Yemen's Houthi rebel movement has confirmed that its self-proclaimed Prime Minister Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi was killed in an Israeli air strike earlier this week.
The Iran-backed group reported that several other senior officials also died when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) targeted Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on Thursday.
The IDF stated that Rahawi and other senior Houthi officials were 'eliminated' when Israeli fighter jets struck a gathering in the Sanaa area.
The Houthis have controlled much of north-western Yemen since 2014, following the ousting of the internationally recognized government from Sanaa, which triggered a devastating civil war.
Along with Rahawi, several other Houthi ministers were reported killed, although their names were not disclosed. Reports from Saudi Arabian al-Hadath indicate that the Houthis' foreign minister, alongside the ministers for justice, youth and sports, social affairs, and labor, were among the dead.
The Houthi presidency office indicated that Muhammad Ahmed Miftah, the Houthi deputy prime minister, would step into Rahawi's role.
Rahawi had been in office since August 2024, functioning more as a figurehead than a top decision-maker involved in military strategies.
Notably, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the movement's leader, and key military figures reportedly survived the strike.
The IDF announced that the attack was executed shortly after receiving intelligence about the gathering, and they are still assessing its complete impact.
Since the onset of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis have frequently launched missiles at Israel and targeted commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden as part of their solidarity with the Palestinians. In turn, Israel has conducted air strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen with the stated aim of curtailing these attacks.
Last week, Israel reported it had targeted Houthi locations in Sanaa in response to a missile strike attributed to the Houthis, which Israel claimed involved cluster munitions.
