Israeli airstrike kill Houthi rebel prime minister in Yemen : NPR

Supporters of Houthis sing slogans during an anti-Israeli weekly rally in Sanaa, Yemen on Friday.

Osamah Abdulrahman / AP

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Osamah Abdulrahman / AP

CAIRO – An Israeli air strike killed the government controlled by Houthi rebels in the capital of Yemen, the Houthis said on Saturday. He was the highest Houthi official killed during the Israeli campaign against the rebels supported by Iran.

Ahmed al-Rahawi was killed in a strike Thursday in Sanaa with a number of ministers, the rebels said in a statement. Other ministers and officials were injured, the press release added without providing more details.

The Prime Minister was targeted with other members of his government controlled by Houthi during a “routine workshop run by the government to assess its activities and performance during the past year,” said Houthi statement.

Thursday’s Israeli strike took place while the television channel belonging to rebels broadcast a speech by Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the secret leader of the rebel group in which he shared updates on the latest developments in Gaza and promising reprisals against Israel. High Houthi officials met to watch the pre-recorded speeches of Al-Houthi.

Al-Rahawi was not part of the inner circle around Abdul Malik al-Houthi which manages the group’s military and strategic affairs. His government, like the previous ones, was responsible for managing daily civil affairs in Sanaa and other areas held by the Houthi.

The strike that killed the Prime Minister targeted a meeting for Houthi leaders in a villa in Beit Baws, a former village in southern Sanaa, three tribal chiefs told the Associated Press. They spoke under the cover of anonymity because they feared the repercussions.

On Thursday, the Israeli army said that it “precisely reaches a military target of the Houthi terrorist regime in the Sanaa region in Yemen”. The soldiers did not make any immediate comments on Saturday the announcement of the murder of the Prime Minister.

“Yemen supports a lot for the victory of the Palestinian people,” said Al-Rahawi following an Israeli strike last week which struck an oil installation belonging to the main oil company in the country, controlled by the Sanaa rebels as well as a power plant.

The strike of August 24 occurred three days after the Houthis launched a ballistic missile to Israel that its soldiers described as the first cluster bomb that the rebels had launched there since 2023.

The Prime Minister was from the southern province of Abyan and was an ally of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. He combined with the Houthis when the rebels invaded Sanaa, and a large part of the north and the center of the country in 2014, initiating the long civil war of the country. He was appointed Prime Minister in August 2024.

Al-Rahawi is the highest Houthi civil servant to be killed since the United States and Israel began their air and naval campaign in response to the missiles and rebels drones against Israel and on ships in the Red Sea. The United States and Israeli strikes have killed dozens of people. An American strike in April struck a prison with African migrants in the northern Sadaa province, killing at least 68 people and injuring 47 others.

Ahmed Nagi, a main analyst in Yemen of the international crisis group, a Brussels based reflection group, described the murder of Prime Minister Houthi as “serious reverse” for the rebels.

He declared that climbing marks an Israeli passage of the abolition of the infrastructure of the rebels to target their leaders, including military personalities, who “constitute a greater threat to their command structure”.

The Houthis launched a campaign targeting ships in response to the War of Israel-Hamas in the Gaza Strip, saying that they were in solidarity with the Palestinians. Their attacks in the past two years have turned upside down the Red Sea expeditions, through which around 1 billion of dollars in goods pass each year.

In May, the Trump administration announced an agreement with the Houthis to end the air strikes in exchange for the end of the attacks against the expedition. The rebels, however, said that the agreement did not include the attacks interrupted against targets which, she said, were aligned with Israel.