Since 2011, Yemen has been in a state of civil war between the Houthis—a tribal, religious, and political group—and the country’s officially recognized government; the conflict became more severe after the Houthis seized the capital in 2014, and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states intervened to support the government. By this time, it had become clear that the Houthis were receiving massive support from Iran. Julie Lenarz writes:

The Houthis, officially called Ansar Allah, are a homegrown organization that originated in northern Yemen in the 1990s and has fought against Yemen’s governments on and off since 2004. . . . [In the past few years, the] Houthis adopted a strident anti-Western rhetoric that originated in Iran and is frequently [employed] by [Tehran’s] Lebanese terror proxy Hizballah. “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam!,” [their official slogan], can be found scrawled on mosques and other public institutions across Houthi-controlled territory. . . .

Before the Houthi rebels entered the capital Sana’a in 2014, Iran started to support the insurgency with weapons, money, and training. . . . [T]he Quds Force, a special-forces unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, . . . had a few hundred military personnel in Yemen to train Houthi fighters. . . . [I]n return, about 100 Houthi members had traveled to Iran for training at a Revolutionary Guards base near the city of Qom. . . .

[The Houthis’] television channel, al-Masirah, is broadcast from Beirut with the assistance of Hizballah, which holds enormous influence over the city’s southern suburbs. [There are also] striking tactical similarities between the Houthi takeover of Sana’a and the events in Beirut in 2008, when Hizballah gunmen seized control of large parts of Lebanon’s capital. . . .

Yemen is the latest project in Iran’s grand plan of ascendancy in the region for which they use the Houthi rebels as a vehicle of projecting power on the Arabian Peninsula. Hizballah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, recently threatened that the next war with Israel could see . . . “thousands, even hundreds of thousands of fighters [come] from all over the Arab and Islamic world to participate—from Iraq, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.