Israel attacks Yemen after Houthi claim drone attack in Tel Aviv

A brief statement from the IDF on Saturday said its fighter jets had struck “military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime” in the city’s port of Al-Hodeidah, in response to “hundreds of attacks” carried out against Israel in recent months. The strikes in Hodeidah were approved during a rare emergency cabinet meeting convened on the Sabbath afternoon on Saturday, according to Israeli media.

The United States and Britain have been conducting airstrikes in Yemen for months in a failed attempt to end Houthis’ attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. Saturday’s Israeli strike heralded a further expansion of the war in Gaza and added a volatile new dynamic to what has become a growing regional conflict.

The Houthis have presented their attacks, many of which have targeted commercial vessels in the Red Sea, as aimed at ending Israel’s offensive on Gaza. Mohammed Abdulsalam, a spokesman for the Houthis, wrote on X that Saturday’s attacks “will not deter the Yemeni people or its brave forces, but will only increase their resolve and steadfastness in supporting Gaza.”

The Israeli strikes, he added, targeted “civilian facilities, oil depots and the electricity substation” in Hodeida, an impoverished city that serves as a lifeline for imports into northern Yemen and is a major source of income for the Houthis, a northern Yemeni militant group that has seized large parts of the country during a civil war that began a decade ago.

Footage from the aftermath of Saturday’s strikes showed black smoke billowing from huge fires at the port, and residents of Hodeidah were bathed in an orange glow as they watched. Al-Masirah quoted the Health Ministry as saying that the strikes had caused an unknown number of deaths and injuries, with a number of people “severely burned” as a result of the attacks. The channel broadcast footage from what appeared to be a hospital, with wounded people on stretchers lining a corridor.