An Israeli airstrike killed the prime minister of Yemen’s rebel-controlled government, the Iran-backed Houthi militant group said Saturday.

Ahmed al-Rawahi was killed Thursday alongside other ministers in a strike on the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, the rebels said in a statement.

“We announce the martyrdom of the fighter Ahmed Ghalib Al-Rahawi, Prime Minister in the Government of Change and Construction, along with several of his fellow ministers,” it stated.

Al-Rahawi, who had been the prime minister of the Houthi-led government since 2024, was killed during a government workshop assessing “its activities and performance over the past year,” the statement mentioned.

After his passing, Houthi President Mahdi Al-Mashat appointed Mohammed Ahmed Ahmed Muftah, who was the first deputy prime minister, as the acting prime minister.

The Israeli military said Thursday it “precisely struck a Houthi terrorist regime military target in the area of Sanaa in Yemen.”

The Houthis have launched missiles at Israel numerous times during its conflict with Hamas, portraying their strikes on Israel and Red Sea shipping as actions to support Palestinians in Gaza.

In response to Houthi attacks, Israel has bombarded rebel-held areas in Yemen.

“Yemen sacrifices greatly for the victory of the Palestinian people,” al-Rahawi stated after an Israeli strike last week hit an oil facility owned by the nation’s principal oil company, under rebel control in Sanaa, as well as a power plant.

The strike on August 24 occurred three days following the Houthis’ launch of a ballistic missile targeting Israel, which its military identified as the first cluster bomb launched by the rebels since 2023.

The prime minister hailed from the southern province of Abyan, and was an ally to former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He allied himself with the Houthis when the rebels overran Sanaa, and much of the north and center of the country in 2014, initiating the country’s long-running civil war. He was appointed as prime minister in August 2024.

Al-Rahawi is the most senior Houthi official to be killed since the United States and Israel began their air and naval campaign in response to the rebels’ missile and drone attacks on Israel and on ships in the Red Sea. The U.S. and Israeli strikes killed dozens of people. One U.S. strike in April hit a prison holding African migrants in the northern Sadaa province, killing at least 68 people and wounding 47 others.