TEL AVIV, Israel>> The rockets from Gaza mostly have fallen silent. A ceasefire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon has taken hold. But repeated fire from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a faraway foe, is proving a stubborn threat for Israel.

The Iran-backed Houthis are increasing their missile attacks, sending hundreds of thousands of Israelis scrambling for shelter in the middle of the night, scaring away foreign airlines and keeping up what could be the last major front in the Middle East wars.

“It’s like musical chairs,” said Yoni Yovel, 31, who left the northern Israeli city of Haifa late last year to avoid rocket fire from Hezbollah only to see his apartment in Tel Aviv’s Jaffa neighborhood heavily damaged by a Houthi missile.

Israel repeatedly has bombarded ports, oil infrastructure and the airport in the Houthi-held capital Sana, some 1,200 miles away. Israeli leaders have threatened to kill central Houthi figures and have tried to galvanize the world against the threat.

But the Houthis persist. In recent weeks, missiles and drones from Yemen have struck nearly every day, including early Friday morning, setting off air raid sirens in broad swaths of Israel. In some cases, the projectiles have penetrated Israel’s sophisticated aerial defense system, most recently toppling an empty school and shattering the windows of apartments near an empty playground where one missile landed.

Because most missiles are intercepted and because the fire is usually a single missile at a time, the strikes have not caused major physical damage, although a few attacks have been fatal during the 15-month war in Gaza as the Houthis attack in solidarity with Hamas.

But the rocket fire is posing a threat to Israel’s economy, keeping many foreign airlines away and preventing the country from jump-starting its hard-hit tourism industry.

Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea have all but shuttered an Israeli port in the city of Eilat and have prompted ships destined for it to take a longer, more costly route around Africa to Israel’s Mediterranean ports.

The Houthi strikes are also a symbolic reminder for Israel of the Iranian-backed enemies that encircle it, known as the “Axis of Resistance,” and the last major holdout. And because Israel’s counterstrikes have yet to deter the Houthis, their persistent attacks defy Israel’s image as a regional military powerhouse.

“They are the only ones who are active now,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank. The Houthis, he said, “are a challenge of a different kind.”