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The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he and his colleagues “narrowly escaped death” during an Israeli airstrike on an airport in Yemen.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he felt “totally exposed” during the attack, which killed at least six people, in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He and other UN staff were leaving Sana’a, in western Yemen, on Thursday after a trip to negotiate the release of UN prisoners and assess the humanitarian situation in the country when the airport was struck.
Israel’s military said it struck “military targets” belonging to Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
“It was very chaotic, you know, people were in disarray and running everywhere,” Dr Tedros said on Saturday.
He added that “there was no shelter, so we were completely exposed. It’s a matter of luck, otherwise, if the rocket had deviated a little, it could have ended up on our heads.”
“So my colleague actually said that we narrowly escaped death after all that,” he said.
The WHO chief – who has led the organization since 2017 and has made regular public appearances during the Covid pandemic – said his presence at the airport was known to the public before the strike.
But he added: “It doesn’t matter if I’m there or not. Any civilian life is a life — my life is no better than another person’s life.”
Dr Tedros said the airport was a civilian facility and therefore should not have been attacked by Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the airport was used by the Houthi rebels “to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region”, which they used to attack Israel, and to host “senior Iranian officials”.
“This is another example of the Houthis using civilian infrastructure for military purposes,” the report added.
The Houthi-run Saba news agency said three people were killed at the airport and 30 others were wounded.
It said three more people were killed and 10 wounded in other strikes on power plants and a port in the region.
It is not yet clear whether civilians or Houthi rebels were killed.
The Iran-backed group called the attacks “barbaric” and “aggressive”. He vowed to continue striking Israel until the conflict in the Gaza Strip ends.
The Houthi rebels have been attacking Israel since the first months of the war, which began in October 2023, when Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people.
Israel launched repeated strikes in response to Houthi attacks.
On Saturday, the Houthis said they had struck the Nevatim air base in central Israel. The IDF said the missile from Yemen was intercepted by the air force before it crossed Israeli airspace.
The Houthis are an armed political and religious group supported by Iran. The group has ruled much of western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since ousting the internationally recognized government in 2015.
