By Michael Lipin-VOA

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi terror group appears to be well-positioned to shield its leaders from retaliatory strikes recently threatened by Israel, international researchers said.

Israel also faces its own challenges in potentially engaging in long-distance targeting of Houthi leaders, but those researchers say the Israeli threat to Houthi rule is likely to grow in the future.

Israel has carried out five long-distance airstrikes on Houthi infrastructure and other targets in Yemen since last July, in retaliation for the Houthis firing hundreds of drones and missiles as part of an Iranian proxy war launched against Israel in October 2023.

The Biden administration had labeled the Houthis a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization last January, citing their use of missiles supplied by Iran to attack Red Sea shipping. President Donald Trump, who took office this week, signed an order on Wednesday starting a monthlong process of further penalizing the Houthis with a designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

After Israel’s latest Yemen strike on Jan. 10, Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a videotaped warning to Houthi leaders, saying Israel will “hunt you down” – repeating a threat that he first made last month to “decapitate” the Houthi leadership. Houthi leader Abdul-Malek al-Houthi issued a defiant videotaped message of his own on Monday, saying his militia will monitor an Israel-Hamas ceasefire that took effect a day earlier in Gaza and “escalate” conflict with Israel “if (it) breaches” the deal.

The Houthi leader is known for being elusive and issuing videotaped statements from undisclosed locations.

Mohammed Albasha, a Yemeni American former journalist and founder of U.S.-based consultancy Basha Report that specializes in Middle East and North Africa risk assessments, said that he has not observed any public meetings involving al-Houthi in Yemen since 2015. That is when a Saudi-led coalition began an offensive to try to oust the Houthis from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, which the militia stormed into the year before.