At least 12 senior Houthi figures were killed in Israel Air Force airstrikes on Sanaa last week, the military confirmed on Thursday, publishing the aerial photo of the location where they were struck.
This marked the first time Israel publicly succeeded at killing any of the group's senior leaders.
Shortly after the incident, the Houthi Supreme Political Council head, Mahdi al-Mashat, confirmed that the IAF airstrikes successfully killed Houthi Prime Minister Ahmad Ghalib al-Rahawi along wth other ministers.
At the same time, Israel's Army Radio cited security sources that eight other senior Houthi officials were killed in the strikes.
The other 11 ministers killed include culture and tourism minister Ali Qasem Hussein al-Yafe'i, foreign affairs minister Jamal Ahmed Ali Amer, information minister Hashem Ahmed Abdulrahman Sharaf al-Din, justice minister Mujahid Ahmed Abdullah Ali, as well as government chief of staff Mohammed al-Qubaisi, and cabinet secretary Zahad al-Amadi.
Also killed were welfare and labor minister Samir Mohammed Ahmed Baja'alah, youth and sports minister Mohammed Ahmed Ali al-Muwallad, electricity, energy, and water minister Ali Saif Mohammed Hassan Shar, industry and trade minister Maeen Hashem Ahmed al-Mahakhar, and agriculture, fisheries, and water resources minister Rajwan Ali Ali al-Rubaie.
Those were still not the Houthis’ most senior officials, who include their leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, as well as the group’s defense minister, military chief, and interior minister, some of whom were targets but whom the IDF missed, for some unexplained reason.
Initial reports indicated that some of those other officials may have been on their way to the gathering, where the other senior officials were struck; possibly Israel attacked before they arrived.
Israel Katz invokes Biblical plagues on Houthi terror group
Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday invoked the biblical Exodus story and threatened the Houthis with “all 10 plagues” after the Yemen terror group fired a third ballistic missile in some 24 hours at Israel.
“The Houthis are firing missiles at Israel again. The plague of darkness, the plague of [the death of] the firstborn – we will complete all 10 plagues,” Katz wrote on X/Twitter.
None of the three missiles launched by the Houthis struck Israel, either being intercepted by the IDF or misfiring and landing in parts of the region before even getting close to the Jewish state.
In addition, over the past week, the Houthis launched five drones against Israel, all of which the IDF shot down.
The army announced that it shot down two drones launched by the Houthis on Thursday alone.
But Katz and Israel are up in arms about the impact, even when these aerial threats are virtually all neutralized and no Israeli has been killed by the Houthis since July 2024.
Many missiles cause millions to have to go into safe rooms and bomb shelters, just in case the generally very successful air defense misses a missile and it lands in Israel.
For much of the war, threats by Katz and other officials to strike back at the Houthis were viewed as spin, since Israel had retaliated many times in key economic areas for the Houthis in Hodeidah and Sanaa without succeeding at deterring the Yemeni terror group from additional missile fire.
According to the IDF, the missile that the Houthis fired on Wednesday morning included cluster munitions, which could have created an additional challenge, since if it is not intercepted at an earlier point than other missiles, it can split off into many smaller bombs.
On August 24, an investigation by the Israel Air Force found that a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis on August 22 contained cluster munitions, marking the first time during the war that they used this category of weapon.
Such a weapon tends to have a less harmful impact if it achieves direct hits as opposed to a classic ballistic missile.
But this kind of missile can have a higher chance of causing at least some minor harm because it splits into many parts, which can have many impacts.
According to the IDF, the unusual situation in which it failed to shoot down the missile in that case was due to some other unidentified human or technical failure and not due to the missile, including cluster munitions. Despite the missile having some impact, no one was harmed.
The Arrow 2 and 3 used to shoot down such projectiles do have the capacity to strike missiles at different, and earlier, points when necessary, but sometimes a first interceptor misses. In the case of a classic ballistic missile, shooting it down with a later, second interceptor will have the same outcome, whereas with cluster munitions, it may sometimes be too late to avoid it splitting into various parts.