Israel Feels Fallout of Trump’s Ceasefire with Houthis

President Trump’s ceasefire with the Houthi militant group in Yemen appears to be holding. But that hasn’t stopped the Houthis from continually lobbing missiles at Israel, the United States’ most important Middle East ally.

The Houthis late Thursday night launched another ballistic missile at Israel — which Israeli air defenses successfully intercepted — marking the Houthis’ sixth attempted attack in a week. It came days after Israel carried out its own airstrike against Houthi territory in Yemen.

The attacks show how the Houthis are emerging as one of the most resilient Iran-backed militant groups in the region following a prolonged conflict that has seen Israel destroy a large part of Hamas and Hezbollah’s military power. But the ongoing Houthi attacks also lay bare how Israel was left out of Trump’s ceasefire deal with the Yemeni militants — a fact that could put the staunchly pro-Israel administration under new pressure to respond if the Houthi attacks escalate.

“Israel is not immune to America First foreign policy,” a former Trump administration official who worked on Middle East issues told NatSec Daily. “And this was an America First negotiation.”

Some pro-Israel groups have bridled at the Trump administration’s decision to strike a deal with the Houthis that didn’t include conditions on halting attacks on Israel. Leaving Israel out “suggests there’s daylight or divergence between the United States and Israel, which is always something Iran seeks to exploit,” said Blaise Misztal of the Jewish Institute for National Security, a nonprofit advocacy group.

But administration insiders, including the former official and one current official who we granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal deliberations, defended the Trump administration’s decision. They argued that the Houthis would never halt attacks on Israel and that the administration simply took the least bad option it had available: Stop expending significant military resources and high-end munitions on a fight that had no end in sight.

And, these people argued to us, the administration will use its resources better by focusing on tackling the root causes of the Houthi attacks. That includes a final ceasefire in Gaza and a deal with Iran, the Houthis’ prime military backers, over its nuclear program. The Houthis have justified their attacks against Israel as a response to Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza. The militant group halted its missile attacks briefly during an Israel-Hamas ceasefire in January, then launched them again in March when Israel resumed its Gaza operations.

“The Houthis will continue these attacks to establish their jihadi street cred and axis of resistance street cred against Israel,” said the former Trump administration official. “Everyone has tried to take on the Houthis militarily for a decade. And everyone has failed.”

Spokespeople for the National Security Council and Israeli embassy in Washington didn’t respond to NatSec Daily’s request for comment.

Still, the ongoing attacks may only serve to embolden the Houthis and bring them new resources, recruits and military prestige if left unchecked, other analysts warned.

“From a Houthi perspective, they’re demonstrating not only ‘You can go toe to toe with the United States and emerge,’ but ‘You can continue taking potshots at the most powerful military force in the Middle East and still be standing,’” said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. That, he argued, “gives them tremendous credibility.”