Dubai: An Israeli airstrike targeting the top leaders of Yemen’s Houthi rebels in August killed the chief of staff of its military, officials said on Thursday, further escalating tensions between the group and Israel even as a ceasefire holds in the Gaza Strip.

The Houthis have acknowledged the killing of Major General Muhammad Abdul Karim al-Ghamari, who had been sanctioned by the United Nations over his role in the country’s decade long war.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said al-Ghamari died of wounds he suffered in the attack and had joined “his fellow members of the axis of evil in the depths of hell”.

Katz referred to the strike as “the strike of the firstborn”, likely a reference to a series of strikes Israel conducted on August 28. That attack killed Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi and others. However, analysts suggested al-Ghamari may have been wounded in a different attack targeting the secretive group.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also acknowledged Israel killing al-Ghamari.

“Another chief of staff in the line of terror chiefs who aimed to harm us was eliminated,” Netanyahu said. “We will reach all of them.”

Houthis offer few details

In a statement carried by the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency, the militants said al-Ghamari had been killed alongside his 13-year-old son Hussain and “several of his companions”. It did not elaborate on the date of the strike, nor did it identify the others killed in the strike.

“His pure soul ascended while he was in the course of his jihadi work,” SABA said.

The United Nations, in sanctioning al-Ghamari, described him as playing “the leading role in orchestrating the Houthis’ military efforts that are directly threatening the peace, security and stability of Yemen, as well as cross-border attacks against Saudi Arabia”.

The US Treasury also said al-Ghamari was “responsible for orchestrating attacks by Houthi forces impacting Yemeni civilians” in sanctioning him in 2021. It described him as having received training from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

“As the head of the general staff of the Houthi armed forces, the most senior commander within the Houthi military leadership structure, al-Ghamari is directly responsible for overseeing Houthi military operations that have destroyed civilian infrastructure and Yemen’s neighbours,” specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Treasury said at the time.

The Israel military described al-Ghamari as being “responsible for hundreds of missiles and (drone) attacks launched toward Israeli civilians and the state of Israel”.

Al-Ghamari also led a Houthi offensive targeting Yemen’s energy-rich Marib province.

The Treasury listed his year of birth as either 1979 or 1984 at the time of his sanctioning. His other survivors were not immediately known.

Another SABA statement said al-Ghamari would be replaced by Maj. Gen. Yusuf Hassan al-Madani. He had been sanctioned at the same time as al-Ghamari by the US over his work as “a prominent Houthi military leader” who commanded the rebels’ fifth military zone, including the key Red Sea port city of Hodeida.

Death comes as Gaza ceasefire takes hold

It remains unclear how the Houthis will respond. The group gained international prominence during the Israel-Hamas war over its attacks, which it said were aimed at forcing Israel to stop fighting. Since the ceasefire began on October 10, there has not been a Houthi attack targeting either Israel or shipping.

The Houthi campaign against shipping has killed at least nine mariners and seen four ships sunk. It upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which about USD 1 trillion of goods passed each year before the war. The rebels’ most recent attack hit the Dutch-flagged cargo ship Minervagracht on September 29, killing one crew member on board and wounding another.

The Houthis meanwhile have increasingly threatened Saudi Arabia and taken dozens of workers at UN agencies and other aid groups as prisoners, alleging without evidence they were spies — something fiercely denied by the world body and others.

“Among the most dangerous espionage cells that became active are those affiliated with organisations working in the humanitarian field, notably the World Food Programme and UNICEF,” claimed the Houthi’s secretive leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, in a televised speech on Thursday, without offering evidence.

UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric forcefully rejected al-Houthi’s remarks.

“The accusations are extremely disturbing,” he said. “They’re extremely worrying coming from the leadership. And accusations, calling UN staff spies or, as we’ve seen in other contexts, calling them terrorists — all that does is it puts the lives of UN staff everywhere at risk, and it’s unacceptable.”

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