After more than 1,000 miles and almost three hours of flight times, the squadron of Israeli F-15s and F35s launched their missiles on Yemen's Hudaydah port, leaving in their wake a raging blaze and renewed fears of a Middle East engulfed by wider war.
Israel's retaliatory attack was meant as a fiery message to a terrorist group that hit Tel Aviv with a deadly drone strike the day before. But, experts say, Israel may have given the Houthi rebels the legitimacy they have long sought, leading them to escalate attacks on Israel and ships in the region.
Israel's attack Saturday evening, which killed six dockworkers and injured dozens, was the country's first strike on Yemeni territory. The drone strike from the Iran-backed Houthi militia, which controls wide swaths of Yemen and is allied with Hamas, managed to get through Israel's defenses and kill one civilian and wound at least 10.
If anything, Israel's strike is likely to further encourage the Houthis, said Hisham al Omeisy, a US-based Yemeni analyst. It could play into their often-repeated narrative of championing Muslims against the United States and Israel.
"The Houthis desperately wanted this direct confrontation to legitimize their claim of being in a fight with Israel," Omeisy said.
The group — part of a regional network of Iran-backed factions operating in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza — has been lobbing missiles and drones at Israel (almost all of which have been intercepted). It is demanding Israel end the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in the territory, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostage.
The Houthis have also repeatedly attacked ships transiting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, including those with no links to Israel. The US and Britain have launched multiple rounds of joint strikes on the Houthis over the shipping attacks.
Israel's strikes on Yemen destroyed storage tanks with more than 150,000 tons of fuel, along with a number of cranes and piers, said Mohammed Albasha, a senior Yemen expert at the US-based Navanti Group consulting firm.
Days later, fires still rage from the port, a crucial aid and fuel lifeline for Houthi-controlled areas of the country, where the majority of the country's 33 million people live. Though firefighters have yet to fully put out the flames in the port's fuel depot and power plant or clear debris from destroyed cranes, officials said Monday the port is operational.
In the hours after the strikes, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant characterized the hit as a message not only to the Houthis but to Israel's regional enemies.
"The fire that is currently burning in Hudaydah is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear," Gallant after the Israeli strike.
Yet it's a message the Houthis are unlikely to heed, experts say.
The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, the most powerful armed faction in Iran's so called Axis of Resistance, characterized Israel's strike as a "foolish step" that "heralds a new and dangerous phase of extremely important confrontation at the level of the entire region."
Israel has traded attacks with several groups in Iran's Axis, which also includes factions in Syria and Iraq, pushing the Middle East closer to an all-out war.
The expectation is that the Houthis, as well as their allies in other Iran-backed factions, will intensify their attacks both on Israel and in the Red Sea, utilizing more advanced Iranian-supplied weaponry than the group has possessed in the past, Albasha said.
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