A big week ahead: Netanyahu in congress, Houthi strike fans fears of regional conflagration, Paris Olympics

Dear readers,

We have a big week ahead of us. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his way to Washington to meet — now outgoing — President Joe Biden, who announced on Sunday he’s standing down as the Democrats’ candidate in November’s Presidential election. They’re expected to discuss the war in Gaza and « cooperation » for the release of hostages. On Wednesday, Netanyahu will give a speech in Congress where he’ll likely push back on criticism from Democrats about how he’s conducted the war. Plus, he’ll seek further support for what he describes as a « war on seven fronts » funded and supported by Iran: Gaza, Lebanon, Iranian-backed proxies in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen ; the West Bank and inside Israel.

And on the eve of this important week, concerns about a regional conflagration were renewed once again with a strike by the Yemeni Houthi rebel group on Tel Aviv — and subsequent Israeli retaliation on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah — prompting some to ponder if the Iranian-backed proxy is taking a new strategy in the war.

Is Yemen set to replace southern Lebanon ?

That’s the question Mounir Rabih raised in his latest article for L’Orient Today. He’s been exploring if the Houthis’ strike on Tel Aviv, which killed one man and injured several others, could be a sign that the Yemeni rebel group may seek to expand their role, to support Hezbollah who have held a ‘front of support’ on Lebanon’s southern border in solidarity with Hamas, since Oct. 8.

The Houthis’ strike is unprecedented: the first to be launched from Yemen, traveling nearly 2,000 kilometers to hit the economic center of Israel all without triggering warning sirens or Israel’s lauded Iron Dome missile defense system. It came after the Israeli army killed Jaafar Maatouk, a Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, said to have led operations for the party’s elite Radwan Forces, injuring about twenty civilians. Read more about what we know about the Israeli strike on Jmaijmeh here.

As Mounir Rabih writes, these simultaneous operations confirm the military coordination and ‘unity of the fronts of the 'Axis of Resistance' and, on the eve of Netanyahu's trip to the United States, send the following message to Israel (and the U.S.): A greater escalation against Hezbollah would ignite the entire region and its consequences would not be confined to Lebanon.

The Houthi strike also prompted an unprecedented response by Israel, which chose, for the first time since Oct. 7, to conduct its own operation on the strategic port of Hodeida, held by the Houthi rebels. The port, now engulfed in flames that could take several days to extinguish, is seen by Israel as the main supply route for Iran to deliver weapons to the Houthis. Nicholas Brumfeld, a Yemen researcher from the Washington-based Foreign Policy Research Institute warned the strike could endanger Yemenis who receive humanitarian aid through the vital port. Six people were killed and around one hundred were injured by the strike, according to the group. Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant promptly declared that the fires in Yemen could very well spread to the rest of the Middle East.

Paris Olympics

It’s also a big week for world sports because, on Sunday, millions will tune in for the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris. Ahead of the opening ceremony, the Olympic flame has been making its way through France, and on Sunday, it was carried by Christina Assi, a Lebanese photographer for AFP who was seriously injured while reporting from southern Lebanon in October 2023 with the help of her American colleague Dylan Collins, who was also injured in the strike. The 29-year-old was the victim of shellfire from an Israeli tank that, according to an in-depth investigation by AFP, killed Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injured the six other journalists present. Read more here.

Resistance through music

While some other festivals in Lebanon postponed their editions for this year due to the war in Gaza and conflict in southern Lebanon, the Byblos Festival vowed to keep its line-up as a form of ‘cultural resistance.’ And no band could better fit the bill than Cairokee, ‘idols of disillusioned Arab Youth,’ as Emmanuel Haddad puts it. The Egyptian rock band known for their politically pointed songs performed for the first time in Lebanon on the maritime stage of the Byblos festival, « saying out loud what we think but can't necessarily say » as one festival goer described. Read Emmanuel Haddad’s review here.

Thank you for your support of L’Orient Today. If you have any feedback or questions, I’d love to hear from you. Write to me at: editor@lorientlejour.com.

Very best,

Olivia Le Poidevin

Head of L’Orient Today