Ever since Hamas launched its unprecedented cross-border assault on southern Israel nearly three years ago, Israelis have been acutely alert to the prospect of another surprise incursion along its borders.

In the immediate aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, attention turned to Hezbollah on the northern border, but recent comments have now raised fears that the most potent threat may actually be a more distant and possibly underestimated adversary: the Houthis in Yemen.

According to several unnamed security sources cited in a Haaretz report last month, Shin Bet chief David Zini warned behind closed doors that the southern resort city of Eilat could be the target of a potential large-scale attack resembling the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 were killed and 251 were kidnapped into Gaza.

According to the Haaretz report, Zini ordered several senior officials in the Shin Bet to give top priority to preparations for defending against a coordinated land invasion and attack by several terror groups, with the participation of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, either from Jordanian territory or by sea.

The Iranian terror proxy — whose slogan calls for “Death to America, Death to Israel, [and] a Curse on the Jews” — is based some 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) from Israel, but that hasn’t stopped it from targeting Israel in the past. Yet, while the Houthis have fired missiles and drones at Eilat and launched attacks on ships in the Red Sea, disrupting maritime trade routes, the group has never attempted land or sea incursions on Israeli territory. While it is questionable whether the group can mount a significant assault so far from home, analysts say there is little doubt that it has the will to do so.

Situated on the Red Sea and hours away from any other major Israeli town, Eilat is also the closest city to the Houthis’ home base and a likely point of entry, making the area particularly vulnerable, some fear.

According to officials cited by Haaretz, the Shin Bet chief had deemed the Eilat area a security weak spot due to its relative isolation.

While the IDF’s Yoav Regional Brigade, under Southern Command, is responsible for defending the sparsely populated stretch between the Dead Sea and Eilat, the city’s distance from the military’s major ground formations could slow the arrival of reinforcements in the event of a large-scale surprise attack. Ground forces would largely have to travel south through the Negev along a limited number of highways, namely Route 90 and Route 12, before reaching the city.

What the Eilat area does have is the Israeli Air Force’s Ovda Airbase and the Israeli Navy’s Eilat Naval Base, providing significant air and maritime capabilities. However, fighter jets and corvettes may have limited effectiveness against stealthy guerrilla invaders.

The IDF regularly holds military exercises in the Eilat area, most recently on June 23. An army spokesman told The Times of Israel that the drill was a routine exercise and not prompted by Zini’s warnings, while emphasizing that “Israel is always prepared on all fronts.”

Meanwhile, the city’s Yoseftal Medical Center, the only hospital at Israel’s southernmost tip, has reportedly been temporarily reinforcing its staff with medical professionals from other areas of Israel in preparation for a potential future mass-casualty incident.

“Due to the lack of health infrastructure, the lack of medical personnel, and the large evacuation distances, we created a unique plan for the city of Eilat as early as the start of [the war in Gaza], which is regulated by reinforcing capabilities — both of Yoseftal and all surrounding hospitals — in order to provide the best possible response to the wounded,” Dr. Sigal Lieberant, head of the Health Ministry’s General Medicine Division, told reporters in March, according to Ynet news.

However, the measures are more likely tied to missile and drone attacks that have rocked Eilat in the past, most recently in March, when an Iranian missile with a cluster bomb warhead struck the city and injured three.

Security sources cited in the Haaretz report cast doubt on the likelihood of a ground assault, with one telling the outlet that “no one in the security establishment knows what intelligence [Zini] is relying on.”

But some experts believe that Zini’s reported concerns are not unfounded.

Ari Heistein, a Yemen affairs expert based in Israel, told The Times of Israel that the possibility of a Houthi incursion should not be dismissed out of hand.

“We should not rule out a [Houthi] multidomain attack combining air, land and sea, along the lines of what Hamas launched on October 7,” said Heistein, a research fellow at the Jerusalem........

© The Times of Israel