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Israel faced growing pressure Sunday to scale back its relentless military campaign against Hamas while American warships once again clashed with Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, as the U.S. and its allies raced to contain multiple interconnected conflicts raging across the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin traveled to Israel over the weekend and privately pressed the government to more precisely define its goals in the Gaza Strip and to offer clear metrics for how and when it can shift to the next phase of the campaign.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and German Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock publicly called for a “sustainable cease-fire” in the Israel-Hamas war. They underscored the rapidly rising global sentiment that it is time for Israel to change course. That sentiment strengthened after Israeli troops mistakenly killed three Hamas-held hostages in Gaza on Friday.
The U.S. and its allies also must contend with escalation elsewhere in the region. An American warship on Saturday shot down 14 attack drones launched by Houthi forces operating in Yemen, Pentagon officials said, marking yet another direct clash between U.S. troops and the Iran-backed rebel group.
The Houthis have launched repeated missile and drone attacks at Israel in the months since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. U.S. warships have intercepted those Houthi attacks multiple times. An American ship came under direct fire from Houthi forces at least once. The Houthis also shot down a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone operating in international airspace off the coast of Yemen.
The downing of the drones on Saturday was especially significant because Mr. Austin arrived in the region. After visiting Israel, Mr. Austin will travel to Bahrain to discuss efforts to stop the Houthi attacks, which pose threats to Israel and the U.S. and international shipping vessels in the densely crowded waterways of the Persian Gulf.
The Houthi attacks have grown more common and more brazen as Israel’s campaign in Gaza drags on. The pressure to wind down that campaign is nearing a fever pitch after the hostage deaths.
The three hostages were reportedly shirtless and waving a white flag when they were shot by Israel Defense Forces personnel.
Israeli officials have publicly apologized for the incident and stressed the chaotic, violent circumstances on the ground in Gaza. Still, the incident has given more fuel to critics who say it’s time for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adjust his approach, with civilian casualties rising each day and unclear metrics for a clear victory.
Calls for a cease-fire are rising and coming from more prominent voices. On Sunday, Mr. Cameron and Ms. Baerbock penned a joint op-ed for The Sunday Times of London calling for a cessation of hostilities.
“Our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today. It must be peace lasting for days, years, generations,” the two European officials said. “We therefore support a cease-fire, but only if it is sustainable.”
Mr. Netanyahu rejected such calls. He said the deaths of the three hostages “broke the hearts of the nation,” but he stressed that now is not the time to end Israel’s war on Hamas.
“We are fighting for our existence, and we have to continue until victory,” he said Sunday, according to The Times of Israel.
U.S. officials also are becoming more vocal about a change in Israel’s approach.
“We do have unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties. We see very loose rules of engagement — way looser than anything the United States would exercise,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland Democrat, told ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday.
He said the U.S. has a vested interest in the issue because of its strong alliance with Israel and because it is providing direct military aid to the Israeli war effort in Gaza.
“We are with them entirely in the objective of ending the military threat [from Hamas]. But again, we need to make sure that our values are reflected in this so long as we are providing all of this equipment,” Mr. Van Hollen said.
Mr. Austin privately conveyed a similar message to Israeli military officials, though the Pentagon has been careful not to publicly second-guess Israel’s strategy in its counteroffensive against Hamas.
Mr. Austin and his regional counterparts also must contend with the intensifying Houthi threat. During the incident on Saturday, U.S. Central Command said the USS Carney in the Red Sea “successfully engaged 14 unmanned aerial systems launched as a drone wave from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.”
“The UAS were assessed to be one-way attack drones and were shot down with no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries. Regional Red Sea partners were alerted to the threat,” CENTCOM said in a statement on social media.
The White House has accused the Houthis of reckless behavior that could spark a wider war, though the U.S. has opted against direct strikes on Houthi targets inside Yemen. Such a move could escalate the Middle East conflict and derail intensive United Nations-backed peace talks aimed at ending Yemen’s long-running civil war.
Analysts warn that the Houthis have little incentive to stop their attacks. The group is widely seen as even more unpredictable than other Iran-backed outfits in the region, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Shiite militias that have repeatedly targeted U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.
“What’s different about the Houthis is, they don’t have to be careful,” Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who closely tracks Iran-linked militias, told The Washington Times recently.
“The Houthis are just sitting there in Yemen, much farther away than Lebanese Hezbollah is from Israel,” Mr. Knights said. “They’ve been bombed for the last eight, nine years. They have a very high pain threshold. All their leadership is extremely well hidden so the Saudis couldn’t assassinate them during the war. They’re locked down. And they’re actually much more ideologically pure and determined than Lebanese Hezbollah or the militias” backed by Iran.
Mr. Knights described the Houthis as the true “hard-liners” of the Iranian axis of resistance across the Middle East. He said the group has “less to lose” and is “more crazy” than other actors threatening the U.S. and Israel.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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