On 5 May, more than thirty Israeli aircraft dropped approximately fifty munitions on nine targets, including the al-Imran cement factory east of Hudaydah. Houthi-linked media reported four people killed and forty-two wounded at the factory. On 6 May, Israeli forces hit Sanaa International Airport - the runway, al-Dailami Air Base, the departure hall, and three civilian planes belonging to Yemenia, the national airline. The IDF said the airport was being used to transfer weapons and operatives. Three people died and thirty-eight were wounded. By the end of May, Israel had returned again to destroy Yemenia's last remaining plane, which the airline said had been scheduled to carry Muslim pilgrims to the hajj in Saudi Arabia. Civilian air travel for a country of thirty-plus million people effectively ceased.

On 10 June, at around seven in the morning, the Israeli Navy fired its first missiles of the campaign. Two warships - one of them a Sa'ar 6 corvette - launched missiles at Hudaydah Port from hundreds of kilometers offshore. An Israeli military official called it a unique long-range strike that had taken significant planning. Hudaydah is the port through which the vast majority of humanitarian aid reaches a country where the UN estimates nearly two-thirds of the population needs aid. The Houthis reported two missile strikes hitting piers at the city port; no casualties were announced, though the damage to aid-capable infrastructure deepened the humanitarian strain. The Houthis declined to discuss other targeted attacks but issued a defiant line: every leader is succeeded by a thousand leaders.

For months, the rhythm held. A Houthi missile or drone would fly toward Israel; most would be intercepted, some would get through, and Israel would respond with airstrikes on ports and power stations in Yemen. On 11 May, Israel struck Ras Isa, Hudaydah, and Salif after warning residents to leave. On 16 May, fifteen Israeli jets dropped thirty munitions on Hudaydah and Salif, and Israel publicly warned it would target Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi if attacks continued. On 6 July, the Ras Qantib power plant and the Galaxy Leader - a cargo ship the Houthis had hijacked in November 2023 and kept as a symbol - were hit. Power stations and fuel depots became regular targets. Yemen's generators fell silent in waves.

On 28 August 2025, the Israeli Air Force hit a gathering of senior Houthi officials in Sanaa who had assembled to watch a televised speech by their leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Around ten strikes hit the city. The reports that emerged over the following weeks named the dead: Houthi Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, killed in a separate strike on an apartment the same day, confirmed by the Houthis on 30 August. Defense Minister. Military Chief of Staff Muhammad Abd al-Karim al-Ghamari, confirmed dead on 16 October. Several other ministers. It was the deepest Israeli decapitation strike against the Houthi leadership of the entire Red Sea crisis. The Houthis promised retaliation and launched more missiles, most of which were intercepted.

On 10 September, the IDF struck Sanaa and several locations across Yemen as part of what Defense Minister Israel Katz named Operation Ringing Bells. Targets included a government complex, military camps, public information offices, and fuel storage in al-Hazm, al-Jawf Governorate. A spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry reported 35 people killed and 131 others injured. Advance notice had been given for evacuations; the number of Yemeni civilians killed still reached dozens. On 25 September, dozens of IDF aircraft hit targets in Sanaa's Ma'ain and Sabain districts, including the Dhahaban power station, killing 8 and injuring 142. Each strike generated its own list of names and addresses, most of them civilians whose homes and workplaces were collateral to larger strategic objectives.

The end came from elsewhere. On 5 October 2025, one more Houthi missile hit Israel - closing Ben Gurion briefly, sirens in multiple regions. Days later, a broader Gaza ceasefire plan brokered by US President Donald Trump took hold, and the Houthis announced they would halt attacks on Israel in support of it. The Israelis, in turn, stopped their strikes. Yemenia had no planes left to fly. Hudaydah Port had been bombed so often that portions of it were essentially rebuilt and re-destroyed in loops across 2024 and 2025. Roughly eleven million Yemenis remained acutely food-insecure. The Houthi leadership had lost a prime minister, a defense minister, a chief of staff, and many beneath them. Each side could claim the campaign had demonstrated something. Between them, in the homes and power stations and apartment buildings, it had demonstrated mostly what long-range weapons can do to a country that had already been through a decade of war.