Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel’s strike against the Houthis on Thursday was “only the beginning”, pledging that it will continue to target the Iran-backed militants in Yemen.
Speaking at a government meeting, he said the Israeli army eliminated the majority of the Houthi government ministers and senior military commanders.
The Houthis will “pay a very heavy price for their aggression against the State of Israel,” Netanyahu added.
“We are doing what no one has done before us, and this is only the beginning of the strikes on senior officials in Sanaa - we will get to all of them,” he said.
Israel killed the Houthi prime minister and several cabinet members during a raid on Sanaa on Thursday.
It was a blow to the Houthis who have launched attacks on Israel and ships in the Red Sea in relation to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Among the dead were Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, Foreign Minister Gamal Amer, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Development Mohammed al-Medani, Electricity Minister Ali Seif Hassan, Tourism Minister Ali al-Yafei and Information Minister Hashim Sharafuldin, according to two Houthi officials and the victims' families.
Also killed was a powerful deputy interior minister, Abdel-Majed al-Murtada, the Houthi officials said.
They were targeted during a “routine workshop held by the government to evaluate its activities and performance over the past year,” a Houthi statement said Saturday, two days after the strike.
Netanyahu said they were targeted while they were gathered to watch a televised address by the militants’ leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi.
Defense Minister Mohamed Nasser al-Attefi survived the attack while Abdel-Karim al-Houthi, the interior minister and one of the most powerful figures in the group, didn’t attend the Thursday meeting, the Houthi officials said.
UN envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg expressed “great concern” over Israel’s recent strikes in the Houthi-controlled areas following Houthi attacks against Israel.
“Yemen cannot afford to become a battleground for a broader geopolitical conflict,” he said in a statement. He called for de-escalation.
Thursday’s strike came after the Houthis attacked Israel on Aug. 21 with a ballistic missile that its military described as the first cluster bomb the militants had launched at Israel since 2023. The missile, which the Houthis said was aimed at Ben Gurion Airport, prompted air raid sirens across central Israel and Jerusalem, forcing millions into shelters.
The Houthis are likely to escalate their attacks on Israel and ships in the Red Sea, after they vowed in July to target merchant ships belonging to any company that does business with Israeli ports, regardless of nationality.
“Our military approach of targeting the Israeli enemy, whether with missiles, drones or a naval blockade, is continuous, steady, and escalating,” al-Houthi, the group’s secretive leader, said in a televised speech Sunday.
