Israel’s first attack on Yemen – what happens next?

Residents of the Yemeni city of Hodeidah woke up last Sunday to plumes of black smoke filling the sky. Israel had just struck the port, a main artery for the city, killing nine people and injuring more than 80 in the attack on a fuel depot. The strike came a day after a Houthi drone hit Tel Aviv, killing one person.
For months the international community has been warning against further spillovers from the war in Gaza. The Houthis have routinely launched drone strikes at southern Israel and have attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea. At the same time, Israel is engaged in cross-border attacks with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and has also launched attacks on Syria.
But the strike on Hodeidah was the first time Israel hit Yemen directly, marking a major escalation between Israel and the Houthis.
In this week’s Beyond the Headlines, Nada AlTaher hosts a discussion with Abdul Ghani Al-Iryani, senior researcher at the Sana’a Centre for Strategic Studies, and Kobi Michael, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, and asks, will the latest attacks provoke a full-scale war in the region?