranian-backed terror proxies, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a large-scale aerial operation on Monday targeting Houthi terror strongholds along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The coordinated offensive saw approximately 20 Israeli fighter jets deploying 50 precision munitions to strike dozens of Houthi-controlled sites, including key military infrastructure and a vital economic facility.
The IDF’s spokesperson confirmed that among the main targets was the Bajil concrete factory, east of Hudaydah, a city on Yemen’s western seaboard. The factory, Israeli officials stated, has been a linchpin in the Houthi regime’s tunnel-building and military construction operations, while also serving as a crucial funding source for ongoing terror campaigns.
This latest Israeli action forms part of an evolving defensive posture against the so-called Axis of Resistance—a network coordinated by Iran, comprising the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and affiliated militias in Syria and Iraq. Israel’s government has stressed that these measures are acts of self-defense, necessitated by continued provocations and assaults from Iranian-backed groups seeking to destabilize Israel and disrupt global maritime security.
Background: The Expanding Threat from Yemen
The Houthis, an Iran-aligned terror organization formally known as Ansar Allah, seized power in Yemen during the country’s civil conflict in 2014. Since then, they have transformed from a local militia to a central component of Tehran’s regional strategy, receiving technology, weapons, and tactical guidance from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Houthis’ intensified activity—most dramatically their expansion of attacks against Israeli and international maritime targets in the Red Sea—has emerged as a direct extension of Iran’s ongoing campaign against Israel, particularly since the catastrophic October 7 Hamas massacre, described by historians as the deadliest antisemitic atrocity since the Holocaust.
The Red Sea corridor is a strategic maritime chokepoint, with nearly ten percent of global sea trade passing through its waters. An upsurge in Houthi attacks has endangered commercial shipping and prompted unprecedented U.S.-led maritime security operations aimed at restoring stability.
Military and Economic Targeting
IDF surveillance and intelligence pointed to the Bajil concrete factory not only as a significant funding stream for the Houthi regime, but as a technical hub for constructing the group’s expanding network of reinforced tunnels and military posts. “Destroying the Bajil facility strikes a blow to both the Houthi war chest and their capacity to conceal and coordinate future operations,” an Israeli military official said, emphasizing the cross-border sharing of tunnel-building expertise between Iran’s proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah.
In addition to the Bajil strike, Israeli jets destroyed multiple arms depots, logistics sites, and command centers along the coastal region held by the Houthis. According to military sources, every effort was made to select targets integral to the Houthi terror apparatus while minimizing risk to Yemeni civilians uninvolved with hostilities—a point repeatedly made by Israeli leadership in their communications with international partners.
Regional Context and Legal Grounds
The military operation in Yemen follows a surge in Iranian proxy activity across the region, including Hamas’s mass atrocities against Israeli communities, daily Hezbollah rocket attacks from Lebanon, and repeated Houthi attempts to launch missiles and explosive drones toward southern Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet has maintained that any Israeli military operations—including those beyond its borders—are justified by direct threats to Israeli lives and international commerce, fully consistent with Israel’s right to self-defense under international law.
While the United States and several European countries have affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, they have also called for measured responses to prevent further suffering among civilian populations. Israeli officials counter that their precision strikes contrast sharply with the tactics of the Houthi regime and its backers, who routinely violate the laws of armed conflict by deliberately targeting civilian sites and using human shields.
Axis of Resistance: Iranian Coordination
The emergence of the Axis of Resistance has marked a new phase in regional conflict dynamics. The October 7, 2023, massacre perpetrated by Hamas, which resulted in the mass murder, mutilation, abduction, and sexual abuse of Israeli civilians, triggered not only an Israeli response in Gaza but a region-wide escalation. The Houthis rapidly joined this campaign by attacking Red Sea vessels and threatening further hostilities against Israeli and allied interests, framing their operations as ‘solidarity’ with other Iranian-sponsored terror factions.
Israeli defense authorities have repeatedly warned that allowing the Houthis to operate unchallenged poses a direct threat to African and Gulf states as well, given the group’s long history of missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Advanced weapons components and military technology, intelligence reports confirm, flow steadily from Iran’s IRGC to bolster Houthi operational capabilities.
The Road Ahead: Strategic Deterrence
Israel’s swift and forceful action in Yemen underscores its determination to degrade the infrastructure upon which the Houthi war effort depends, while sending a warning to Tehran and its constellation of proxies. The IDF’s operational doctrine, which combines pre-strike intelligence, careful target selection, and real-time battle damage assessment, is designed to uphold the moral and legal principles that distinguish Israel’s democratic self-defense from the terror-backed aggression of its adversaries.
IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir stated in operational briefings that the campaign against Iranian-backed proxies will continue as long as they pose a credible threat to Israeli civilians or the global trading system. Israeli military sources add that strikes such as those executed on Yemen’s coast serve as “a clear message to all proxies—that Israel will act against any threat, at the time and place of its choosing.”
Conclusion
As Israel navigates the unprecedented security challenges posed by the Iranian-led Axis of Resistance, the strikes on Houthi terror infrastructure in Yemen are emblematic of its dual strategy: immediate prevention of attacks against its civilian population, and a broader effort to dismantle the financial and technical networks enabling terror organizations. The IDF’s commitment to precision and proportionality in its operations stands in stark contrast to the indiscriminate violence of its enemies—a distinction rooted in the fundamental right of the Jewish state to defend its existence, its citizens, and the international order. The trajectory of the conflict will now depend on the persistence of Iranian proxy threats and the resolve of Israel and its allies in ensuring that the world’s shipping routes—and its only Middle Eastern democracy—remain secure.
