According to Steven Carol, in light of Yemeni military humiliation in the battle for Great Hanish island, the proposed allegation of Israeli involvement may have been nothing more than an attempt of Yemen to "save some face".
In 1996, Brian Whitaker (1996) and Carol (2012) suggest that apart from the overt casus belli (that the war was initiated to establish facts on the ground), three other reasons had been proposed for the attack by the Eritreans on the island.