Who the Houthis Are
The Houthis call themselves Ansar Allah, “Supporters of God.” The name most of the world uses comes from the family that founded them. The movement began in the 1990s as a religious revival among the Zaydis, a branch of Shia Islam found almost only in the mountains of northern Yemen. Its founder, Hussein al-Houthi, was killed by Yemeni government forces in 2004, and his brother Abdul-Malik al-Houthi leads the group today.
After years of rebellion, the Houthis captured Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014. In 2015 Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab states into the war to restore Yemen’s internationally recognized government, and the result was one of the worst humanitarian disasters on earth. A truce in 2022 brought a measure of quiet until it collapsed in July of this year. The Houthis are armed, trained, and supplied by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and count themselves part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” alongside Hezbollah and Hamas. On March 4, 2025, the United States formally designated them a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
What They Stand For
The Houthis have never hidden their aims. Their official slogan, painted on walls and chanted at rallies across the territory they hold, reads:
They govern as they speak. In the areas under their control they enforce a harsh religious rule, and they have proved it most clearly in how they have treated those who do not share their faith.
The Jews of Yemen. Jews lived in Yemen for well over two thousand years. Around 50,000 were airlifted to the new state of Israel in 1949–50, but a small remnant stayed on. Under the Houthis that remnant has been all but erased. Families were pressured out and expelled, and by 2021 reports said only a handful remained. Levi Salem Marhabi has been held by the Houthis since 2016, accused of helping smuggle an ancient Torah scroll out of the country. A Houthi court ordered his release in 2019, yet the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported in 2024 that he was still being held in solitary confinement and in poor health. The United Nations has called him the last Jew remaining in Yemen.
The Christians of Yemen. Yemen ranks third on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of the countries where Christians are most persecuted. Nearly all of Yemen’s believers are converts from Islam, and under Yemeni law leaving Islam is a capital crime. International Christian Concern reported in February 2026 that at least 20 Yemeni Christians had been detained in recent months, some in Houthi-run prisons, others simply vanished. They meet in secret, often only in twos and threes, and some have paid for their faith with their lives.
Others too. The Houthis have imprisoned members of the Baha’i faith, sentenced one to death, and expelled several from the country. They have raided United Nations offices in Sanaa and detained aid workers.
The Latest: War on Land and Sea
The Houthis first drew the world’s attention in late 2023, when they began attacking ships in the Red Sea, claiming to act on behalf of Gaza. They paused after the Gaza ceasefire in late 2025. But with this year’s war between the United States and Iran, they returned with greater force. In June they banned all Israeli and Israeli-linked ships. In July, as the 2022 truce collapsed, they declared a complete naval blockade of Saudi Arabia. In September they swept down Yemen’s western coast, seizing about 93 miles of shoreline, the port cities of Hodeidah and Mocha, and islands near the Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow strait at the mouth of the Red Sea through which passes an estimated 12 to 15 percent of the world’s seaborne trade.
They then turned their missiles on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry. After a late-September attack on Aramco facilities at Yanbu, which the Saudis say they intercepted, the Houthis claimed a ballistic missile and drone strike on an Aramco site south of Riyadh on October 3, and smoke was seen rising from the facility. The Saudi-led coalition called the claims “misleading.” On October 6, Saudi airports at Jazan and Najran near the Yemeni border were attacked, with injuries reported.
On October 4, Rashad al-Alimi, who heads Yemen’s internationally recognized government, announced a campaign to retake every inch of Houthi-held territory. Government forces say they have recaptured Mocha and the Dhubab district near the strait, and they have announced an offensive toward Sanaa. The Houthis dispute these claims, and the government’s report of 1,747 Houthi fighters killed has not been independently verified. Meanwhile more than 100,000 people have been driven from their homes since July, in a country where millions already depend on food aid.
Wars and Rumours of Wars
Christians should not be surprised by such things. The Lord Jesus told His disciples plainly:
The nations still rage, as they did in David’s day: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?” (Psalm 2:1). And still “He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh” (Psalm 2:4). Missiles over Riyadh and blockades in the Red Sea do not unsettle the throne of God. “The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all” (Psalm 103:19). The believer may watch the news without fear, knowing that no ruler, militia, or empire acts outside the sovereign purpose of God.
A God Who Has No Son
The Houthis shout “God is great” as they curse the Jews and imprison Christians. But the god they invoke is not the God of the Bible. Islam, in all its branches, Sunni and Shia alike, denies that God has a Son and denies that Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners. The Scripture is clear about such a confession:
The Lord Jesus also foretold that men would persecute His people while believing they were serving God: “yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me” (John 16:2–3). That is a precise description of a movement that jails converts to Christ in the name of God.
Nor should the Houthis’ hatred of the Jewish people be passed over lightly. Whatever one’s view of the modern state of Israel, a slogan that curses an entire people is wicked. The apostle Paul, himself a Jew, had “great heaviness and continual sorrow” in his heart for his kinsmen (Romans 9:2), and wrote, “my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved” (Romans 10:1). The Christian answer to hatred of the Jews is not a rival hatred, but the gospel preached to Jew and Gentile alike, for “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him” (Romans 10:12).
Remember Those in Bonds
The Yemeni believers who meet in secret, who face prison for owning a Bible and death for having left Islam, are our brothers and sisters. The Scripture commands us not to forget them:
Their suffering is not a sign that God has abandoned them. “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). The very fact that men and women in Yemen are still coming to Christ, at such a cost, is proof that the gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16), and that no militia can stop the Lord from calling His own.
Pray for Yemen
Let Christians pray for the secret believers of Yemen: for those in Houthi prisons, that the Lord would sustain them and, if it be His will, set them free; and for their families, who often suffer with them. Pray for Levi Marhabi and for every prisoner held for his faith. Pray for the millions of ordinary Yemenis, hungry and displaced by a war they did not choose.
And pray for the Houthis themselves. The Lord commanded, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). The fiercest persecutor of the early church was Saul of Tarsus, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1) — until Christ stopped him on the road to Damascus and made him the apostle Paul. The God who saved Saul can save a Houthi fighter as well. Salvation is not earned by any man’s works or zeal, but is the free gift of God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8–9), and there is no sinner beyond the reach of that grace.
Sources: Al Jazeera (September 11; October 4, 5, and 6, 2026); CNBC (October 4, 2026); NPR (September 12, 2026); the Council on Foreign Relations; U.S. State Department and Voice of America on the 2025 terrorist designation; International Christian Concern (February 17, 2026) and Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List; Point of No Return, Jewish Insider, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on Levi Marhabi and Yemen’s Jews. All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version.