Who Are the Houthi Rebels Attacking Israel and Ships in the Red Sea?

Soon after war broke out in October between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, the Houthi rebels who control northwestern Yemen joined in. The Houthis, who like Hamas are hostile to Israel and backed by Iran, began disrupting traffic in the Red Sea by attacking ships there, provoking a military response led by the US and UK. The rebels also started flinging missiles and drones at Israel, which is separated from Yemen by about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) at the closest point. They scored a hit on July 19, when one of their drones hit a building in central Tel Aviv, killing a man and injuring several others. As tensions have escalated between Israel and both Iran and the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, the Houthis have indicated that if those two allies launch a coordinated attack against Israel, they could join in to overwhelm the country’s air defenses.

They are rebels who seized control of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, in 2014, launching a civil war that continues to this day. Part of a clan that hails from Yemen’s northwestern Saada province, the Houthis are followers of the Zaidi branch of Shiite Islam, which accounts for an estimated 25% of the country’s population. After North Yemen and South Yemen were unified in 1990, the Houthis waged a series of rebellions before successfully taking the capital. The Houthis are anti-Western and anti-Israeli.