Trump Warns Yemen's Houthis 'Will Be Completely Annihilated' as US Launches More Strikes

A man passes by a display of Houthi-made mock missile and drones at a square in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 March 2025. (EPA)
A man passes by a display of Houthi-made mock missile and drones at a square in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 March 2025. (EPA)
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Trump Warns Yemen's Houthis 'Will Be Completely Annihilated' as US Launches More Strikes

A man passes by a display of Houthi-made mock missile and drones at a square in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 March 2025. (EPA)
A man passes by a display of Houthi-made mock missile and drones at a square in Sanaa, Yemen, 18 March 2025. (EPA)

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up his rhetoric regarding Yemen's Houthi militias as the American military launched more airstrikes against them, warning they “will be completely be annihilated.”

Trump made the comment on his website Truth Social. He claimed, without offering evidence, Iranian military support to the Houthis “has lessened” but said it needed to entirely stop.

“Let the Houthis fight it out themselves,” he wrote. “Tremendous damage has been inflicted upon the Houthi barbarians, and watch how it will get progressively worse — It's not even a fair fight, and never will be. They will be completely annihilated!”

The Houthis said strikes against them continued overnight. The US military has not offered a breakdown of the strikes.

The United States struck targets in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Wednesday, Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported, the latest in a wave of strikes carried out in retaliation for attacks by the Iran-aligned militias on shipping in the Red Sea.

Three residents told Reuters that the strikes had hit the Al-Jarraf district of Sanaa, close to the city's airport.

The US began the current wave of strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen last Saturday, killing at least 31 people in the biggest such operation since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Unfazed by the US strikes and threats, the Houthis have said they will escalate their attacks, including on Israel, in response to the US campaign.

On Tuesday the Houthis said they had fired a ballistic missile towards Israel and that they would expand their range of targets in that country in the coming days in retaliation for renewed Israeli airstrikes in Gaza after weeks of relative calm.

The Houthis have carried out over 100 attacks on shipping since Israel's war with Hamas began in late 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with Gaza's Palestinians.

The attacks have disrupted global commerce and set the US military off on a costly campaign to intercept missiles.



Gaza Civil Defense Says Six Killed in Israeli Strikes

A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)
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Gaza Civil Defense Says Six Killed in Israeli Strikes

A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)
A Palestinian man carries items he salvaged from a house targeted in an Israeli strike at the Nuseirat camp for refugees in the central Gaza Strip on May 24, 2025. (AFP)

Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli strikes killed at least six people on Saturday across the Palestinian territory, where Israel has ramped up its military offensive in recent days.

"Our teams have recovered at least six dead," civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

He said a couple were killed with their two young children in a pre-dawn strike on a house in the Amal quarter of the southern city of Khan Younis.

Another two people were killed in a strike on the Nuseirat refugee camp in the center of the territory, he said.

The Israeli military said it was unable to comment on individual strikes without their "precise geographical coordinates".

Israel resumed operations in Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire.

Gaza's health ministry said Friday that at least 3,673 people had been killed in the territory since then, taking the war's overall toll to 53,822, mostly civilians.

Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Gunmen also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said on Friday that Palestinians were enduring "the cruelest phase" of the war in Gaza, where more than a dozen food trucks were looted following the partial easing of a lengthy Israeli blockade.

The World Food Program called on Israel "to get far greater volumes of food assistance into Gaza faster", saying: "Hunger, desperation, and anxiety over whether more food aid is coming, is contributing to rising insecurity."

Aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip restarted on Monday for the first time since March 2, amid mounting condemnation of the Israeli blockade, which has resulted in severe shortages of food and medicines.