The Houthis have gone through something of a transformation in their reputation since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.
A rebel group from Yemen’s far north, the Houthis had fought the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led coalition for almost a decade, proving a degree of military prowess, but had little ability to project power regionally, even as they occasionally fired missiles and drones towards Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
And domestically, among many Yemenis, they were unpopular, regarded by their enemies as a theocratic and repressive group that wanted to end Yemen’s republic – even as the Iranian ally defended their takeover of much of Yemen as a popular revolution.
A lot has changed in the past 16 months as the Houthis demonstrated their capabilities – firing projectiles deep into Israel and causing damage – as well as their willingness to challenge the West and attack shipping in the seas around Yemen, all ostensibly in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.
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For those actions, among many in the region and beyond, the Houthis have become a symbol of resistance against Israel and the West and the true representative of the Yemeni state.
And domestically, it has proven difficult for the group’s enemies to criticise their actions in support of the Palestinians, a popular position in a country as staunchly pro-Palestinian as Yemen.
“The Houthi leadership has not feared the United States or any other Western force,” said Abdullah Yahia, a high school graduate from Sanaa. “Offering support to Gaza is the real gauge of courage and humanity. This is why I have changed my view on the Houthis.”
“They have succeeded in increasing their popularity considerably,” Adel Dashela, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia Global Centers – Amman, told Al Jazeera. “Countless people worldwide feel Gaza has been wronged, and that any action to support its population is praiseworthy.”
On the military front, Dashela believes that the true impact of the Houthis’ actions has been on the global shipping industry, rather than in its attacks on Israel – which have only caused limited damage.
Many shipping companies now avoid the Red Sea – a vital international shipping route – because of Houthi attacks that US-led reprisals were unable to stop. The attacks on shipping – which, according to a tally by the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), have numbered more than 200 since the start of the war – have increased shipping costs and led to cargo traffic through Egypt’s Suez Canal plummeting.
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All in all, the Houthis have grown in strength and are emboldened, at a time when Iran and pro-Iranian groups across the wider region – such as the Palestinian group Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah – appear weaker.
“No longer content to focus their sights just on Yemen, [the Houthis’] growing ambitions to fill the void left by Iran’s crumbling axis cannot be ignored,” wrote Beth Sanner, a former US deputy director of national intelligence, and Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, in an article for Foreign Policy last month.
More enemies
On January 16, after the Gaza ceasefire was agreed, the group’s leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, warned that attacks on Israel would resume if the truce was breached, a threat that has been repeated. And on January 20, a day after the ceasefire began, senior Houthi official Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said that the group had possession of missiles “with 100 percent accuracy”.
“Whoever thinks that we exaggerate should review our attacks on ships linked to [Israel],” he added.
The Houthis have gone from a localised threat to one that now poses a direct challenge to Israeli and Western interests, who are now more focused on finding a way to defeat, or at least seriously weaken, the Houthis.
The US and the United Kingdom began bombing Houthi targets in Yemen in January 2024, and Israel has also conducted its own attacks. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said that his country would “hunt down” Houthi leaders.
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The US has now redesignated the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organisation” – one of the first moves by President Donald Trump in his new term in office.
A White House statement explained that US policy was to now cooperate with regional partners to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities and operations and deprive them of resources.
“The US redesignation of the Houthi group as a foreign terrorist organisation is part of the West’s broader campaign against Iran’s proxies in the region,” Abdusalam Mohammed, head of Yemen’s Abaad Studies and Research Center, told Al Jazeera.
“The redesignation of the Houthis, I expect, is a prologue to a [wider] Western military operation to weaken or dismember the Houthi group.”
The resolution has enraged the Houthis, who say that the US intends to worsen the suffering of the Yemeni people due to their support for Palestinians.
The Houthi Political Office in Sanaa called on “free nations” to denounce the US decision, stating: “Our armed forces will remain on alert and ready for any military escalation in Yemen.”
“With their designation as a terrorist group, the Houthis have lost the opportunity to resolve the conflict in Yemen through peace talks. The West now appears more inclined to eliminate the group rather than include it in a comprehensive diplomatic process,” said Mohammed.
The Houthis will not be allowed to “act unchecked”, said Khalfan al-Touqi, an Omani political and economic analyst. “Following the weakening of other Iranian proxies in the region, the West – particularly the US and the UK – sees this as a golden opportunity to diminish the Houthi group’s power as much as possible,” he added.
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Al-Touqi argues that the US, Europe, Israel and Middle Eastern governments will prioritise weakening the Houthi group in the coming months.
“We have clear evidence of what happened to Iran’s allies in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Now, only one Iran-backed group remains significantly influential: the Houthis. However, this group cannot sustain its strength indefinitely,” al-Touqi stated.
He added: “President Trump views the Houthi group as a significant problem. As a result, he is likely to mobilise forces to target and weaken the Houthis. While they may not be entirely eliminated, their capabilities will undoubtedly be diminished.”
Tough to defeat
However, the Houthis have found themselves underestimated before – if anything, it is their ability to survive in the face of seemingly much stronger enemies that has contributed to their belief in a divine ability to overcome opponents.
But the group would also likely welcome regional de-escalation, and an opportunity to declare victory over Israel.
“The cessation of the Gaza war would be a lifeline for the Houthis,” said Ayed al-Manna, a Kuwaiti academic and political researcher. “The group would de-escalate its operations, as it would have no justification for continuing such attacks on shipping lanes.”
If the Gaza conflict intensifies again, and the Houthis resume attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea, then the Yemeni group may find themselves under heavier attack than before.
Some have suggested that this could lead to the Houthis facing a similar fate to another Iranian ally, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown in December, or that the Yemeni group’s leadership could be assassinated, as much of the leadership of the Lebanese group Hezbollah has been.
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But while the Houthis are in the same pro-Iranian camp, there are clear differences – including that Israel and the West appear to not have the same intelligence on the Houthis as they have had on Hezbollah and Hamas, and that the Houthis have already withstood years of Saudi-led coalition bombing and survived.
“The Houthi group still holds significant strengths – it possesses vast arsenals, thousands of fighters, firm control over its territories, and, most crucially, the weakness of its Yemeni opponents,” said Mohammed al-Samaei, a Taiz-based political researcher and journalist.
These factors, al-Samaei noted, allow the group to endure confrontations with both local and foreign forces.
“Even if the Yemeni government, backed by Western powers, launches a new offensive against the Houthis, their rapid collapse – similar to what happened with Assad’s regime in Syria – is not guaranteed.”
