Houthi Missiles and Israeli Mass Hysteria
CrossFireArabia- December 25, 2024
By Abdul Bari Atwan
What are the options Israel and America’s has to confront the continuing Yemeni drones and hypersonic missiles? Is it bombing Tehran and/or implementing the latest Syrian case in Sanaa? Why not rule both out?
The Israeli occupation, government and settlers, are today in a state of hysterical panic due to the never-ending hypersonic ballistic missile attacks and the advanced drones bombing the heart of Tel Aviv and causing serious human casualties and huge fires.
This state of hysteria is reflected in four distinguishing signs:
First: Threats by more than one Israeli official to launch a massive attack on Yemen similar to that on Gaza whilst carring out assassination campaigns targeting the political and military leaders of Ansar Allah, especially Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
Second: More than two million Israeli settlers took refuge in shelters, and sirens sounded in more than 80 locations in occupied Palestine over the past four days.
Third: Closing the airspace of Ben Gurion Airport to air traffic, which created confusion, chaos, isolation, and moral collapse.
Fourth: Failure of Israeli celebrations of two major successes achieved according to Hebrew newspapers, namely: In Imposing a ceasefire in Lebanon, stopping attacks from the southern Lebanese border, and the second by toppling the Syrian regime, the jewel of the resistance axis as boasted by Netanyahu that it was he who played the biggest role in achieving this.
Israeli Minister of War Yisrael Katz broke with all established Israeli norms by officially acknowledging, for the first time, responsibility for the assassination of the Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, and Yahya Sinwar in Rafah.
Katz threatened the Houthis leaders that they would face the same fate, and that the destruction that occurred in Gaza and Beirut would be repeated in Sanaa and Hodeidah.
But what terrifies the Israelis most, and worries their leadership is the arrival of the incessant Yemeni missiles and drones to the heart of major Zionist cities, like Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashkelon, and Eilat with millions of settlers descending into shelters.
Indeed, this points to the failure of Israel’s highly advanced air defense systems to intercept these missiles, prevent them from reaching their targets, and inability to provide security and protection for the settlers in these major cities.
Perhaps the threats of Israeli officials to launch attacks on Yemeni cities reflect the extent of the pain they are suffering as a result of these incoming deadly projectiles.
These, and before them the Israeli, American and British air strikes on Sana’a and Hodeidah, have not achieved the goals of deterring Yemeni missile attacks and stopping their bombing of the Israeli depth.
On the contrary, they gave completely opposite results with their continual launching of hypersonic missiles and drones, and more dangerously, the downing of the advanced US F-18 jet, and the damaging of American aircraft carrier Harry Truman in the Red Sea and its escape to the north to prepare to leave the region, like its predecessors, the Eisenhower, the Lincoln, and many other naval destroyers.
The Yemeni military statements by Brigadier-General Yahya Saree in the past three days confirmed the bombing of Tel Aviv, Ashdod and Ashkelon deep inside Israel will continue as long as the extermination war on Gaza continues.
These statements were backed by the launch of more hypersonic missiles and drones in quick and direct responses to the Israeli threats, which means Yemen is not afraid and is responding in kind, has patience, and is ready to sacrifice.
Yemen has become the spearhead of the axis of resistance, and main front after the situation in Lebanon calmed down following the ceasefire agreement, and the commitment of the Islamic resistance there despite the violations. It is not unlikely that the Israeli occupation state, with American support, and perhaps Arab support as well, will present two main military options in the coming few days:
First: Going to the head of the octopus, i.e. Iran, as described by the Israelis, by launching an expanded tripartite Israeli-American-British attack to destroy it, according to the recommendation of Mossad Chief David Barnea as targeting Sana’a and Hodeidah again will not stop the Yemeni attacks with missiles and drones from reaching the occupied Palestinian depth.
Second: Repeating the Syrian scenario in Sana’a, i.e. an attempt to undermine and exhaust the Houthis by supporting the other Yemeni military groups and movements hostile to it by supplying them with modern weapons, providing air cover for their attacking forces, and mobilizing regional support for this step.
Launching a large tripartite aggression on Yemen may fail and give adverse results, and the same can be said about the expected attack on Iran, and it will be the occupying state and its military bases that may be exposed to bombing with thousands of ballistic and supersonic missiles, because the loss of the resistance axis of its last, most powerful and effective arena (Yemen) means its end and its Iranian leadership, and the creation of a new Middle East led by a “Greater Israel”.
However great Yemen will not surrender, and will not be defeated, as history tells of its victory over all previous invaders. Its steadfastness for more than eight years in the US-backed Gulf War against it confirms it will withstand any new Israeli-American-British targeting it, as its internal incubator is strong and solid and difficult to break due to the rallying of people around its leadership, which is embodied in the massive million-person demonstrations every Friday now for several months in solidarity with our people in the Gaza Strip.
Abdel Bari Atwan is the Chief Editor of Al Rai Al Youm
Katz: ‘We Killed Haniyeh’
- CrossFireArabia
- December 24, 2024
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz admitted, Monday, for the first time, it was Israel that was responsible for the assassination of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and it is Israel that participated in the overthrow of the former Syrian regime of Bashar Al Assad.
