From Hadramout to Sudan and Across the Red Sea: Israel’s Expanding Reach
By: Ambassador Rashad Faraj Al-Tayeb
Researcher in Geopolitical Transformations
Israel’s public praise of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council’s takeover of Wadi Hadramout was neither incidental nor neutral. It openly revealed an integrated regional project extending beyond Yemen into the Red Sea, the Horn of Africa, and Sudan, implemented through regional actors and local proxies.
The remarks of Israeli analyst Avi Avidan—describing the operation as “Emirati brilliance” and a “strategic success”—were not personal commentary but a political disclosure.
His references to the seizure of Seiyun, control of vital facilities, and Yemen’s largest oil reserves indicate a deliberate redistribution of Yemeni sovereignty outside any national framework, serving regional agendas unrelated to Yemeni interests.
More revealing was his reference to a “pincer strategy,” beginning in Socotra as an advanced joint intelligence platform, extending through Aden and reaching Hadramout. This geographic-security encirclement is designed to suppress any independent Yemeni force capable of exercising sovereign decision-making or influencing Red Sea and Gulf of Aden security.
Avidan also acknowledged Israel’s direct military role in the Red Sea since 2023, asserting control of air and sea space and framing Israeli and allied naval forces as a barrier to Iranian weapons.
His claim of protecting a major share of global shipping reflects a long-standing Israeli ambition to transform the Red Sea into a security zone managed from outside the region.
His portrayal of Sana’a as besieged and deprived of resources exposes a strategy of economic warfare aimed at exhausting political will and preventing the emergence of a unified Yemeni state. Politically, his praise for building a “secular southern fortress” through the arming of tens of thousands of STC fighters—presented as a forward defense line for Israel—confirms the functional integration of this entity into Israel’s regional security architecture, reinforced by pledges to join the Abraham Accords.
The timing of these statements is critical.
They followed the 9 December trilateral meeting in Tehran among Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China, which affirmed that Yemen’s crisis requires a comprehensive political solution grounded in sovereignty and unity.
The simultaneous acceleration of Emirati moves in Hadramout signals an attempt to obstruct any settlement that could reunify Yemeni decision-making and end the proxy phase.
Accordingly, the Emirati action in Hadramout cannot be seen as an internal Yemeni dispute. It is part of a broader strategy aligned with Israel’s Red Sea security vision, which views the disruption of peace as a strategic necessity.
Israel does not fear a fragmented Yemen; it fears a unified and stable one capable of influencing Red Sea security.
The implications extend beyond Yemen. Sudan’s Red Sea coastline represents a sensitive flank where chaos and proxy dynamics weaken the emergence of a strong national state.
The same logic applies to the Horn of Africa, where foreign-managed ports, military bases, and intelligence networks dominate a space governed by fragmentation rather than stability.
Ultimately, the danger lies not only in military movements, but in a doctrine that treats the obstruction of peace as an achievement and the dismantling of Arab states as a prerequisite for reshaping the region.
What is unfolding from Hadramout to Sudan, and across the Red Sea, is a single interconnected project—one that redefines security away from the interests of the region’s peoples.
Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=9573