The Yemeni people "are preparing for a long war with this enemy ["Israel"] until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted and the crimes committed by the Israeli enemy against the Palestinian people in Gaza are over."
These were Brigadier General Yahya Saree's words last week when Yemen declared Tel Aviv an unsafe zone threatened by the Yemeni Armed Forces' rockets in unrelenting support for the people of Gaza and occupied Palestine.
While Yemen reiterated its position and willingness to war with "Israel" consistently over the past 10 months, "Israel", in all its wicked foolishness, struck civilian infrastructure and massacred Yemeni civilians in Hodeidah.
For a militant entity that has known nothing but mega-lethality, coined reckless and uncalculated, "Israel" still gave Yemen a terrifying advantage: "Israel" does not know Yemeni stamina.
Helena Cobban, the author of a Mondoweiss op-ed dubbing Yemen "Saudi Arabia's Gaza", metaphors the siege both Gaza and Yemen suffered at the hands of two different entities, similar in brutality, and close by inherent allyship.
One could argue that "Israel" does not see Yemen as a macro-Gaza, because if it did, it would have looked back at the wars it lost against Gaza and decided to avoid yet another humiliating loss, this time overseas.
But the art of war is not "Israel's" strong suit. It relies on military power and gives its soldiers the green light to treat war like a videogame that kills innocent civilians from fortified positions without having to engage in actual warfare.
In Yemen, they are born with the ability to confront and deter their enemy. This is the product of years of war and violence. Since 2015, almost a decade ago, Yemen has been a killing field the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its United Arab Emirati partner, led and assisted by the United States [behind the scenes], tried to toy with.
Collectively, they carried out some of the bloodiest operations, Decisive Storm being the most notorious, murdering Yemenis in the thousands, blocking aid, and starving them. They recruited Yemeni anti-state fighters and deployed foreign mercenaries to do their work. They established espionage networks and collected intelligence and information to disrupt Yemeni stability. They tried to infiltrate Yemeni society and corrupt its subjects from the inside.
Over the past 10 months, the United States and the United Kingdom militarily joined the campaign against Yemen and have been targeting its assets by the Red Sea.
But look at Yemen now; does it appear to be corrupt? Have its people succumbed to the aggressors? Did the years of war and non-stop aggression break their spirit?
The answer is no.
For the longest time, "Israel" did not think its external threats could devastate its very being. Although it did acknowledge the feats its foes could impose, it rarely ever admitted to an actual loss.
Even when its occupation forces withdrew from the South of Lebanon during the liberation of 2000, crying and pleading with the people of Beirut to halt their attacks, "Israel" thought it could take on the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon again in 2006, and was defeated and forced out with its head down.
When Iran launched some 400 drones and missiles against occupied territories after "Israel" hastily bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the mighty Iron Dome was overwhelmed, leaving the occupation exposed and vulnerable. Even then, "Israel's" public relations machine rushed to conceal its defeat and claimed the Iron Dome deterred and confronted the attack.
When Iraq attacks vital targets in Eilat, Haifa, and Ashdod, or when Ansar Allah bomb the port of Eilat into bankruptcy and firmly assert their dominance in the Red and Arabian Seas, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean, what does the occupation government admit?
The occupation allows its arrogance and delusions to lead its forces. It is an entity that does not consider precedents or interests.
It is not in "Israel's" interests to war with Yemen, solely based on precedents against the Axis of Resistance.
It is not in "Israel's" interests to war with Yemen, because its government is in shambles, its people are rioting, its soldiers refuse to serve, and its settlers fled in millions to Ben Gurion Airport at the first sign of conflict, while Yemenis flooded Sanaa in millions calling for escalation against the Zionist regime.
It is not in "Israel's" interests to war with Yemen, because it is a battle of millions. Millions of Israeli settlers abandon and betray their "country", while millions of Yemenis stay rooted in Sanaa and Hodeidah and every other area subjected to foreign aggression, daggers in, prepped for battle.
Say "Israel", a crazed militant entity, that boasts its nuclear power against what it claims are the "modest capabilities" of Yemen, deludes itself into war with Yemen. What would happen then?
"Israel" might threaten to nuke Yemen and any other country that comes to its support.
The United States, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE might lend a helping hand. They would also invoke mass suffering and target innocents to break the leadership's will to fight.
They would risk war against Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. They could send the world into a frenzy by igniting a regional war.
But in the current state of the world, and an unsurprising turn of events, they would not. The scenario has been considered multiple times over the past few years, but never tried. "Israel's" allies, unlike their illegal military vassal regime in the Middle East, acknowledge their interests, to a certain extent.
Isn't that why they pulled out their forces from the Red Sea? Or why they scour to plead with the Axis of Resistance to not escalate their operations against the occupation? Or why they switch up on "Israel" and call for an immediate ceasefire and the cessation of all operations?
"Israel" is therefore left in limbo, between wanting to restore its pride and facing an inevitable defeat, and encounters another defining loss to add to its embarrassing war archive.