The Houthis have continued to promote propaganda claiming they have provided support to Hezbollah despite the anger it provokes among Yemenis, who continue to endure a humanitarian crisis, because of the group's perception of itself as the “vanguard of Muslim causes and Muslim people,” Bridget Toomey, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday night.
Toomey spoke to The Post after Yemen’s Interior Minister shared footage aired by Yemeni television exposing a warehouse with resources allegedly set to be shipped to Lebanon.
The Houthis have been known to have sent resources, whether funds or material supplies, to Hezbollah since at least 2019, she noted. Similar fundraising efforts have been made for Gaza, or specifically Hamas in Gaza, which has caused significant outrage across Yemen, where 80% of citizens live under the poverty line, according to data published by the Borgen Project.
“The people in Yemen are in serious need of assistance themselves. Some of the people featured in these videos appear to be Yemeni, while others seem to be Hezbollah affiliates saying, 'Look at the generosity of the Houthis.' For many Yemenis, that's a slap in the face. At the same time, there have been reports of these warehouses, and the Houthis have been running these social media and television campaigns for several years now," Toomey said.
The issue of humanitarian assistance is political, she explained. The Houthis, like many groups in control of a territory, have used resources as a means to control the population, inserting themselves as intermediaries of the United Nations and other groups to use the flow of supplies as a means to coerce the population.
"When aid is distributed, it's often done in a way that serves their interests, and at times they even profit from it. For terrorist and other armed groups that control or influence a population, there is a clear benefit to controlling the distribution of essential assistance. It allows them to ensure people remain dependent on them and, ultimately, keeps them in line,” Toomey highlighted.
Asked why the Houthis would risk angering their own resource-deprived people for the sake of a foreign power, Toomey said that the supply of resources was being used as a way to demonstrate support for Iran’s other axis and to perpetuate the narrative that they are supporting “oppressed” Muslims suffering thanks to the actions of the United States and Israel.
The Houthis are focused on demonstrating the “important image” of their “moral leadership,” she continued.
Asked then about how the supply of aid to Hezbollah fit within the wider Houthi claim of a blockade causing deprivation to the people of Yemen, Toomey acknowledged that there was an inconsistency in the narrative.
This issue was raised by the interior minister, who wrote, “What blockade is the militia talking about when it has the capability to transfer billions of riyals out of Yemen and send convoys of food supplies and aid to Beirut's southern suburbs? And how can someone who claims to live under a ‘suffocating siege’ fund wars and Iran's regional projects while leaving millions of Yemenis to face hunger, poverty, and the collapse of basic services?”
Toomey was quick to dismiss the Houthis' claims that there was any such blockade, noting that supplies had been allowed to enter the territory but with the necessary vetting to restrict the terror group’s access to arms.
'Looking for an excuse'
"They're claiming this blockade has been in place for more than a decade, yet over that time the Houthis have still been able to send shipments out. Right now, the Houthis are really looking for an excuse. Their claim is that the Saudi blockade is responsible for the hardships facing the Yemeni people and for the country's dire economic situation," she said.
Last week, the Houthis announced their intentions to enforce a blockade against Saudi Arabia, in retaliation for a strike Yemen’s Saudi-backed government claimed responsibility for on Sanaa airport. The move marked a significant escalation, especially given the Houthis’ ally Tehran has threatened maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz.
The outrage over the “blockade” now is “because they want to expand their direct access, particularly unsupervised access to Iran, which would make it much easier to receive weapons shipments. It would also make it more straightforward for the IRGC and other bad actors to enter Yemen. While there isn't a blockade, the vetting measures put in place by Saudi Arabia and the international community have at least somewhat hindered those efforts," she explained.
Other experts have also long noted that the Houthis have attempted to expand their role within the Iranian axis. Navvar Şaban, a conflict analyst and researcher at the Omran Strategic Studies Center, told Lebanese media in 2024 that there were reports of a growing number of Yemeni fighters in Syria, and an anonymous source told L’Orient Today that Houthi-aligned Yemenis were in the country and ready to join Hezbollah.