Houthis in the context of Hussein al-Houthi

The Port of Eilat (Hebrew: נמל אילת) was the only Israeli port on the Red Sea, located at the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba. This strategic location has given it outsized importance despite being remote from the country's main population centers, and access to the port has played a key role in Arab-Israeli conflicts. The port shut down in July 2025 following a blockade by the Houthi movement.

The Yemeni crisis began with the 2011–2012 revolution against President Abdullah Saleh, who had led Yemen for 33 years. After Saleh left office in early 2012 as part of a mediated agreement between the Yemeni government and opposition groups, the government led by Saleh's former vice president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, faced challenges in governing Yemen’s divided political landscape and addressing armed opposition from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Houthi militant movement that had been waging a protracted insurgency in the north for years.

In September 2014, the conflict escalated into a civil war when Houthi forces entered the capital of Sana'a and forced Hadi to negotiate a "unity government" with other political factions. The Houthis continued their advance and influence over government operations until, after forces aligned with the Houthis reportedly attacked his presidential palace and private residence, Hadi resigned along with his ministers in January 2015.

The Middle Eastern crisis, also known as the October 7 War, is an ongoing regional conflict comprising a series of interrelated wars, conflicts, and heightened instability in the Middle East during the Gaza war and genocide. The Gaza war began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals—including 815 civilians—and taking 251 hostages. Israel then launched an offensive with bombardment and a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. Israel's intensified blockade, bombardment, and invasion of the Gaza Strip has killed over 70,000 Palestinians, with some estimates suggesting more than 90,000 killed. On 10 October 2025, a ceasefire went into effect.

Shortly after the Gaza war began, several Iran-backed militias in the Axis of Resistance joined the conflict against Israel. In Lebanon, Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel, igniting a fourteen-month conflict that escalated in October 2024 to an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon and largely ended with a ceasefire at the end of November. In the Red Sea, the Yemen-based Houthis attacked shipping vessels in solidarity with Hamas, drawing international rebuke—including a series of airstrikes against Houthi positions carried out by the United States and the United Kingdom—which ended with the U.S.–Houthi ceasefire in May 2025. Iraqi militias led by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq also carried out attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, but mostly halted in December 2024.

Parliamentary elections have not been held in Yemen since 2003. The term of the House of Representatives is six years, and the last elections were in 2003. The next elections were originally set for 27 April 2009, but President Ali Abdullah Saleh postponed them by two years on 24 February 2009, claiming the threat of an electoral boycott by a coalition of opposition parties called the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP).

The elections did not take place on 27 April 2011, and were planned to be held alongside the next presidential election, scheduled for February 2014. A special presidential election was held in 2012 following the Yemeni Revolution. In January 2014, the final session of the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) announced that both elections had been delayed and would occur within 9 months of a referendum on a new constitution that had not yet been drafted. However, both the General People's Congress and Houthi representatives on the National Authority for Monitoring the Implementation of NDC Outcomes have refused to vote on the new constitution drafted by the constitution drafting committee, which was submitted in January 2015. The Yemeni civil war began in September 2014.

The Houthi insurgency, also known as the Sa'dah Wars, was a military rebellion pitting Zaidi Shia Houthis that began in northern Yemen and has since escalated into a full-scale civil war. The conflict was sparked in 2004 by the government's attempt to arrest Hussein al-Houthi, a Zaidi religious leader of the Houthis and a former parliamentarian on whose head the government had placed a $55,000 bounty.

Initially, most of the fighting took place in Saada Governorate in northwestern Yemen, but some of the fighting spread to neighbouring governorates Hajjah, 'Amran, al-Jawf and the Saudi province of Jizan. After the Houthi takeover of the capital city Sanaa in late 2014, the insurgency became a full-blown civil war with a major Saudi-led intervention in Yemen beginning in March 2015.

