On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump designated the Houthis (also called “Ansar Allah”), the Islamic Republic of Iran’s terror proxy in Yemen, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). This adds to their previous designation under the Biden administration as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT). Together, the FTO and SDGT designations allow the US Government to target the Houthis more effectively.
The Houthis have been launching missile and drone attacks against Israel in direct alliance with Hamas since October 19, 2023. Since then, they have regularly attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea, leading to a drop in overall Suez Canal traffic of at least 50 percent, and the case of dry-bulk, up to 80 percent. US and Royal Navy vessels sent to protect international shipping and help intercept Houthi missile attacks on Israel have also come under attack. In fact, the US Navy’s activities against the Houthis now count as the most intense US Naval running sea battle since World War II.
For the most part, Israel and its allies have been able to intercept many of these attacks, such as the ballistic missile destroyed in mid-air by Israeli defense systems on September 28, 2024. Tragically, however, some Houthi attacks have found their mark. For example, on July 19, 2024, the Houthis launched a drone attack on Tel Aviv which killed 50-year-old Yevgeny Ferder and wounded 10 others.
In response, the Israeli Air Force has bombed the Yemeni port of Hodeida on multiple occasions, including on July 21, 2024, and September 29, 2024. The port is used to receive long-range weapons smuggled from the Iranian regime. Indeed, the drone that killed Ferder was an adapted Iranian-made Samad-3 drone, which the Houthis renamed a “Jaffa” drone. Israel’s retaliations led to further threats from the Houthis and other Iranian-regime proxies of continued attacks against Israel. Iranian Foreign Minister Nasser Kanaani called Israel’s retaliations “criminal acts” which would not go “unanswered.”
This has led to open support for the Houthis by some demonstrators on American and European streets.
Mobilizing Around October 7, 2023:
On October 7, the Houthis immediately began relaying press releases from Hamas on their website, beginning with a statement from Mohammed Deif, then chief of staff of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, announcing the start of the October 7 massacre. The statement included a call to “the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen” to join in the attack.
For almost a year after October 7, the official Houthi website had a permanent headline banner featuring images of Hamas spokesmen and Israeli soldiers murdered during the initial Hamas incursion into Israel.
On October 19, 2023, the Houthis began their first direct attack against Israeli cities by launching a barrage of missiles and drones at Israeli territory. In January 2024, footage emerged of Houthi militias conducting an October-7-style attack drill, using images of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Star of David.
In an address in December 2023, Abdel Malik al-Houthi stated that “the thing we want most, the thing we have been wishing for from day-one is for the war between us and the Americans and Israelis to be a direct confrontation.”
Since then, the Houthis have claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against Israel. They have also become a significant threat to shipping in the Red Sea, attacking international cargo ships with the intention of causing economic harm to Israel and limiting Israel’s access to rearmaments. This is what protestors in the West are referencing when they chant, “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud; turn another ship around!”
In line with their desire for direct confrontation with the United States, the Houthis have also attacked more than 50 US naval vessels in the Red Sea, leading US military officials to characterize the situation as the “the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II.”
The Houthis’ enthusiasm for attacking Israel has earned them prestige from Iran and its regional proxies. The Houthi attacks were praised by the former leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, in every one of his public addresses following October 7, 2023. On November 3, 2023, Nasrallah stated his hope that the Houthi missiles and drones:
“…will reach Eilat and the south [of Israel], and the occupying Israeli bases in the south [of Israel] and they [the Houthis] have all our respect”.
In an address on January 5th, Nasrallah again praised the Houthi attacks for forcing Israel to:
“…redirect part of its air defenses, Iron Dome, and Patriot missiles from the north and south of [Israel] to the Eilat region. This had the effect of making [Eilat] also insecure, which means more displacement and eviction of Israelis from the Gaza Strip border areas. This helps exert more pressure on the enemy government.”
Hamas has also directly praised the Houthis, publishing a letter on September 16, 2024 in which Yahya Sinwar congratulated Abdul Malik al-Houthi for his “success in reaching the depth of the enemy entity” with missile and drone attacks. Sinwar went on to reiterate Hamas’ unity with other Iranian proxies, stating “our efforts, along with the resistance in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq, will defeat the enemy.”
The Houthis therefore see themselves – and are seen by other Iranian proxies – as part of a concerted effort to destroy Israel and America, an aim that has been embedded in the Houthi ideology since the 1990s. October 7, 2023 and its aftermath have simply given the Houthis a pretext to act out their ideology, and thereby both consolidate their hold on Yemen and garner greater trust and patronage from Iran.
Who are the Houthis?
The Houthi attacks on Israel are motivated by a deep and intense hatred of Jews that predates the Gaza conflict by decades.
