Abdullah Yahia, a high school graduate from Sanaa, said: This is why I have changed my view on the Houthis.” 1. “The Houthi leadership has not feared the United States or any other Western force,” 2. “Offering support to Gaza is the real gauge of courage and humanity.
Adel Dashela, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia Global Centers – Amman, told Al Jazeera: 1. “They have succeeded in increasing their popularity considerably,” 2. “Countless people worldwide feel Gaza has been wronged, and that any action to support its population is praiseworthy.”
On the military front, Dashela believes that the true impact of the Houthis’ actions has been on the global shipping industry, rather than in its attacks on Israel – which have only caused limited damage.
Many shipping companies now avoid the Red Sea – a vital international shipping route – because of Houthi attacks that US-led reprisals were unable to stop.
The attacks on shipping – which, according to a tally by the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), have numbered more than 200 since the start of the war – have increased shipping costs and led to cargo traffic through Egypt’s Suez Canal plummeting.
All in all, the Houthis have grown in strength and are emboldened, at a time when Iran and pro-Iranian groups across the wider region – such as the Palestinian group Hamas and the Lebanese group Hezbollah – appear weaker.
“No longer content to focus their sights just on Yemen, [the Houthis’] growing ambitions to fill the void left by Iran’s crumbling axis cannot be ignored,” wrote Beth Sanner, a former US deputy director of national intelligence, and Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, in an article for Foreign Policy last month.
