[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]

The IDF is now preparing the ground for the final assault on Gaza City, by attacking targets north and east of the city, hoping to force its nearly one million inhabitants to leave for safe areas to the southwest of the Strip before the IDF attacks the last remnants of Hamas holding out in the city. At the same time, the IDF has been hitting Hamas units in Khan Yunis, and in Ramallah, the IDF has just destroyed the last exchange bank still operating in the Palestinian-occupied parts of Judea and Samaria, making it harder for both Fatah and Hamas to pay their fighters.

But the IDF, in the midst of so many varied undertakings, and underminings, of its enemies in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria, hasn’t forgotten the Houthis who keep trying to attack the Jewish state from Yemen with missiles and drones. So many of those missiles and drones have either been intercepted by Israeli defenses, or fallen harmlessly into the Red Sea, that not a single Israeli has been killed in a Houthi attack since July 2024. Now the IDF has recently destroyed still more of the international airport in Sanaa, and the port at Hodeidah, making it impossible for Iran to resupply its Yemeni proxy. It has also destroyed the Houthis’ store of ballistic missiles. And now, to cap off a week of demolition derby in Yemen, the IDF has managed to kill two of the Houthis’ senior leaders, just as they were watching a televised speech delivered by their leader. More on those targeted killings can be found here: “Houthi PM, defense officials likely killed in IDF strike on Sanaa, Yemen,” Jerusalem Post, August 28, 2025:

The IAF on Thursday attacked a group of top Houthi military officials in Sanaa who were watching the Houthi leader give a nationally televised speech.

Public broadcaster KAN, citing Yemeni media, reported that Houthi Prime Minister Ghalib al-Rahawi was killed in the attack. Yemen’s Al-Jumhuriya channel reported that al-Rahwi was in an apartment alongside several colleagues when he was killed.

It is likely that the Houthis’ Defense Minister, Mohammad Nasser al-Athifi, and Chief of Staff, Mohammad Abd al-Karim al-Ghamari, were killed in the attack.

However, no official death statements for the three Houthi leaders have been released, and Israeli media were careful to emphasize that their status is unknown at this time.

This is another example of the IDF’s penchant for decapitating the leadership of its enemies, as it has done with Hamas, from Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh on down, and with Hezbollah, from its leaders Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine on down to the commander level, and with Iran, where during the 12-day war the IDF managed to kill about fifteen of its top military leaders and a dozen of its senior nuclear scientists. Now it is the turn of the Houthi senior leaders, beginning, most likely, with the prime minister and several of his colleagues, who have been eliminated.

Al-Hadath reported that the IAF targeted homes where senior Houthi officials were hiding in Sanaa….

Arab media reported that there were around 10 attacks in Sanaa. KAN, citing Yemeni media, reported that several Houthi government leaders were killed in an attack inside the presidential palace….

The Arab media suggest that the Israeli attack was more wide-ranging in Sanaa than the IDF wants to claim; possibly the IDF wants to avoid so humiliating the Houthis that they feel compelled to respond with a massive attack.

The attacks come after the IDF shot down two drones earlier on Thursday, launched by the Houthis against Israel.

In addition, the IDF struck the Houthi capital of Sanaa, including ballistic missile sites and electricity sites on Sunday….

The Houthis, for their part, fired ballistic missiles at Israel on Friday of last week and Wednesday of this week.

Yemen’s Houthis have been attacking Israel with missiles and drones since October 19, 2023, with Israel only starting counterstrikes in July 2024….

For a while after the October 7, 2023 attack, the IDF was so completely focused on crushing Hamas in Gaza that it simply let the Houthi attacks pass without a response. The Americans were at that point bombing Houthi targets, and it was only after Washington decided to stop that campaign, in return for a Houthi promise not to hit American ships in the Red Sea, that the IDF picked up the slack, and began its own bombing of the Houthis.

The IDF is now closing in on the last intact Hamas forces, holding up in Gaza City, and with its latest bombings in Sanaa it has let the Houthis know that there will be a relentless series of attacks by the IDF on their men and weapons until the Houthis stop their attacks, attacks that in any case have caused only trivial damage to Israel’s infrastructure and not killed a single Israeli casualty since July 2024. The Houthi leader, Abdel Malik al-Houthi, must now look at the latest precision bombing by Israel and ask himself if this is the way that he too wants to go, or will the will to live prevail.