Indeed, antisemitism and violent antipathy towards Israel are central to the Houthi identity, and in large part are a product of both ideological influence and material support from the Islamic Republic of Iran which have shaped the movement over the years.
The Houthis, or “Ansar Allah” (Supporters of God), belong to the minority Zaydi sect of Shia Islam. The Houthi movement began in the 1990s as a Zaydi-Shia religious and political reaction to what was seen as an encroachment into Yemen by Saudi Arabian-educated clerics spreading Sunni Salafism.
Both Hussein al-Houthi – after whom the movement is named – and his brother, and current leader of the movement, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, studied in Qom in Iran. Abdul Malik also spent time in Hezbollah-controlled Southern Lebanon in the late 1980s and early 1990s. As a result, while the Houthis remain Zaydi in their faith, their movement took on the broader political outlook of the Khomeinist ideology that defines the regional and global aims of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its primary regional proxy, Hezbollah.
The political influence of Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran helped establish antisemitism and anti-Americanism as core defining principles of the Houthi movement – something that is very evident in Hussein al-Houthi’s sermons as early as the 1990s.
After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Houthis adopted their current flag, whose slogan is:
“God is Great
Death to America
Death to Israel
A curse Upon the Jews
Victory to Islam.”
This slogan represents the centrality of antisemitism to the Houthi ideology - a zero-sum world view in which Arabs and Muslims exist in perpetual enmity towards Jews, and where the problems of the Arab and Muslim world are entirely the responsibility of Israel and the United States.
According to the Houthis, turmoil in the Arab and Muslim world is because a previous, natural order – in which Jews were subjugated by Arabs and Muslims – has been relinquished.
In one of his most cited sermons, Hussein al-Houthi said:
“The Jews, by themselves, couldn't control or secure their own existence. They needed to live under the protection of Arab leadership and Arab powers […] The Arabs are surrendering now, and with each passing day, we witness more achievements for America and Israel in their policies. Every time they lead the Arabs towards concessions, towards more submission […] If the Arabs united, if the leaders came together, they could strike Israel.”
[Hussein al-Houthi, ‘Lessons from the guidance of the Holy Quran - Quranic culture.’ August 4 2002]
In another sermon from 2001, Hussein al-Houthi cites the infamous forgery, ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, to claim that Jews are constantly plotting against Muslims: “Their aim is to corrupt us, to make us into disbelievers; that is what they want.” He went on to declare that “Jews and Christians are our true enemies.”
In the sermon, Hussein al-Houthi directly quoted Khomeini to say:
“I call upon all Muslims across the world and Islamic nations to unite in order to sever the hand of this oppressor and its supporters, referring to Israel.”
He went on to cite Khomeini’s call for genocide against the Jews: “The Islamic world could only be safe from the evil of the Jews by eradicating them and eliminating their creation (Israel).”
Houthi Statements About Jews:
On November 17, 2023, the Houthi television channel, Al-Masirah TV, hosted a Swedish-Algerian commentator named Yahya Abu Zakariya who stated that “aggression is part of the Jewish personality.” He continued by saying that Europeans had freed themselves from such “Jewish aggression” by expelling the Jews from Europe, because during the Sabbath, "Jews would kidnap a European child, slaughter him and offer his blood to their god, Jehovah” and that this led Europeans to write of Jews as “pigs, murderers, filthy, criminals, violent, and the destroyers of state institutions.”
On November 2, 2023, the Houthi representative Mohamed Ali Al-Houthi stated that “Jews have been continuously working to eradicate humanity in its entirety.”
A children’s cartoon broadcast in March 2024 on the Houthis’ Shaba TV network, entitled “The Temporary Entity,” featured antisemitic indoctrination including child-characters swearing to “fight and annihilate [the Jews].” When a child character says “I would like to know about the most cunning enemies of the Muslims,” his counterparts reply “do you mean the Jews?” A group of child characters is then transported to 19th Century Budapest, where they are told “you should know that the whole world hated the Jews [...] because of their evil moral values and because they are treacherous.” The cartoon goes on to portray Theadore Herzl as dreaming of the “political and economic control of the world.”
Examples of Houthi Articles Propagating Antisemitism:
“How do the Jews seek to subdue the Ummah (Muslim community)?”
“The Quran Clarifies the Level of Enmity the Jews Have Towards Muslims”.
“Jewish corruption destroys human civilization.”
“How the Jews Corrupted the [Muslim] Nation by Engaging in Usury”
“Jews: Behind Every Crime... Zionism, a Conspiracy Against Humanity.”
“The Jews…Arrogance and Racism.”
“The Jews Are Behind Every Crime: Details of the Conspiracy”