Katz: Top Houthis ‘escaping Sanaa’ after IDF killed Yemeni terror group’s PM, ministers

Defense Minister Israel Katz boasted Tuesday that the remainder of the Houthi leadership was running away from Yemen’s capital following the Israeli strike that killed the terror group’s prime minister and other top officials.

“The remaining Houthi leadership is escaping Sanaa,” Katz posted on X on Tuesday night. “Like all leaders of extremist Islamist terror, they look after themselves and abandon the residents,” he said, writing that Hamas’s Qatar-based leadership does the same.

“We knew how to hunt them this time, and we will know how to do so in the future as well,” he added.

Katz’s post followed a report in Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat that said the remaining Houthi leadership was currently in an “unprecedented state of confusion and panic” after the IDF strike last week.

Several senior Houthi leaders have fled Sanaa to more rural areas in the north of Yemen, the report said, adding that their families have been transported to secure locations.

Houthi leaders also told all senior members not to use government buildings or gather in public places, fearing targeting by Israeli aircraft.

The August 28 strike killed Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, along with several other ministers and top Houthi officials, while they attended a meeting in Sanaa, which is run by the terror group.

A Tuesday report said the precision airstrike followed weeks of intelligence gathering and operational preparation, and involved some 200 intelligence personnel working in a secret bunker.

According to Israeli security sources cited by the Kan public broadcaster, the operation targeted a secretive security meeting involving top Houthi government and military leaders, identified by the IDF Intelligence Directorate’s Research Division.

Kan reported that around 200 intelligence personnel — including members of IDF units 8200, 9900, and 504 — gathered in a classified bunker in central Israel to collect detailed intelligence on the Iran-backed terror group. Representatives from the US Central Command were also reportedly involved.

Ahead of the strike, Israeli intelligence determined the exact timing and location of the meeting, having learned about it just hours ahead of time, according to a Tuesday report in The Wall Street Journal citing Israeli security sources.

Several potential sites were considered for the meeting, and once a villa in a residential neighborhood of Sanaa was confirmed, plans were quickly approved by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and cleared at the political level, the report added.

According to Kan, the presence of senior Israeli military and political officials overseeing the operation ensured that it complied with international law.

The Journal report described the strike as an achievement for Israeli monitoring of the Houthis, whom it described as a “blind spot” for Israeli intelligence prior to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack that started the war in Gaza and prompted Houthi strikes on Israel. Following Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June, the IDF set up a new intelligence department focused on the Houthis, the article said.

Current estimates reportedly place more than 20 senior Houthi officials as having been inside the targeted villa, alongside aides, drivers, and security personnel. According to the Journal, the strike was part of an approach Israeli soldiers refer to as “FAFO,” an acronym that stands for “fuck around and find out.”

Israeli authorities note that the Houthis deliberately held the meeting in a residential villa rather than an official government building, suggesting an attempt to conceal their movements. The Journal report said that the terror group’s leaders have been taking precautions for months, including switching off their phones, communicating in person, avoiding social media and switching locations on a frequent basis.

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, who has remained in hiding for years, was not among the senior officials killed. In a televised speech on the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV on Sunday following Israel’s attack, he vowed to continue “targeting Israel with missiles and drones” and to escalate these attacks, asserting that recent Israeli strikes on rebel-held areas of Yemen would not weaken the group or discourage its fighters.

Kan reported that al-Houthi remains a key IDF target for elimination due to his symbolic and operational significance, and that further operations are planned to deter ongoing missile and drone attacks from Yemen toward Israel.

Also on Tuesday, the Houthis announced that they attacked a ship in the northern Red Sea with two drones and a missile because of its alleged connection to Israel.

The group did not say when the attack happened. There was no immediate confirmation of the attack from maritime sources.

“The Yemeni armed forces carried out a joint military operation targeting the ship … for violating the [Houthis’] decision to ban entry to the ports of occupied Palestine,” the group’s spokesperson said.

The Houthis on Sunday claimed to have attacked the Israeli-owned tanker Scarlet Ray near Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port city of Yanbu in a rare attack off the Saudi coast.

The Iran-backed rebel group also claimed Tuesday to have launched four drones at Israel, including toward Tel Aviv. Earlier, the IDF said the Israel Air Force intercepted an unmanned aerial vehicle launched from Yemen before it entered Israeli territory. No sirens were activated, in accordance with IDF policy.

The IDF also said that the Houthis fired two missiles at Israel early Tuesday morning, but that they disintegrated over Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis — whose slogan calls for “Death to America, Death to Israel, [and] a Curse on the Jews” — began attacking Israel and maritime traffic in November 2023, a month after the October 7 massacre.

The Houthis held their fire when a ceasefire was reached between Israel and Hamas in January 2025. By that point, they had fired over 40 ballistic missiles and dozens of attack drones and cruise missiles at Israel, including one that killed a civilian and wounded several others in Tel Aviv, prompting Israel’s first strike in Yemen.

Since March 18, when the IDF resumed its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis have launched 71 ballistic missiles and at least 23 drones at Israel. Several of the missiles have fallen short.