The Battle of Sanaa in 2014 marked the advance of the Houthis into Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, and heralded the beginning of the armed takeover of the government that unfolded over the following months. Fighting began on 9 September 2014, when pro-Houthi protesters under the command of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi marched on the cabinet office and were fired upon by security forces, leaving seven dead. The clashes escalated on 18 September, when 40 were killed in an armed confrontation between the Houthis led by military commander Mohammed Ali al-Houthi and supporters of the Sunni hardliner Islah Party when the Houthis tried to seize Yemen TV, and 19 September, with more than 60 killed in clashes between Houthi fighters and the military and police in northern Sanaa. By 21 September, the Houthis captured the government headquarters, marking the fall of Sanaa.

Mahdi al-Mashat (Arabic: مهدي المشاط, romanized: Mahdī al-Mashāṭ; born 1986) is a Yemeni politician and military officer who serves as the chairman of the Supreme Political Council, the executive body of the Houthis.

The Supreme Political Council (SPC; Arabic: المجلس السياسي الأعلى, romanized: al-Majlis as-Siyāsiyy al-ʾAʿlā) is an extraconstitutional collective head of state and rival executive established in 2016 in Sanaa by the Houthis and the pro-Houthi faction of the General People's Congress (GPC) to rule areas of Yemen under their control opposed to the internationally recognized Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) in Aden. The SPC carries out the functions of head of state in Yemen, appointing the country's cabinet and managing the Yemen's state affairs in a bid to fill in political vacuum during the Yemeni Civil War. The Council aims to outline a basis for running the country and managing state affairs on the basis of the constitution. Since 2018, the SPC has been headed by Mahdi al-Mashat as Chairman of the Council.

The SPC was formed on 28 July 2016 with an initial ten members and was headed by Saleh Ali al-Sammad as president and Qassem Labozah as vice-president. The members were sworn in on 14 August 2016, and the next day the Supreme Revolutionary Committee (SRC) handed power to the Supreme Political Council. After al-Sammad was killed in a drone strike on 19 April 2018, chairmanship of the SPC passed to Mahdi al-Mashat. Under the SPC is subordinate the Cabinet of Yemen, which it appoints and supervises government officials who oversee relevant ministries; since 2016 two governments have been established under the council. In 2016 the SPC appointed former Aden governor Abdel-Aziz bin Habtour to form a ministry known as the National Salvation Government (NSG). In September 2023 the NSG was dismissed and replaced by a caretaker administration which continued to be headed by Habtour. In August 2024 a Presidential resolution appointed Ahmad al-Rahawi as the head of a new ministry known as the 'Government of Change and Construction' (GCC). Eight days later the House of Representatives (in Sanaa) approved the cabinet and called for a 36-point 'general program'. However, on August 28, 2025 Israel launched Operation Lucky Drop, assassinating the Prime Minister amongst other government officials of the SPC. On August 30, 2025, after confirming the assassinations, the Houthis appointed Muhammad Ahmed Miftah as the new Prime Minister of the SPC. The assassination of the SPC's Defense Minister has not yet been confirmed by the Houthis.

The Houthi takeover in Yemen, also known by the Houthis as the September 21 Revolution, or 2014–15 Yemeni coup d'état (by opponents), was a popular revolution against Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi led by the Houthis and their supporters that pushed the Yemeni government from power. It had origins in Houthi-led protests that began the previous month, and escalated when the Houthis stormed the Yemeni capital Sanaa on 21 September 2014, causing the resignation of Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa, and later the resignation of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his ministers on 22 January 2015 after Houthi forces seized the presidential palace, residence, and key military installations, and the formation of a ruling council by Houthi militants on 6 February 2015.

The unrest began on 18 August 2014 as the Houthis, angered over a government-implemented removal of fuel subsidies, called for mass protests. On 21 September, as the Houthis took control of Sanaa, the Yemeni Army did not formally intervene, other than troops affiliated with General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Al-Islah Party. After gaining control over key government buildings in Sana'a, the Houthis and government signed a UN-brokered deal on 21 September to form a "unity government".