Yemen's Houthis say military chief Mohammed al-Ghamari killed in Israeli attack

Yemen (File photo)

An Israeli attack has killed the military chief of Yemen's Houthi rebels, the Iran-backed group said on Thursday, threatening revenge.

Major General Mohammed al-Ghamari died in "honourable battle against the Israeli enemy", a military statement said, without giving further details.

His death was announced days into a ceasefire in the two-year Gaza war, during which the Houthi repeatedly attacked Israeli targets and cargo ships in the Red Sea.

Ghamari died alongside "companions" and his 13-year-old son, the Houthi statement said, without giving the date of the attack.

The Houthis' general staff headquarters was among the targets of the last major Israeli air strike on Yemen in late September, Israel's military said at the time.

But Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz posted on X on Thursday that Ghamari "died of his wounds" after a strike in August that killed the Houthi prime minister and half his cabinet.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Ghamari was "eliminated among a series of terrorist commanders who sought to harm us -- we will get to them all", according to a post by his office.

The Israeli military said that Ghamari played a "key role in building the military capabilities of the Houthi terror regime, particularly in establishing its missile systems and weapons-production infrastructure".

It said Ghamari had been trained by Lebanon's Hezbollah group and Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps.

His killing "represents a severe blow to the Houthi terror regime and to its chain of command, which orchestrated hundreds of terror attacks against the State of Israel during the war", the military said.

Red Sea strikes

The Houthis, part of Iran's so-called "axis of resistance" against Israel and the United States, have traded attacks with Israeli and American forces during the Gaza war.

Their statement said they had carried out 758 military operations, deploying 1,835 munitions, including drones and missiles, during their campaign.

"The rounds of conflict with the enemy have not ended, and the Zionist enemy (Israel) will receive its deterrent punishment for the crimes it has committed," it said.

The Houthis began firing on Israel-linked shipping in the busy Red Sea and Gulf of Aden trade route early in the Gaza war, claiming to act in solidarity with the Palestinians.

Their frequent drone and missile attacks on Israel have drawn a heavy Israeli response, including the August airstrike that killed the prime minister and 11 other senior officials.

After US President Donald Trump returned to power in January, a seven-week American campaign of near-daily bombing left 300 people dead, according to an AFP tally of Houthi figures.

The Houthis, who hail from Yemen's rugged north, have controlled large swathes of the country, including the capital Sanaa, for more than a decade.

Attacks by a Saudi-led international coalition from early 2015 failed to dislodge them, while the conflict plunged Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country, into a major humanitarian catastrophe.