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Netanyahu hints at major IDF campaign against Houthis

‘The Houthis will learn what Hamas and Hezbollah learned,’ says Israeli prime minister on the first night of Hanukkah.

By World Israel News Staff

Following a string of missile attacks on Israel by pro-Iranian Houthi rebels in Yemen, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that the IDF is poised to target the rebel group’s leadership, warning that it will suffer the same fate as Hamas and Hezbollah.

At an event in the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem Wednesday evening, marking the first night of Hanukkah, Netanyahu lit the Hanukkah candles together with PMO employees and senior officials, together with their children.

Also attending the lighting were Orna and Ronen Neutra, who met with the Prime Minister earlier in the day. They are the parents of Capt. Omer Neutra, an IDF Armored Corps officer who fell in the fighting in the Western Negev on October 7, 2023, and whose body was taken hostage by Hamas.

“Today we are lighting the first candle of Hanukkah to mark the victory of the Maccabees then, and also the victory of ‘the Maccabees of today,” Netanyahu said after the candle-lighting ceremony. “Like then, we are striking at our enemies, and those who thought they could cut the thread of our lives here then, this will apply to them all.”

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“The Houthis will also learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime and others have learned, and this will also take time. This lesson will be learned across the Middle East, I tell you, in those days at this season,” the premier said.

Netanyahu’s comments echoed similar warnings by Defense Minister Israel Katz (Likud), who said this week that Houthi leaders would suffer the same fate as late Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an Israeli operation in Iran.

“Just as we took care of Sinwar in Gaza, Haniyeh in Tehran and Nasrallah in Beirut, we will deal with the heads of the Houthis in Sana’a or anywhere in Yemen,” Katz said.