Yemen's de facto government, the US-designated terrorist Houthi militia, ramped up ballistic attacks on Israel's international airport and US ships in the Red Sea earlier this week after the US targeted Houthi strongholds in Yemen.

The death toll from the US attacks in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and the northwestern city of Saada has meanwhile risen to over 50, including civilians, according to Houthi sources.

"What we are seeing in the last few days is a much more sustained American campaign of airstrikes which will cause more damage to the Houthis," Thomas Juneau, a Middle East analyst at the University of Ottawa in Canada, told DW.

"That being said, the Houthis have clearly shown over the years that they are very effective at absorbing military strikes, first from Saudi Arabia [during Yemen's civil war which started in 2014 and largely stopped with a fragile ceasefire in 2022 — Editor's note] and then in the last 14 months from the US and the UK," he said.

"In turn, we are going to need a bit more time to be able to properly assess the current impact," Juneau added.

Shortly after the beginning of the war in Gaza, which started after Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, the Houthis began firing missiles on Israel and international shipping lanes in the Red Sea, in what they said was a bid to support Hamas and the Palestinians.

While the Houthis gained much appreciation and respect within Yemen and across the Arab world for their support of the Palestinians, an international coalition led by the US and the UK began in January 2024 to strike back against

© Deutsche Welle