Hizbullah Secretary General Naim Qassem has revealed details of the military role his organisation has played inside Yemen over the past nine years. Among the key figures he mentioned was senior military commander Haitham Al-Tabatabai, who was recently assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
Israel has committed over 10,000 violations of the ceasefire in Lebanon since it took effect on 27 November 2024, killing at least 127 civilians and wounding around a thousand. Israeli officials have made it explicit that they have no intention to respect the ceasefire, stating that Israel will “continue to bomb Lebanon” until Hizbullah is disarmed – a condition that was never stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.
Some current and former leaders of the Yemeni Ansar Allah (Houthi) group, including military commander and spiritual leader Abdel-Malik Al-Houthi, have announced their willingness to send thousands of Houthi fighters to help Hizbullah defend itself Israeli aggression.
The relationship between the Houthis in Yemen and the Hizbullah resistance movement in Lebanon is extremely close within what is known as the “Axis of Resistance” – a loose, “Iranian-led” alliance that also includes certain armed factions in Iraq and Syria.
The connection rests on several foundations, the first of which is an ideological-political bond.
The Houthis and Hizbullah, like the Popular Mobilisation Units in Iraq and Syria, are strategic allies of Iran. Hizbullah represents a model that Iran replicated to some degree in Yemen involving the provision of various forms of ideological support beginning in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the 2000s, Iran succeeded in influencing the Houthis and influencing them ideologically from Zaydism towards Twelver Shiism, the Iranian form of Shiism, in order to better serve Iran’s regional agenda.
The Houthis first made their mark as an armed group in the war against the central government headed by former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh. These were six wars that unfolded primarily in the northern Saada Governorate between 2004 and 2010.
Hizbullah, which long predates the Houthis both as an organisation and a battlefield presence, served as an ideological inspiration. Houthi discourse drew heavily on Hizbullah’s resistance experience against Israel and the US since 1982.
Political, media, and strategic coordination began to develop between Hizbullah and the Houthis starting around the turn of the millennium. This was manifested in shared positions on regional issues as well as in Hizbullah’s provision of military support and training to the Houthis under Iran’s supervision.
The bond between the two allies also rests on shared aims.
As it set about creating the Axis of Resistance, Iran established a set of unifying pillars to serve as ideological rallying calls and a basis for cohesion among components that did not share the same geography. It also kept the primary enemy Israel front and centre as the common enemy.
The Axis of Resistance factions became part of a broader Iranian strategy to establish regional fronts against its adversaries, namely Israel, the US, and at various junctures, certain Gulf states. Consequently, the Houthis emerged as a threat to the interests of the US and its allies in the Red Sea, while Hizbullah constituted a threat to Israel from the north. In the framework of this general strategy, Hizbullah and the Houthis strove to expand their influence.
The third link is close military and training coordination.
This is the clearest aspect of the relationship between Iran and the other components of the Axis of Resistance. Iran is responsible for strategic functions like planning, communications, financial and intelligence support, logistics, and supplies of arms, equipment, and advanced technologies, as well as media and moral support, while the others perform their respective roles in accordance with the principles of complementarity.
As the Houthis’ main trainer and source of expertise, Hizbullah has served as the primary conduit for Iranian military know-how. Numerous sources have reported sightings of Hizbullah experts in Yemen or of Houthi fighters being trained in Hizbullah camps in Lebanon or elsewhere.
As a result of such exchanges, the Houthis have been able to develop combat capabilities in UAV (drones), evidenced in manufacturing and launch technologies, ballistic missiles, evidenced in improved targeting and range, naval combat, including enhanced capabilities to threaten shipping, as seen in recent Red Sea operations, and operational planning such as strategic and tactical consultation in managing battles and large-scale operations.
Moreover, Hizbullah’s collaboration has lent the Houthis increased regional legitimacy and visibility, which has helped polish their public image. The coordination between the two became particularly prominent during the Israeli war on Gaza. Their two solidarity fronts were indicative of a high level of joint strategic direction in the management of this conflict.
COOPERATION AGAINST ISRAEL: Cooperation and coordination between the Houthis and Hizbullah against Israel, part of the broader Axis of Resistance strategy, has reached an unprecedentedly advanced level.
The catalyst for this development was the war on Gaza. The collaboration centres around a unified strategic goal: divert and disperse Israel-US military efforts by opening multiple pressure fronts.
The results of the Houthi-Israeli and US-Houthi confrontations have shown how the latter’s role in the Red Sea has emerged as the most significant product of this coordination. Taking advantage of Yemen’s strategic location overlooking the Bab Al-Mandeb, the Houthis launched direct and indirect attacks on Israeli-linked shipping, creating immense economic pressure on Israel and on countries whose trade passes through the Red Sea.
According to some reports, Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hizbullah experts were in Yemen to provide military advice how to target ships using missiles and drones and supplying intelligence to identify which vessels were bound for Israel – not an easy task amid the heavy maritime traffic.
Houthi leaders have repeatedly declared that their operations specifically targeted ships destined for Israeli ports and that these operations were being carried out “in support of Gaza.” The message was wholly consistent with Hizbullah’s discourse.
Hizbullah sustained the exchange of fire along Israel’s northern border, pinning down a sizeable number of Israeli forces and thereby preventing the Israeli occupation’s full engagement on the ground in Gaza. Israel and the US therefore had to contend with multiple, non-contiguous but strategically connected fronts.
This coordination did not occur independently of Iran, the key to the Resistance Axis’ cohesion.
Tehran has been described as the operations room. Although Iran denies playing such a role, analysts believe that a high degree of operational and strategic coordination occurs through Iranian-controlled channels. Some go so far as to say that Tehran distributes directives, tasking its various “proxies” (the Houthis, Hizbullah, the Iraqi factions, and Hamas) with missions designed to serve shared objectives.
In the future, a continued decline is expected in the direct coordination that aimed to provide robust military support for the Palestinians. Once a ceasefire or general de-escalation was announced, the incentive to open and maintain diversionary fronts diminished.
The Houthis had made it clear from the outset that their Red Sea operations targeting ships bound for Israel would stop once the aggression against Gaza stops. Therefore, Houthi missile and drone strikes targeting Israel or Israel-bound shipping has officially ceased, despite continuing US and international pressure on the Houthis.
The Hizbullah-Houthi relationship is deeper than a passing war, however. Ideological and political coordination is expected to persist, and exchanges in military expertise, training, technical consultation, missile and drone technologies will not cease. In fact, the levels of cooperation may increase in order to compensate for losses the Axis sustained during the Gaza war.
Yemen under Houthi control may also become even more strategically important to the Axis as Hizbullah and Lebanon come under growing international pressure.
Therefore, collective efforts will probably emphasise strengthening the Houthis’ long-term military capacities as a remote regional front. Both sides will also continue to share intelligence to avert Israeli-US assassination strikes against their leaders.
After the Gaza war ends in accordance with the peace agreement signed in Sharm El-Sheikh, the Houthis will come under greater international pressure regarding their Red Sea operations and internal pressure to resume Yemen peace talks with Saudi Arabia and domestic actors. Coordination with Hizbullah may involve responding to these internal and external challenges in a manner that preserves gains.
For Hizbullah, coordination will focus on responding to internal and international demands to withdraw from the southern border and surrender weapons while recovering from severe Israeli strikes and navigating Lebanon’s turbulent political scene.
Strategic, security, and technical coordination between the Houthis and Hizbullah under Iranian supervision will continue. It may even expand within the framework of the Axis’ strategy of regrouping and preparing for the next round.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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