Muhammad Ali al-Houthi, a member of the Houthi Supreme Political Council that governs parts of Yemen, said on Tuesday that he “does not fear the Jews,” speaking as Israel vowed to target the heads of the Iranian-backed terrorist group in response to repeated missile attacks.
"[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, do you think you will do to us what you did to Hezbollah? Ask the Yemeni Jews who we are,” the de facto president of Yemen said in a video statement posted on social media.
In 1900, there were about 50,000 Jews in Yemen. Following centuries of discrimination and persecution, Israel’s “Operation Magic Carpet” from 1949 to 1950 brought nearly all remaining Yemenite Jews home. The last one remaining, Levi Marhabi, has been imprisoned by the Houthis since 2016 for allegedly helping a Jewish family flee with a Torah scroll.
Al-Houthi continued, “The Yemeni people will continue to support the Gaza Strip, no matter the sacrifices.”
The people of Yemen “do not fear the Jews and do not care about any threats, but rather consider them hollow statements,” he said.
Israel has devastated Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist army in Lebanon, in several military operations that started with the Sept. 17-18 pager attacks that wounded thousands of its operatives, in response to the group’s attacks in support of Gaza-based Hamas.
On Sept. 27, Israel dropped at least a dozen 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on a Beirut bunker, killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Houthis—who have advanced weapons including cruise and surface-to-surface missiles and drones—have stepped up their aerial attacks on the Jewish state in recent days, repeatedly sending millions of Israeli civilians running for shelter over the past week.
Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed on Tuesday that “just as we dealt with [recently slain Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar in Gaza, [Hamas political leader Ismail] Haniyeh in Tehran and Nasrallah in Beirut, we will also deal with the heads of the Houthis in Sanaa and everywhere in Yemen.”