Katz’s remarks came during a ceremony held by his army after the Yemeni escalation against the Iraeli occupation.
Katz addressed Sanaa, saying: “We overthrew the Assad regime in Syria, we struck the axis, and we will strike Sanaa.”
He continued his threats, saying: “We will damage their strategic infrastructure and kill their leaders, just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon.”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced the martyrdom of the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in an assassination operation in Tehran, about five months ago, at dawn on 31 July, 2024.
The Israeli Maariv newspaper confirmed that the security and military establishments acknowledged their concern due to the escalation of the Yemeni threats. It described the Yemeni scene and structure as “very complex”, and that Yemen is not an “ordinary enemy,” according to JO24.
30 Israelis Injured as Yemeni Supersonic Missile Strikes Tel Aviv
- CrossFireArabia
- December 21, 2024
About 30 Israeli settlers were injured by a supersonic missile fired from Yemen that landed in Tel Aviv, early Saturday morning.
Israel’s Hebrew Radio said 30 Israelis were injured by a rocket fired from Yemen on Tel Aviv, while dozens panicked as they fled to underground shelters.
The missile is being described as a direct hit which the Israeli air defences such as David’s Sling and the Cardboard Dome failed to intercept as admitted by the Israeli army in much commentary on the social media
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee confirmed that attempts failed to stop the incoming ballistic missile and the impact activated the alarm bells across central Israel.
Meanwhile the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that ambulance teams transferred more than 20 injured settlers to the Wolfson and Ichilov hospitals after a rocket from Yemen fell in Tel Aviv as reported in Quds Press.
The Israeli police confirmed as well that “damage” occurred to a number of homes as a result of the rocket explosion in the Bnei Brak area to the east of Tel Aviv.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced, in a statement, that their fighters carried out “a military operation targeting a military site of the Israeli enemy in the occupied Jaffa area with a hypersonic ballistic missile.”
The announcement was made after the Houthis struck central and southern Israel with multiple drones on Friday and Thursday in response to the Israeli airstrikes on Sana’a and Al Hudaydah in Yemen.
Since the war on Gaza was launched soon after 7 October, 2023, the Houthis struck Israel with 200 missiles and more than 170 explosive drones.
‘Arab Spring’ Continues Withering
Saleem Ayoub Quna- December 14, 2024
By Saleem Ayoub Quna
After December 2010 when a desperate and angry Tunisian young man of the name of Mohammad Bouazizi, dramatically immolated himself, an unprecedented wave of mass protests against incumbent totalitarian regimes swept five Arab capitals: Tunisia, Cairo, Tripoli, Yemen and Damascus.
The simultaneous civic uprising in these countries was deceitfully baptized as the “Arab Spring”, which initially won the hearts of millions of Arabs. But it did not take long before the average Arab citizen started realizing that it was one thing to get rid of a dictator or topple a regime, and completely another thing to have a plan for the day after!
It was the same course of events in the five capitals except for Tunisia: Street demonstrations, clashes with police, havoc and death, under the watchful eyes of disguised outside interference and finally a forced humiliating departure, imprisonment or execution of the incumbent ruler and his entourage.
In Tunisia, the military sat on the fence! Consequently, the violence and loss of life was minimal there, while in the other four countries the toll was higher and kept rising until the end.
The last leg of the fake “Arab Spring” was Syria, where the clashes between the forces of the regime and the opposition groups, mostly of Islamic orientation, dragged on and gradually turned into open urban warfare.
Syria’s distorted model of the “Arab Spring” took nearly 14 years, simply because the regime, at a certain crucial turning point in 2015, resorted to outside direct support, namely from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.
Opposition groups in Syria and their sympathizers never forgot or forgave the brutal crackdown they were subjected to in the city of Hama back in 1982 by the Hafez Al-Assad’s regime.
Of course Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah’s response to help Assad’s regime in 2015, was not an act of charity. Each party had their own agenda and motivations; Iran sought to ascertain its regional clout, while continuing to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria and Iraq; Russia wanted to strengthen its foothold in Syria in a move to counter balance American encroaching measures in northern-eastern Syria, the oil rich land, where the latter supported the local Kurdish population.
Hezbollah was paying back the debt for the Syrian regime that facilitated the transfer of Iranian military hardware.
Today, Syrians are celebrating the end of the 53rd year of the rule of the Assad dynasty, except, maybe by a handful of them. As the saying goes: Loss and defeat are born orphans; victory and success gets many adopters!
The Syrian groups who took over from the previous regime are multiple in number and diverse in outlook; like an art work of a mosaic, from a distance, it looks picturesque and colorful, but from within and in detail, it clearly lacks coherence and chemistry.
As things stand now in Syria and its surroundings, there is not much room for optimism, despite the big change! Many outside players are gossiping about the future of this beleaguered country in ways that reveal that what they are doing is more than gossiping. They are working on concrete ideas and plans for the day after in Syria while, during the coffee breaks, they watch those who are dancing and chanting in the squares and streets of Damascus!
This opinion was especially written for Crossfire Arabia by Saleem Ayoub Quna who is a Jordanian author writing on local, regional and international affairs and has two books published. He has a BA in English Literature from Jordan University, a diploma from Paris and an MA from Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He also has working knowledge of French and German.
