Israel strikes Yemen for the first time following deadly Houthi drone attack. Here’s what we know

Saturday saw Israel strike inside Yemen for the first time, in response to a deadly drone attack launched by Houthi rebels on Tel Aviv.

For the first time, Israel has struck inside Yemen, following a deadly drone attack launched by Houthi rebels on Tel Aviv. Since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, the Houthis have been targeting shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity - they say - with Gaza. But these direct attacks on each other’s soil between the Israeli military and an Iranian-backed rebel group risk creating a new front in a conflict that already threatened to spill over into the region. Soon after the Israeli attack, the Houthis said they launched a fresh barrage of missiles towards Israel, promising a response that will be “huge and great.” Here’s what we know. The Houthis are an Iran-backed Islamist group based in Yemen. The Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah (Supporters of God), is one side in a civil war that has raged in Yemen for nearly a decade. It emerged in the 1990s, when its leader, Hussein al-Houthi, launched “Believing Youth,” a religious revival movement for a centuries-old subsect of Shia Islam called Zaidism.