The Houthis of Yemen come together for the funeral of the killed PM, government officials controlled by the rebels

Hundreds of people in Yemen gathered on Monday for the funeral of Ahmed al-Rahawi, Prime Minister Houthi and other representatives of the government killed last week.

According to the rebel group, they died in an Israeli strike, three days after the Houthis supported by Iran launched a ballistic missile to Israel that its soldiers described as the first cluster bomb that the group launched in the country since 2023.

The funeral took place at the Shaab mosque in the capital of Sanaa and broadcast by Al-Masirah TV, a satellite information chain controlled by Houthi.

Crowds inside the mosque sang against Israel and the United States as it was crying for civil servants, including foreign affairs, media and culture and industrial ministers.

Israel said on Friday that his air strike had targeted the chief of staff of the Houthis, Minister of Defense and other senior officials, and that he was checking the result, but Monday had not directly commented on the death of Al-Rahawi and the ministers.

Ahmed Khaled and Fathy Mahmoud, among those who attended the funeral, told the Associated Press that the families of those killed arrived in ambulances for the event, where the bodies were placed in coffins inside the mosque.

Images have shown 11 coffins with individual photos from the end of civil servants on each and wrapped in Yemeni flags.

Al-Rahawi was the highest Houthi official to be killed from an Israeli campaign against the rebel group began earlier this year. Other ministers and officials were injured, said a Houthi statement on Thursday, following the Israeli attack.

“We entered a huge and influential war and faced and faced the United States, this war was not only focused on the military, but also economic because Israel has targeted everything,” Mohamed Muftah, the new acting Prime Minister of Houthis, said in his speech during the funeral on Monday. Muftah had previously been the deputy for Al-Rahawi.

He said that despite the Israeli attacks, the Yemeni ports controlled by the group still work and that there is no food or fuel crisis.

Houthis claims an attack on the oil tanker

The Yemeni rebels said on Monday that they had launched a missile in an oil tanker off the coast of Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea.

Brig.-Gen. Yahya Saree, military spokesperson Houthi, claimed the responsibility of a pre-recorded message broadcast on Al-Masirah. He alleged that the ship, the scarlet radius with Liberian flag, belonging to the east of the Pacific, had links with Israel.

The maritime security company, Ambrey, described the ship as the “target profile of the Houthis, because the ship is publicly constituted by Israeli”.

The eastern Pacific is a company which is ultimately controlled by the Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and had already been targeted in alleged Iranian attacks.

In a press release, the company said that “the ship has not suffered no damage and continues to operate under its master’s command. All crew members on board the scarlet department are safe and recorded.”

The Houthi rebels have launched missiles and drone attacks against Israel and ships in the Red Sea in response to the war in Gaza, saying that they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Their attacks in the past two years have turned upside down the Red Sea expeditions, through which around 1 Billion of dollars in goods pass each year.

The Houthis stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war. Later, they became the target of an intense several-week air strike campaign ordered by US President Donald Trump before declaring a ceasefire that had been reached with the rebels. The Houthis sank two ships in July, killing at least four on board, with others that would be held by the rebels.

The new attacks by Houthis come as a new ceasefire possible in the War of Israel-Hamas remains in balance.

The future of talks between the United States and Iran on the battered nuclear program of Tehran is in question after Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in which the Americans bombed three Iranian atomic sites.

Look | How Houthis have become major regional disruptors:

How the Houthis have become the main disruptors of the Middle East

Formerly a group of ragot in Yemen – one of the poorest countries in the world – Iran has helped Houthis to become major actors capable of disturbing world shipping traffic in the Red Sea. Paul Hunter of CBC breaks down the rise of the Houthis and what the world must monitor. (Correction: in a previous version of this video, we have pointed out that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by several countries and entities, including the United Nations. In fact, the UN does not consider Hamas as a terrorist organization.)