Israeli military says it struck several Houthi targets in Yemen in response to attacks
SANA, Yemen — The Israeli army said Saturday that it had struck several Houthi targets in western Yemen after a fatal drone attack by the rebel group in Tel Aviv the previous day.
The Israeli strikes appeared to be the first on Yemeni soil since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, and they threatened to open a new front in the region as Israel battles proxies of Iran.
A number of “military targets” were hit in the western port city of Hudaydah, a Houthi stronghold, the Israeli army said, adding that its attack was “in response to the hundreds of attacks” against Israel in recent months.
“The Houthis attacked us over 200 times. The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them. And we will do this in any place where it may be required,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement.
Health officials in Yemen said early Saturday that the strikes killed a number of people and wounded more, but did not elaborate. The Ministry of Health in Sana later said 80 people were wounded in a preliminary toll of the strikes in Hudaydah, most of them with severe burns.
Israel’s military said it alone carried out the strikes and “our friends were updated.” An Israel Defense Forces official didn’t say how many sites were targeted, but told journalists that the port is the main entry point for Iranian weapons. The official didn’t say whether it was Israel’s first attack on Yemen.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam wrote on social media platform X that Yemen was subjected to a “blatant Israeli aggression” that targeted fuel storage facilities and the province’s power station. He said the attacks aim “to increase the suffering of the people and to pressure Yemen to stop supporting Gaza.”
Abdulsalam said the attacks will only make the people of Yemen and its armed forces more determined to support Gaza. Mohamed Ali al Houthi of the Supreme Political Council in Yemen wrote on X that “there will be impactful strikes.”
An Iranian-made drone sent by Yemen’s Houthi rebels struck Israel early Friday, leaving one person dead and at least 10 wounded.
A news outlet controlled by Houthi rebels in Yemen, Al Masirah TV, said the strikes on storage facilities for oil and diesel at the port and on the local electricity company caused deaths and injuries, and several people suffered severe burns. It said there was a large fire at the port and power cuts were widespread.
The drone attack by Houthi rebels killed one person in the center of Tel Aviv and wounded at least 10 others near a U.S. diplomatic compound early Friday.
Virtually all projectiles fired from the southern Arabian country toward Israel have so far been intercepted. Israel said air defenses detected the drone Friday but an “error” occurred and “there was no interception.“ Experts have expressed doubt about the Houthis’ ability to overwhelm Israel’s air defense system from about 1,000 miles away.
“The distance just makes it difficult to launch the kind of barrage that would be necessary to inflict major damage,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Since January, U.S. and British forces have been striking targets in Yemen in response to the Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping that the rebels have described as retaliation for Israel’s actions in the war in the Gaza Strip. However, many of the ships targeted are not linked to Israel.
The joint force airstrikes have so far done little to deter the Iran-backed force.
Analysts and Western intelligence services have long accused Iran of arming the Houthis, a claim Tehran denies. In recent years, U.S. naval forces have intercepted a number of ships packed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and missile parts en route from Iran to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
The Houthis have long-range ballistic missiles, smaller cruise missiles and “suicide drones,” all capable of reaching southern Israel, according to weapons experts. The Houthis are open about their arsenal, regularly parading new missiles through the streets of Sana.
Deadly strikes inside Gaza
In central Gaza at least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit refugee camps overnight into Saturday, according to Palestinian health officials, as cease-fire talks in Cairo appeared to make progress.
Three children and one woman were among the dead in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, according to Palestinian ambulance teams that transported the bodies to the nearby Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. AP journalists counted 13 corpses at the hospital.
Israel’s military bombardment in recent days have taken a constant, deadly toll on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, a medical team delivered a live baby from a Palestinian woman killed in an airstrike that hit her home in Nuseirat late Thursday evening.
Ola al Kurd, 25, was killed along with six others in the blast, but was rushed by emergency workers to Al Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in the hope of saving the baby. Hours later, doctors told the Associated Press that a baby boy had been delivered.
The newborn is stable but has suffered from a shortage of oxygen and has been placed in an incubator, Dr. Khalil Dajran said Friday.
Al Kurd’s “husband and a relative survived yesterday’s strike, while everyone else died,” Majid al Kurd, the deceased woman’s cousin, told the AP on Saturday.
“The baby is in good health based on what doctors said,” he added.
The war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has killed more than 38,900 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal Palestinian territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.
Hamas’ October attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and militants took about 250 hostage. About 120 remain in captivity, with about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel under fire for ‘GPS spoofing’ affecting airplane navigation systems in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey and Cyprus.
Unrest in the West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 20-year-old man was shot dead by Israel forces late Friday. Commenting on the shooting, the Israeli army said its forces opened fire on a group of Palestinians hurling rocks at Israeli troops in the town of Beit Ummar.
An eyewitness said the man, Ibrahim Zaqeq, was not directly involved in the clashes and was standing nearby.
Zaqeq “just looked at them, they shot him in the head. I picked him up from here and took him to the clinic,” said Thare Abu Hashem.
On Saturday, Hamas identified Zaqeq as one of its members. The militant group’s green flag was wrapped around his corpse during the funeral.
Sometimes in Gaza it feels like a cigarette is the only thing that might help. But even that is out of reach.
Violence has surged in the territory since the Israel-Hamas war began. At least 577 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since then, according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry, which tracks Palestinian deaths.
In Cairo, international mediators, including the United States, are continuing to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased deal that would halt the fighting and free about 120 hostages in Gaza.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel that will release hostages held by the group in Gaza is “inside the 10-yard line,” but added “we know that anything in the last 10 yards are the hardest.”
Associated Press writer Al-Haj reported from Sana; Shurafa from Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip; and Jeffery from Ramallah, West Bank.
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