[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
This is an update to my previous post on the killing of senior Houthi officials by the Israeli Air Force, which did not include reliable information about their names and positions.
Israel is determined to stop the Houthis in Yemen from launching their intermittent, and by now largely ineffectual, volleys of drones and missiles toward the Jewish state. Almost all of the Houthi projectiles launched at Israel during the last year have either been intercepted, or fallen harmlessly into the Red Sea. No Israeli has been killed by Houthi fire since July 2024. But the Houthis still keep up launching those nuisance projectiles, and the IDF, having battered Hamas in Gaza, smashed Hezbollah in Lebanon, and destroyed the top brass of the Iranian army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in its 12-day war with Iran, can now devote more of its attention to Houthis. And it has just done so, by killing not only the Houthi prime minister, but almost the entire Houthi cabinet as well. More on this spectacular achievement can be found here: “Houthi Prime Minister Ghalib al-Rahawi, eight ministers killed in IAF Thursday strike,” Jerusalem Post, August 30, 2025:
Houthi Prime Minister Ghalib al-Rahawi and several other ministers were killed in the IAF strike in Sanaa on Thursday, the news agency run by the terror group said on Saturday, citing a statement by the head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat.
The Houthis further announced that several other ministers who were present were seriously or moderately injured in the strike and are receiving medical treatment. However, the announcement did not specify who else was killed in the attack.
Who’s left, after that mass decapitation of the Houthi leadership? The Defense Minister appears to be the only senior civilian leader still alive, and even that is in doubt.
According to Army Radio, citing Israeli security sources, eight others killed in the attack were the Houthis’ political bureau director, the prime minister’s chief of staff, the group’s cabinet secretary, and its justice minister, economy and trade minister, foreign minister, agriculture minister, and public relations minister.
Houthi Defense Minister Mohammad Nasser al-Athifi said that the terror group is ready to confront Israel’s airstrike on Sanaa shortly after their deaths were announced, according to the news agency. Mashat’s statement previously did not make clear whether he was among the casualties.
Mohammed Nasser Al-Athifi, the defense minister, may have emerged unscathed, or may be one of those reported as having been wounded, or he might even be dead, and the tattered remnants of the regime, wanting to avoid total demoralization among its fighters, simply put out a statement that it attributed to the Defense Minister.
The IAF attacked a group of top Houthi military officials in Sanaa who were watching their leader give a nationally televised speech.
Yemen’s Al-Jumhuriya channel reported that Rahawi was in an apartment alongside several colleagues when he was killed.
Al-Hadath reported that the IAF targeted homes where senior Houthi officials were hiding in Yemen’s capital.
With this attack, the Mossad demonstrated yet again its deep knowledge of the enemy, apparently having discovered just which apartment the cabinet ministers gathered in to watch the televised address of the prime minister.
Rahawi became prime minister nearly a year ago, but the de facto leader of the government was his deputy, Mohamed Moftah, who was assigned on Saturday to carry out the prime minister’s duties.
Rahawi was seen largely as a figurehead who was not part of the inner circle of the Houthi leadership.
Is this true — that Rahawi was only a “figurehead,” and the real power lay with Mohamed Moftah, his deputy who was not harmed in the Israeli attack — or is it a falsehood designed to minimize the significance of the Israeli strike?
Arab media reported that there were some 10 attacks in Sanaa. KAN, citing Yemeni media, reported that several Houthi government leaders were killed in an attack inside the presidential palace….
Not “several” Houthi government leaders, but a total of eight — virtually the entire cabinet with the exception of the deputy prime minister and the defense minister — were killed in a single devastating strike by the IAF.
Earlier versions of this article reported — incorrectly — that only the Houthi military leader, Abdel Malek al-Houthi, had been killed. He was not killed. Now, in an explosion of candor, the Houthis have admitted that virtually their entire cabinet has been wiped out. Will that be enough to force the Houthis to stop their launches of drones and missiles toward Israel that have become so ineffective, either by being intercepted or by having been misfired so that they fall into the Red Sea? We will soon see if the Defense Minister Al-Athifi survived, as reported, and if so, how he will govern in tandem with the deputy prime minister, now that eight of their fellow cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister, have been killed.
The handful of Houthi senior leaders who are still alive may now want to consider their career choices. Perhaps they will go aground, hiding out in the network of caves in northern Yemen that Houthi fighters have hidden in before, hoping to emerge if, and when, the IAF is otherwise engaged.