Escalation

On August 22, a Houthi missile strike against Israel had used cluster munitions. This was an unprecedented escalation that posed a more serious threat than the many earlier attacks on Israeli territory, given the lasting risks of injury and death from the dispersed bomblets of this type of internationally banned weaponry.

Although there was prompt Israeli retaliation against Sana’a two days later, with attacks on the Presidential Palace, a power station, and other facilities, the Israelis clearly wanted to escalate their response further. Another factor prompting them to act seems to have been the accidental discovery of the time and location of the meeting.

There had previously been a reduction in the number of attacks by the Houthis that was linked to the numerous air strikes against their military facilities carried out by Israel as well as the US bombing campaign that lasted fifty-two days earlier this year. Yemen’s Internationally Recognized Government (IRG), which does not actually govern most of the country’s territory or people, also managed to intercept a number of land and sea shipments of incoming munitions.

There were no attacks at all on Red Sea shipping between November 2024 and July 2025. However, the Houthis ended the lull at this point by sinking two ships in as many days. They intended this to serve as a warning of their determination to react to the intensification of the Israeli genocide in Gaza as well as the worsening financial and economic pressure to which they had been subjected by their opponents.

The resumption of the attacks on shipping has demonstrated that the Houthis remain a significant military force, in contrast with the other elements of the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” that have suffered profound damage from Israeli military actions. After the assassinations of the cabinet members in Sana’a, the Houthis stepped up the tempo of their campaign.

On September 1, they attacked a ship off the Saudi coast, well beyond their usual area of operations. On September 7, they fired a large number of missiles against Israel, at least one of which got through Israeli defenses, hitting Ramon airport in the south of the country, a rare successful strike.

Further missile launches are taking place almost daily, regardless of Israeli threats and air strikes, including a particularly savage one on September 10 that killed thirty-five people and wounded more than one hundred in Sana’a city and Al Jawf governorate. Previous Israeli attacks targeted Red Sea ports, major power stations, and other civilian infrastructure. The August 28 attack directly and explicitly targeted mostly civilian personnel.

Targeting Yemen

Israeli spy networks and technology previously failed to penetrate the Houthi movement in the way they clearly managed to do when dealing with their opponents in Lebanon and Iran. However, recent events indicate that they have access to information, as demonstrated by the attack on the cabinet and an earlier attempt in June to kill the Houthi chief of staff, Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Ghamari, in Sana’a.

In the past, Yemen and the Houthis were not Israeli intelligence priorities in comparison with Lebanon, Syria, or Iran, but this has now changed. In July, Israel established a special unit of two hundred operatives devoted to gathering information about the Houthis, one that operates with the participation of CENTCOM, the US military command in the Middle East.

As well as their own sophisticated satellite and electronic cyber-surveillance technology, the Israeli intelligence services can draw on ground-level information that reaches them indirectly from local sources, obtained via intelligence agencies of the United Arab Emirates operating in Yemen.

However, the Houthis have vowed to carry on with their campaign against Israel, and it looks as if they will have the technical ability to do so. Should they begin to suffer any shortage of sophisticated ammunition requiring imported advanced parts, they can compensate for it by using technologically simpler means.

For the twenty million or so Yemenis living under Houthi rule, this situation will lead to worsening insecurity and tension. The atmosphere of suspicion and distrust in Sana’a will intensify, even among Ansar Allah’s first- and second-rank leadership teams. Already seriously affected by reduced humanitarian and other international support, the Ansar Allah regime is now lashing out.

By August 31, the movement had already made a series of arrests in Sana’a. Within days, it had detained nineteen UN humanitarian agency staff members, including one international staff member, on suspicion of having direct relations with foreign states. This came after earlier arrests last year of humanitarian workers, who still remain in detention. The latest Israeli attacks terminated recent hopes that many of those detainees might be released on the occasion of the Prophet’s birthday.

Revealing Silences

The deafening silence from the IRG about the attack on Sana’a reveals the satisfaction of its members at what Israel has done. However, this satisfaction further undermines the credibility of an entity that is already largely discredited.

Major General Faisal Rajab, a respected southern figure who the Houthis imprisoned for years, was an isolated voice warning the opponents of the movement not to celebrate the bombing: “Anyone who rejoices over what happened in Sana’a must review his faith and Yemeni identity.” This argument is far more in tune with popular perceptions than the IRG’s stance.

While Yemenis are increasingly fearful at the prospect of more savage and indiscriminate Israeli attacks, strong support for the Palestinian people remains the dominant feeling throughout the country. Moreover, regardless of one’s politics, those killed were Yemeni citizens, even if they were working with the Houthis, and their loss at the hands of Israel touches all Yemenis.

International reactions to the assassinations were limited to the predictably strong condemnation by Iran and its allies. The UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg issued a strong statement on the arrest of UN staff, but a weak one after the Israeli strikes. The Gulf states remained silent, in contrast with the outrage they later rightly expressed after the Israeli bombing of Qatar on September 9. The same can be said of European leaders.

In view of the collusion (at the very least) of the United States with all Israeli actions, other US allies in the Gulf — Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in particular — should be wary. After all, Israel has previously carried out assassinations on supposedly sovereign Emirati territory, admittedly before the increasingly close alliance between the two states in recent years.

Israel is acting with complete impunity and without any constraints throughout the region, regardless of international law and with the full support of the Trump administration. It is worth noting, however, that Trump ended the bombing of Houthi-controlled Yemen earlier this year without consulting or even informing Israel, just before his rapacious visit to the three wealthiest Gulf states.

Indeed, Israel opposed this move by Trump and even asked the United States to restart its air strikes in July. US bombing of Yemen has not resumed to date in spite of the renewed Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, whose termination was the main official justification Trump gave for ending the US campaign.

In reality, Trump interrupted the campaign for two reasons: first, his forthcoming trip to the Gulf, during when it would have been embarrassing for the United States to be involved in bombing of a neighbouring Arab state, and second, US military opposition to a futile and expensive operation that depleted forces from the East Asia sector and showed no prospect of victory.

Change and Continuity

Regardless of its apparent symbolic importance, the assassination of Ansar Allah’s ministers was not as politically significant as it might have seemed to be at first sight. It did not amount to the decapitation of the Houthi movement, since the official Government of Change and Reconciliation in Sana’a is not the real power in the area under the authority of the Houthi movement.

Within Ansar Allah, power resides in a group of men — definitely no women, given the movement’s misogyny — who are closest to “revolution leader” Abdul Malik al-Houthi, and extends to the small Supreme Political Council that this group dominates. Within this framework, the prime minister and his colleagues are little more than clerks guided by Ansar Allah instructions as well as the presence of loyalist “supervisors” throughout the administration.

The main role of the government ministers has been to provide a diverse front for the Houthis. Their ranks have included members of emasculated political parties, kept on board simply as figureheads, whose role is merely to implement policies in whose elaboration they had no role. Their replacement by new figureheads is unlikely to have any policy or strategic impact on Houthi rule.

The many difficulties faced by Yemenis continue to worsen. Increased food insecurity is at its worst in the areas under Houthi control, where the diminishing supply of international humanitarian support is mostly absent. On September 10, the significantly reduced UN humanitarian response plan was only financed at 18 percent of the necessary level, with most of that inadequate sum going to IRG-controlled areas of Yemen.

For ordinary people, the designation of the Houthi movement as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” and the various sanctions imposed by the United States will worsen levels of poverty and deprivation through their impact on the flow of remittances. In addition, further indiscriminate Israeli bombings will kill and wound people as well as causing anxiety and terror for young and old alike.