Yemen’s Houthi militants vowed to step up attacks against Israel and its allies in response to strikes on the capital Sanaa that killed the prime minister and at least nine members of his Cabinet.

“We won’t back down,” Mohammed Muftah, who was appointed acting premier of the Houthi government after the assassination of Ahmed Ghalib Al-Rahwi, said in a video message ahead of a funeral for the slain officials on Monday. The whole “Zionist system” is responsible for the deadly assault, including the U.S. and Western-allied Arab countries that have normalized diplomatic ties with Israel, he said during the service.

Muftah, a fanatical preacher close to the movement’s leader Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, spoke inside Sanaa’s biggest mosque before flag-draped coffins and thousands of supporters chanting slogans against Israel and the U.S., according to footage broadcast by Houthi-controlled media. “They will fail and our countermeasures are very strong,” he said.

Muftah succeeded Al-Rahwi, who was killed in an Israel airstrike on a government meeting in Sanaa on Thursday. Among the dead were nine other ministers and two of Rahwi’s closest aides, according to Muftah.

The assassination was a major blow to the U.S. terror-designated group, which seized control of Sanaa in 2014 and held onto the city throughout a bloody civil war against government forces backed by Saudi Arabia and others. After the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict in 2023, the group began attacking ships in the Red Sea and launching drones and missiles at Israel in support of Gazans and the Palestinian group, which is also backed by Iran.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he had ordered the air force to strike “a gathering of senior terrorist regime figures in Sanaa” as they assembled to watch a speech by their leader Al-Houthi. He called it a “lethal strike” that “eliminated most of the Houthi government and additional senior military officials.”

“This is only the beginning of striking senior figures in Sanaa — we will reach them all,” Netanyahu said, suggesting his military and security services have strengthened their intelligence on the Houthis.

On the same day Netanyahu spoke, Al-Houthi, who is Israel’s number one target in Yemen, delivered a televised speech in which he said the Houthis are waging a war against Israel and its allies and backers on behalf of all Arabs and Muslims.

“The Zionist plan is to enslave and desecrate this ummah,” he said, using the Arabic word for the community of Muslims.

The pronouncement reinforces the prominent role the Houthis have assumed in Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, the network of Middle East militant groups backed by Tehran and which pursue an anti-Israel agenda. Lebanon’s Hezbollah was the biggest and most powerful of those organizations before sustaining heavy losses in an Israeli offensive late last year.

Maritime security firm Ambrey said Sunday that a Liberia-flagged tanker reported a nearby explosion in the Red Sea about 38 nautical miles southwest of Yanbu in Saudi Arabia. Ambrey said the vessel, which it didn’t name, matched the profile usually targeted by the Houthis as it was Israeli-owned. The ship was continuing its transit, Ambrey said.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grunberg, said 11 U.N. employees in Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida were arrested by the Houthis following Israel’s deadly strike. At least two dozen other U.N. personnel taken by the group between 2021 and 2023 remain in detention, he said in a statement.

The Houthis have usually carried out these sweeps under the guise of going after people deemed to be collaborating with their external enemies.

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(With assistance from Rakteem Katakey, Dan Williams and Gina Turner.)

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