Israeli media reported on the failure of air defenses to intercept the missile that was launched from Yemen towards the Jaffa region at dawn on Saturday, and talked about an intelligence problem that Israel is suffering from with the Houthi group.

The missile - which the occupation forces' defenses failed to detect and deal with - caused the injury of 30 Israelis, while the army opened an investigation into the reasons for this failure.

According to Channel 12, the Houthis have launched 270 Palestia missiles and 170 drones towards Israel since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.

The Houthis were not a top priority for the Israeli intelligence services before this war, according to former Shin Bet official Shalom Ben Hanan.

Intelligence problem

From this standpoint, Israel suffers from an intelligence problem with the Houthis, in addition to the problem of targets with them because they were not a target for it before the last war, according to what Yossi Yehoshua, a military affairs analyst in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, said.

Israel's focus on other fronts - such as Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran - was the reason for the lack of interest in the Houthis or their study, according to Yehoshua's expression.

The latest missile represents a major event for the small state of Israel, according to Yehoshua, who pointed out the difficulty of obtaining intelligence information at the present time.

Even when Israel launches attacks on the Houthis, they respond with other attacks and say they will continue to do so, Yehoshua says.

In view of these facts, Tamir Hayman (head of the Institute for Security Research in Tel Aviv) believes that Israel should “deal with the Houthis as a state, and think about striking them on this basis because they are present everywhere in northern Yemen.”

They must be struck as a country

The Houthis, according to Hayman, have weapons manufacturing centers, warehouses, a command and control system, a chief of staff, commanders, and a hierarchy of command, “which means they are a complete army and must be dealt with from this standpoint.”

Earlier today, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said that his forces "bombed a military target in occupied Jaffa with a hypersonic ballistic missile." He added that this bombing comes in response to the occupation massacres in Gaza and the Israeli aggression against Yemen.

At dawn last Thursday, Israel launched air strikes on facilities in the capital, Sanaa, and Hodeidah. The occupation army announced that it attacked what it called Houthi military targets in Yemen, including ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa.

Source: Al Jazeera