Yemen, once the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation, has suffered nearly a decade of continuous conflict rooted in regional rivalry and proxy warfare, leaving its territory and population divided and devastated. The crisis began in 2014, when the Iranian-backed Houthi movement overran the capital, Sana’a, ousting the UN-recognized president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and seizing control of the country’s north. Backed by advanced weaponry, training, and tactical guidance from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, the Houthis quickly transformed into one of Iran’s most powerful proxies, fundamentally shifting the balance of power in Yemen.
In response, 2015 saw Saudi Arabia assemble a coalition of Sunni states, launching a military intervention intended to restore the internationally recognized government and prevent Yemen from falling further under Iranian influence. The ensuing war has since become a protracted stalemate, with the Houthis entrenching themselves in the north and northwest, including Sana’a, and the coalition-backed government maintaining a precarious hold over the south. In between, Yemen’s society has fractured, its infrastructure shattered, and millions of residents plunged into a dire humanitarian crisis.
The Houthis, fortified by years of Iranian support, now control much of northern Yemen and have developed indigenous weapons production capabilities with direct technological and logistical input from Tehran. Their arsenal includes ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and explosive-laden boats, enabling attacks far beyond Yemen’s borders—most notably against Saudi oil infrastructure and, increasingly, maritime traffic in the Red Sea. The construction of an extensive network of tunnels and hardened underground storage sites, under Iranian supervision, has further solidified their military presence and complicated coalition military efforts.
Despite the deployment of advanced Western weaponry and years of sustained coalition attacks, the Houthis’ grip on northern Yemen has only deepened, underscoring both their resilience and the limitations of outside military intervention in the absence of a credible political solution. Tensions in the south remain high; the coalition-aligned government struggles to govern amid frequent threats from local militias, separatist movements, and jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The war has left Yemen divided: Houthi rule in the north, characterized by restriction of civil liberties, diversion of humanitarian aid, and recurrent human rights abuses—including arbitrary arrests, child recruitment, and weaponization of hunger—stands in stark contrast to the instability and contested authority found in the south. The UN and other international agencies have repeatedly described Yemen’s crisis as the world’s worst humanitarian emergency, with tens of millions dependent on outside assistance and the country’s basic services in collapse.
Repeated ceasefire initiatives and international mediation efforts have failed to produce lasting peace. The irreconcilable ambitions of the Houthis—emboldened by Iranian support—and the coalition-backed government have left the conflict at an impasse. All the while, Iran continues to utilize Yemen as a launchpad for regional influence operations directed against Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, maritime shipping in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, and, by extension, Israel and the broader Western-aligned order in the Middle East.
The war in Yemen serves as a stark warning of the dangers posed by unchecked Iranian proxy expansion. The Houthis’ ability to withstand overwhelming military pressure, build up indigenous weapons production under the guidance of IRGC and Hezbollah officers, and inflict terror well beyond Yemen’s borders has established the country as a keystone in what Iranian leaders term the “axis of resistance.” For Israel and its regional allies, the conflict is not just a local tragedy, but a strategic obstacle to stability and security that underscores the urgent need to confront and contain the Islamic Republic’s regional designs.
As fighting continues and Yemen remains bifurcated, the world faces a difficult choice: confront the root causes of the crisis and the malign network enabling it, or risk allowing yet another generation of Yemenis to pay the price for a war not of their making.
