Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement has solemnly confirmed that their self-proclaimed Prime Minister, Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi, met his tragic end in an Israeli air strike earlier this week.
The Iran-backed faction revealed that alongside Rahawi, several other senior officials lost their lives when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted Yemen’s bustling capital, Sanaa, on Thursday.
In a decisive declaration, the IDF stated that Rahawi and other top Houthi officials were “eliminated” as Israeli fighter jets unleashed their might upon a gathering in the Sanaa vicinity.
Since 2014, the Houthis have held sway over much of north-western Yemen, having ousted the internationally recognized government from Sanaa and igniting a catastrophic civil war.
The Houthis announced that Rahawi was killed alongside several Houthi ministers, though they did not specify the names of the others.
In a vivid report, Saudi Arabian news outlet al-Hadath highlighted that the Houthis’ foreign minister, as well as the ministers of justice, youth and sports, social affairs, and labor, were among those who perished in the tragic event.
According to the office of Mahdi al-Mashat, the president of the Houthis, numerous other ministers sustained a range of moderate to serious injuries due to the airstrike.
The statement further revealed that Muhammad Ahmed Miftah, the deputy prime minister of the Houthis, is set to step into Rahawi’s position.
Rahawi, who held his position since August 2024, was largely regarded as a symbolic leader of the movement rather than a key figure in the decision-making elite responsible for military strategies.
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the paramount leader of the movement, along with the group’s defense minister and chief of staff, were reportedly not among the casualties of Thursday’s attack.
The IDF released a statement late on Saturday explaining that the strike was executed “within a few hours” of acquiring intelligence on the assembly, and asserted that they are still evaluating the full impact of the operation.
Since the onset of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis have persistently launched missiles towards Israel and targeted commercial ships navigating the waters of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, declaring their actions as gestures of solidarity with the Palestinians.
In retaliation, Israel has conducted air strikes aimed at Houthi-controlled regions in Yemen, with a declared mission of limiting Houthi aggressions.
In the previous week, Israel claimed it targeted Houthi positions in Sanaa in response to the movement’s missile offensive, which, according to Israel, involved cluster munitions.