“Today, when the Houthi terrorist organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to start my remarks with a clear message to them: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded and damaged Iran’s defense systems. Production systems, we have destroyed in Syria We have destroyed the Assad regime, we have dealt a serious blow to the axis of evil, and we will also deal a serious blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, which is on its last stand. Katz said.
Israel will “damage their strategic infrastructure, and we will cut off the heads of their leaders – as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon – we will do in Hodeidah and Sana’a,” Katz said at the evening’s tribute. Employees of the Ministry of Defence.
Iran-backed groups in Yemen have been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Israel’s years-long war in Gaza.
In late July, the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas was killed in Tehran in an assassination that Iranian authorities blamed on Israel. At the time, Israel did not directly claim responsibility for Haniyah’s murder.
Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, became the face of Hamas’s international diplomacy as the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel escalated as the war in Gaza escalated. He was participating in internationally mediated indirect negotiations for a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.
Months later, Israeli forces in Gaza killed Haniyeh’s successor and mastermind Yahya Sinwar on October 7, 2023, sparking the latest bloodbath in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.