The Iran-backed Houthi forces have intensified their missile attacks, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to seek shelter in the dead of night, deterring foreign airlines, and sustaining what may be the final major front in the ongoing Middle East conflicts.
Last Thursday, the Houthis launched their sixth missile attack on Israel in one week, with the strikes becoming increasingly frequent despite intense Israeli air raids targeting the group’s critical infrastructure.
And just overnight Sunday, the IDF reported that the alarms that had been heard in Talmei Elazar near Hadera responded to a missile fired from Yemen and intercepted over the Mediterranean before crossing into Israeli territory. Later, a Houthi spokesman said the ballistic missile targeted the Hadera power plant.
No one in Israel, other than the good people of Talmai Elazar, heard the alarms, never mind witnessed the damage from the missile.
Iranian news outlets repeat the Houthis’ jovial announcements of victory against the Jewish state, and on Sunday morning quoted the spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree that the YAF missile force carried out a military operation targeting the Orot Rabin power plant in Hadera.
Yemen’s Government Media Office insisted that “Despite the occupying regime’s claims of intercepting the Yemeni missile outside the occupied Palestine’s skies, the projectile flew past all of the Zionist regime’s missile systems.”
The Houthi spokesman, Abdul Basit Al-Baher, said over the weekend that Iran is increasing its weapons shipments to the Houthis following the collapse of its other proxy groups across the Middle East. According to him, Iran’s supplies should last for many years to come and enable his group to attack Israel and the international shipping lines south of the Arabian Peninsula.
Unlike the complications inherent in Iran’s supplying its other proxies, especially Hezbollah and Hamas, where Israel frequently attacks the weapons-carrying caravans of trucks moving through the Syrian desert, the shipping path from Iran to Yemen is short and relatively secure, along the Persian Gulf.
The pro-Iranian newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on Friday that the US had proposed further scaling back its attacks in Yemen in exchange for the Houthis halting their missile launches toward Israel. Sources close to the Houthi leadership told Al-Akhbar that the Houthis’ position is “non-negotiable and firm,” and that the US diplomatic overtures, especially toward Iran, try to portray the Houthis as lacking independent decision-making power.
The newspaper reported the Houthis are preparing for an “expanded new phase of escalations.”
According to Brigadier General Saree, “The operation was conducted using a Palestine-2 hypersonic ballistic missile and successfully achieved its objective.”
ARABIAN NIGHTS
In late September 2024, atlanticcouncil.org writer Emily Milliken doubted whether the Iranian-made missile was capable of hypersonic speeds. A hypersonic missile is capable of traveling at least Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. The IDF also rejected the notion that Palestine-2 was capable of Mach 5 speed.
The Houthis escalated by releasing a two-minute video showcasing the launch of a missile named Palestine-2, with the prominently displayed word Hypersonic in English on its side (see below).
اخبروا نتنياهو أن صاروخ فلسطين2 لايقلع من مطار صنعاء الدولي pic.twitter.com/KyALhrgWtM
— ابوعلي القاسمي بديل (@aboalialqasemi) December 26, 2024
Can’t argue with a prominently displayed sign!
The Houthis stated that the Palestine-2 missile boasts a range of up to 2,150 kilometers, operates on two-stage solid fuel, incorporates some form of stealth technology, and is capable of reaching speeds of up to Mach 16.
Milliken noted that the Russian Zircon missile, currently the fastest hypersonic weapon, reaches speeds of Mach 8 and has a range of 1,000 kilometers. Considering the international sanctions and arms embargoes imposed on both the Houthis and Iran, it seems highly unlikely that the rebels—or their supporters in Tehran—could develop a system nearly twice as advanced as Russia’s cutting-edge technology.
She also noted that Iran frequently overstates its military achievements. A notable example is Tehran’s claim of developing the Qaher-313 stealth fighter aircraft, which was later exposed as a non-functional mockup, likely incapable of actual flight.
