In a qualitative shift in Israel’s escalation against the Houthis, Israel conducted a series of precision strikes on Houthi militia positions in Yemen between 26 August 2025 and the date of this report. The strike carried out on 28 August 2025 was particularly remarkable for both its accuracy and its impact, culminating in the killing of the Prime Minister of the unrecognised Houthi government, Ahmed al-Rahwi, together with several other ministers(1). This operation underscored Israel’s ability, in recent months, to achieve significant intelligence penetration of the Houthis, as well as its capacity to develop a relatively targeted bank specific to the group, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of its operations. These developments warrant careful consideration of their prospective implications and call for a closer examination of Houthi patterns and trends in responding to this latest Israeli escalation.

First: Houthi Responses to Israeli Escalation

In the aftermath of the recent Israeli strike—which dealt a major blow to the organisation—the Houthi militia adopted a multi-level approach aimed at mitigating the impact of the strike and maintaining a degree of organisational cohesion sufficient to sustain what the group refers to as the “Support Front.” The principal dimensions of this approach may be outlined as follows:

1. Appointment of a New Houthi Prime Minister

In an effort to fill the organisational vacuum created by the Israeli assassination of its prime minister and several ministers, the Houthi movement announced the appointment of Mohamed Ahmed Miftah as the new head of its government. The appointment was made by the group’s Supreme Political Council, chaired by Mahdi al-Mashat.

Overall, this choice appears to have been shaped by a set of key determinants. First, Miftah is considered one of the most prominent disciples of Badreddin al-Houthi—the father of the current Houthi leader—under whose tutelage he absorbed the jurisprudence of Zaydi Hadawism in northern Yemen, becoming one of the leading religious and proselytising figures of extremist Houthi thought.(2) Second, although Miftah may not be widely known to the broader public, available evidence indicates that he has long played a prominent role within the Houthis’ inner circles as one of the principal behind-the-scenes decision-makers, underscoring his central position within the movement’s hierarchy.

The third determinant lies in the fact that, according to numerous assessments, Miftah had effectively been managing the Houthi government in practice. He is known to be close to the group’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, as well as to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and he supports the Houthis’ escalatory posture. In his first statement, delivered during the funeral of al-Rahwi and his associates, Miftah stressed that nine ministers in the government, along with the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Council of Ministers, were killed in the strike in addition to al-Rahwi. He declared: “There is no concern regarding the functioning of the government apparatus, and the blood of the martyrs gives us determination and resolve.”

2. Arbitrary Measures in Houthi-Controlled Areas

Since the Israeli strike, the Houthis have carried out a wide-ranging campaign of arrests targeting various segments of the civilian population(3). They also detained 18 UN employees(4) in a campaign targeting the World Food Programme, the World Health Organisation, and UNICEF.

This Houthi campaign appears to be driven by two main factors. The first is the persistent obsession with, and narrative of, espionage that the militia repeatedly invokes when conducting arrest campaigns. The second is that such actions form part of the Houthis’ efforts to use these detentions as a tool of pressure and bargaining with the international community.

3. Comprehensive Security Review by the Houthis

The Houthis conducted a comprehensive review of security measures relating to the protection of their leaders and senior officials. They evacuated several buildings in southern Sana’a, believed to have been used as secret hideouts—primarily properties belonging to opponents that were confiscated after their coup against the legitimate government. Families of senior figures were instructed to use the ground floors of their homes in anticipation of imminent strikes. At the same time, private schools and universities in the area were ordered to dismiss students before midday for the same reasons.(5)

This Houthi move was most likely prompted by the group’s assessment that a degree of intelligence exposure to Israel had occurred, enabling it to build an operational target bank and act upon it. The Houthis are therefore currently seeking to overhaul all security arrangements for protecting the organisation’s leadership, on the basis that Israel’s recent behaviour points to the likelihood of further precision strikes in the period ahead.

4. Maintaining Escalatory Media Rhetoric

As part of its efforts to preserve a state of mobilisation within the group and to boost morale in areas under Houthi control, the Houthi militia has continued to adopt escalatory media rhetoric since the Israeli operation. In this context, Houthi messaging has focused on a set of principal themes:

• The group sought to convey messages and claims that downplayed the impact of the recent Israeli strikes, particularly regarding their effect on government operations. This was reflected in the speech delivered by the Houthis’ new prime minister, Mohamed Miftah, in which he stated: “There is no concern regarding the functioning of the government apparatus”. (6)
• The group’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, has appeared on multiple occasions since the Israeli operation to affirm what he described as the “continuation of the Support Front.” In a speech on 4 September 2025, he stressed “the firm stance in support of the oppressed Palestinian people” (7).
• In addressing recent developments, Abdul Malik al-Houthi also condemned the latest Israeli attack on Qatar. In his speech of 11 September 2025, he asserted that Israel “continues to impose a formula of impunity whereby no Arab or Muslim country is exempt. In this context comes the assault on Qatar, a sovereign state with regional influence and extensive international relations” (8).
• Reinforcing the narrative of “continuing in the Support Front,” al-Houthi also announced in his speech that his group had “launched 38 missiles and drones at Israeli targets within two weeks” (9).

