As a fragile ceasefire takes hold in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, another military actor in the region has also apparently halted hostilities: the Houthis in Yemen.
Its leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi reportedly ordered fighters to stop the attacks on Israel and Israeli-linked ships, which the group had carried out intermittently for two years.
The halt would only hold as long as Israel continued to observe the ceasefire in Gaza, a source told Saudi media.
That condition underscores a position of strength: the Houthis have consistently carried out attacks in solidarity with Palestinians without the need to negotiate with Israel – directly or indirectly – about a truce.
Across two years of Israeli wars in the region and the genocide in Gaza, a number of groups have taken up arms in response.
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That includes Hamas and other armed groups in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
All these groups, including Israel itself, have suffered immensely. The conflict has taken its toll militarily and economically, as well as in terms of devastating civilian harm.
While the war has raised existential questions around the future role of some of these groups, like Hamas and Hezbollah, the de facto government in Yemen has in fact increased in relevance.
Its steadfastness in its attacks on Israel and international shipping, analysts have told Middle East Eye, made the world sit up and take notice, and gave the group a narrative victory both at home and abroad.
Military resilience
“Militarily, the Houthis have had a strong two-year run for a non-state actor,” Andreas Krieg, assistant professor at King’s College London’s defence studies department, told Middle East Eye.
He cited its year-and-a-half long campaign attacking international shipping in the Red Sea, forcing major vessels travelling from Europe to Asia to take a lengthy, expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa.
As a result of the attacks, carried out in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli genocide, maritime traffic via the Gulf of Aden dropped 70 percent in two years.
‘The Houthis forced America to decouple from Israel in terms of a Yemeni front’
– Ali Rizk, security analyst
The Houthis also conducted periodic long range shots on Israel, said Krieg, “while riding out Israeli reprisals with only short dips in tempo”.
One of those strikes briefly halted traffic at Ramon Airport in southern Israel, while a more recent attack broke Israeli air defences and struck a hotel in the resort city of Eilat.
In addition to attacking Israel and global vessels, there was a months-long onslaught from the US too.
“When the Americans took part and bombed Yemen, the [Houthis] responded, and in the end Trump backed down,” Ali Rizk, a Lebanese political and security analyst, told MEE.
“The Houthis forced America to decouple from Israel in terms of a Yemeni front – which is no small achievement.”
The Americans reportedly spent over $1bn on the campaign attacking Yemen, and yet failed to establish air superiority over the Houthis.
The attacks by the US and Israel resulted in scores of deaths, including many civilians. Military infrastructure was hit too, and a number of operatives killed. But the Houthis don’t seem to have been deterred.
“The engine of that resilience is how they’re built: a network of networks – tribal, clerical, security and commercial nodes with overlap and redundancy,” said Krieg. “Knock out a leader or a depot and the system limps, but it rarely stops.”
There were a number of factors that helped the Houthis fare better than other armed groups which took up the fight with Israel.
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One of them is its comparatively new entry onto the international conflict arena.
“The Israelis don’t have a lot of intelligence they can work with to inflict real harm on the Houthis,” said Rizk.
He noted that Israel had significant intelligence on Hezbollah, which led to the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior figures, as well as the pager attacks which killed and wounded thousands.
In Iran, too, Israel had intelligence on the ground which helped it during the 12-day conflict in June.
As for the Houthis, Israel did kill a number of very senior political figures – including the Houthi prime minister. But it was less effective in targeting senior military commanders.
Another factor, compared to the likes of Hezbollah and Hamas, was Yemen’s distance away from Israel.
“It’s easy for Israel to carry out an all-out war on Lebanon. That’s not the case with Yemen, which is further away,” said Rizk. “The Houthis [can] maintain attacks against Israel without paying the heavy price which Hezbollah or Lebanon might pay.”
Narrative victory
The war also provided the Houthis with a narrative victory too – at home and abroad.
“The Houthi intervention in the Red Sea furthered their domestic legitimacy and brought international fame and recognition,” Arwa Mokdad, an expert analyst on Yemen and geopolitics, told MEE.
Mokdad said that the attacks on shipping furthered the idea that the Houthis fought against oppression, while also making it awkward for regional players to intervene and be accused of “attacking a group aiding Gaza”.
‘The Houthis have risen as a powerful force in Arab imagination and discourse’
– Arwa Mokdad, Yemen analyst
For that reason, many countries in the region were reluctant to publicly put their name on a US-led naval task force fighting against Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.
“In the face of Arab inaction, the Houthis have risen as a powerful force in Arab imagination and discourse,” said Mokdad.
While the Houthis have long been described as a “rebel” Iran-backed group, that framing may now be changing.
“They’ve moved from Yemeni insurgency to headline player inside the Axis of Resistance – the only Arab actor routinely striking inside Israel – giving them narrative weight beyond their size,” said Krieg.
Rizk added that in recent years, a regional shift had occurred in which Israel was being seen as the main enemy rather than Iran.
“Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has also always underscored that the Americans and the Israelis are two faces of the same coin,” he said. “What happened in Qatar supports the Houthi argument,” he added, referring to Israel’s attack on Hamas officials in Doha last month.
That attack took place despite Qatar being a major US ally hosting over 8,000 American troops.
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“It boosts the Houthi message and the ideological narrative of the main threat being Zionism.”
As for the domestic front, there was a rallying around a common cause.
Eleonora Ardemagni, a researcher and expert on Yemeni armed groups, told MEE that the war gave the Houthis the opportunity of “maximising internal gains in terms of support and recruitment”.
The number of Houthi fighters grew from 220,000 in 2022 to 350,000 in 2024, according to UN experts.
“At home, the Gaza ‘resistance’ frame produced a rally-round-the-flag effect that cut across some rival lines, even as governance stayed poor and repression hardened,” said Krieg.
“The risk is overreach: if salaries and services keep sliding while the security organs tighten, the prestige bump curdles into quiet anger.”
Aden-based government losing relevance
While the Houthis control large swathes of Yemen, including the capital, a rival government based in Aden is still on the scene. But its relevance is waning.
The administration is headed up by a Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), which brings together a disparate collection of anti-Houthi forces.
It technically serves as the executive body of the internationally-recognised Yemeni government, which was driven out of Sanaa by the Houthis in 2014.
“The Houthis control the populous north and now deal directly with key mediators and major powers on security and access, while the PLC fights fragmentation and basic service delivery in the south,” said Krieg.
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The phrase “internationally recognised” only survives on paper, he added.
The Aden-based government faces huge economic challenges, partly driven by a string of Houthi attacks in 2022 on ports in rival southern regions.
“The block on oil export has further reduced the government’s revenues, with significant implications on public services and the payment of salaries. This has contributed to heightening political divisions,” said Ardemagni.
That includes in-fighting between the Southern Transitional Council – a UAE-backed separatist group which campaigns for independence in southern Yemen – and other factions within the PLC.
“With increased divisions and calls for separatism in the south, the anti-Houthi coalition is focused more inward rather than outward,” said Mokdad.
Meanwhile, with the Aden government divided and on the sidelines, the Houthis are now dealing directly with Saudi Arabia. Riyadh had previously fought a brutal eight-year-long war on the Houthis, which ended in 2023.
“With the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the big question is now whether the Houthis will rethink their strategy,” Ardemagni said.
“And how they will try to consolidate their regional position as Middle Eastern tensions de-escalate.”
