Israel struck Houthi targets after the missile attack

Israel said its fighter jets carried out a series of strikes on military targets in Yemen belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi movement in response to missile and drone attacks.

An Israeli military spokesman said the targets were Red Sea ports and energy infrastructure in the capital, Sana’a.

The Houthi-run Al Masirah TV channel said nine people were killed in the Salif port and the Ras Issa oil terminal, both of which are in Hudeidah province.

The strikes came hours after a missile fired from Yemen was partially intercepted over central Israel. Part of the rocket did hit a school in Ramat Gan on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, destroying the building.

The Houthis, who control northwestern Yemen, began attacking Israel and international ships shortly after the Gaza war began in October 2023, saying they were acting in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The Israeli military says about 400 rockets and drones have been launched into the country from Yemen since then, most of which have been intercepted.

In the early hours of Thursday, Israelis in and around Tel Aviv rushed to bomb shelters as an incoming rocket was shot down by anti-aircraft defenses.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the missile was fired from Yemen toward Israeli territory and that it was partially intercepted.

Fragments fell in central Israel, including a rocket warhead that hit a school in the Ramat Efal neighborhood of Ramat Gan, the report added. No casualties have been reported.

Two hours after the attack, the IDF announced that its fighter jets had struck Houthi military targets on Yemen’s west coast and inside the country.

According to the Houthi-run Al Masirah, seven people were killed in an Israeli strike on the Red Sea port of Salif, while two people were killed and one wounded at the nearby Ras Issa oil terminal. Two others were reportedly wounded in the southern port of Hudaydah.

The TV station also reported that power plants in Khaiza and Dahban, south and north of Sana’a, were hit.

The director of the General Electricity Corporation, Meshaal al-Rifi, said that the local power supply was affected by damage to power distribution stations and fuel tanks.

“The Houthis are attacking Israel in violation of international law, and the Houthi regime is a threat to peace and security in the region,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said.

“Today, the IDF conducted precision strikes against Houthi military targets in Yemen, including ports and energy infrastructure in Sana’a, which the Houthis used in ways that effectively facilitated their military operations.”

An Israeli military official said the operation was “planned” and that the 14 jets and other aircraft involved “were already in the air” when the Houthis launched their missile, the Financial Times reported.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “After Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis are almost the last arm of the Iranian axis of evil. They are finding out and learning the hard way that anyone who harms Israel will pay a very high price.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, warned Houthi leaders that “Israel’s long arm will reach out to you as well.”

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sorea said the group launched two “hypersonic” ballistic missiles at two “sensitive military targets” in the Tel Aviv area at the same time as the Israeli strikes and that the operation “successfully achieved its objectives.”

“Israeli aggression will not prevent Yemen and Yemenis from fulfilling their religious and moral duty in response to the mass killings in the Gaza Strip, and to respond to this brutal aggression by continuing to support and strike all enemy targets with appropriate weapons,” he said. added.

It was Israel’s third direct attack on the Houthis in the past five months.

In July, the Israeli military struck Hudaydah’s port and oil infrastructure after a Houthi drone strike in Tel Aviv killed one person. It bombed Hudaydah again in September after a Houthi missile targeted Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.

Over the past year, the US and Britain have also struck Houthi weapons and other military targets in response to attacks on global shipping in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

On Monday, US Central Command said it had targeted a “key command and control facility” in Sana’a, which was the center for coordinating attacks.

Since November 2023, the Houthis have struck dozens of merchant ships with missiles, drones and small boats. They sank two ships, captured a third and killed four crew members.

They say they are acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They claimed – often falsely – that they were targeting ships associated only with Israel, the US or the UK.