5. New Attacks Against Israel

The Houthi group has continued to adopt forms of operational escalation against Israel, not only in connection with the war in Gaza and what is referred to as the “Support Front,” but also as part of its effort to retaliate for the recent strikes it has sustained and to reinforce a “action–reaction” approach in its confrontation with Israel.

Beyond the Houthis’ conventional strikes on certain Israeli areas such as the Negev, the group’s more qualitative operations have taken two principal directions. The first was an attack carried out with a drone targeting the arrivals hall at Ramon Airport in southern Israel, where the Israeli army confirmed that no sirens were activated(10), reflecting the inability of Israel’s multi-layered air defences to detect the Houthi drone. Added to this was the significant operation conducted by the Houthis on 24 September 2025, when the group launched a drone attack on the city of Eilat, injuring at least 22 Israelis—some of them seriously—after the drone penetrated Israeli air defences and reached its target in a crowded tourist area. This attack was followed by extensive Israeli strikes on Houthi-controlled areas in Sana’a, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries (11).

The second escalatory direction relates to reports on September 8, 2025, of severed undersea cables in the Red Sea, which disrupted internet services across parts of Asia and the Middle East(12). Two considerations reinforced suspicions of Houthi involvement in this incident. The first was the confirmation by specific Hebrew-language reports of this hypothesis; the second was that the Houthis had previously, in February 2024, targeted telecommunications cables in the Red Sea as one of their methods of escalation and as a means of exerting pressure on Israel and the international community.

Second: Potential Future Trajectories

In general terms, it can be said that the recent developments and the shifts in Israel’s approach to dealing with the Houthis, coupled with the Houthis’ efforts to absorb and respond to these strikes, will generate a range of implications, as outlined below:

1- Expansion of Israeli Targeting of the Houthis

Israel’s recent approach towards the Houthis reflects the beginning of a strategy to replicate, albeit with notable differences between the Lebanese and Yemeni theatres, the “Hezbollah model” in the Yemeni context. Specifically, Israel has shifted towards targeting senior leadership levels within the Houthi movement—marking a qualitative escalation. This course of action appears to have been coordinated between Israel’s political and security institutions. Put differently, Israel has initiated an “assassination plan” in Yemen, suggesting that its trajectory of escalation against the Houthis will continue to intensify in the near term.

In addition to focusing on targeting the Houthi leadership, Tel Aviv has concentrated on striking civilian, economic, and service infrastructure within areas under the group’s control. These are soft targets—easy to hit yet costly for the Houthis—since, over time, such operations exacerbate humanitarian suffering and turn the local population against them. This was exemplified in the most recent strike on 10 September, which was more violent than any previous Israeli raids, and targeted multiple sites in Sanaa and Al-Jawf. The strikes included the Guidance Directorate in Sanaa, a fuel station on Sixty Street in the southwest of the city, and the government complex in Al-Hazm, the provincial capital of Al-Jawf. According to reports, ten Israeli fighter jets participated in the attack, dropping around 30 munitions on these targets, resulting in the death or injury of approximately 166 people. (13)

2- The Prospect of Washington Resuming Strikes Against the Houthis:
One of the more widely discussed scenarios is the possibility that the United States may resume targeting the Houthis and terminate the ceasefire agreement brokered by Oman. This assumption rests on several key drivers: first, the Houthis’ renewed attacks on maritime navigation in the Red Sea, a red line for Washington; second, mounting Israeli pressure on the U.S. to restart strikes against the Yemeni group; and third, the broader regional complexity, marked on the one hand by the stalled Gaza ceasefire process and on the other by the difficulties surrounding nuclear negotiations with Iran—factors that together increase the likelihood of renewed escalation in the region.

3- Replicating the Doha attack scenario:
In recent months Israel’s conduct in the region has not merely exceeded conventional diplomatic norms and constraints; it has flouted the customary rules that traditionally govern any regional escalation. The recent Israeli strike on Hamas’s political bureau in Doha exemplified this behaviour, since it had been regarded as highly unlikely that Israel would undertake such a step. That development raises the prospect of a repeat of the Doha-style attack in the Houthi case — specifically, the possibility that Israel might target Houthi leaders residing in the Sultanate of Oman.

4- Houthi efforts to activate levers of pressure

In response to this major Israeli escalation, and to mounting U.S. pressure through economic siege and coercive measures, the Houthis may seek to mobilise all the levers of pressure and escalation at their disposal. This could include continuing to target maritime navigation in the Red Sea and striking regional communications cables; attempting to introduce more advanced weapons into attacks on Israel — notably drones that are difficult to detect and missiles with multiple warheads — in an effort to increase the effectiveness of those strikes and raise the cost to Israel. The group may also contemplate declaring a blockade on shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. All of these options would impose severe costs not only on the Houthis and the areas they control, but on the Yemeni state as a whole.

In sum, the trajectory of Houthi–Israeli escalation has undergone several shifts that have heightened its risks for regional security and stability. All indicators point to both parties moving towards further escalation, reinforced by Israeli signals of readiness for a multi-front war and the practical adoption of an unprecedented course of action — from plans to occupy Gaza and annex the West Bank to the expansion of settlement activities. These dynamics are taking shape against the backdrop of growing complications in Western positions during the nuclear negotiations with Iran.