Agencies
Sanaa
A series of intense Israeli air attacks shook Yemen’s capital and a port city, killing at least nine people, according to reports by Houthi-controlled media.
Israel’s military said it had attacked “military targets” belonging to Houthi fighters “in the western coastal strip and deep inside Yemen” on Thursday morning, after intercepting a missile fired by the group towards Israel.
“The targets attacked are used by the Houthi forces for their military operations,” the military said in a statement.
Al Masirah TV, the main news outlet run by Yemen’s Houthi movement controlling much of the country, said seven people were killed in an Israeli attack on the port of as-Salif and the rest in two strikes on the Ras Isa oil facility; both are located in the western province of Hodeidah. “The enemy launched four aggressive raids targeting the port … and two raids targeting” an oil facility, Al Masirah reported.
The series of “aggressive raids” also targeted two central power stations south and north of the capital, Sanaa, it added.
Yemen’s SABA news agency also reported that four raids targeted Hodeidah, with two hitting the Ras Isa oil facility, killing and injuring some of its employees.
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said its forces had carried out attacks on Houthi military sites, including ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa, following the firing of a Houthi missile towards Israel overnight – which was destroyed – and repeated attacks over the past 14 months.
On Thursday, the Houthis said they had carried out an operation targeting two “sensitive military targets” in Israel’s Yaffa area, south of Tel Aviv, with two ballistic missiles.
“The operation has successfully achieved its objectives,” read a statement published on Yemen’s state news agency Saba. It said the attacks took place “simultaneously” with Israeli air raids on civilian infrastructure in Sanaa and Hodeidah. “The Israeli aggression will not deter Yemen and the Yemenis from performing their religious and moral duty in responding to its massacres in the Gaza Strip,” it said.
Houthi fighters in Yemen have carried out months of attacks on Israel, and shipping linked to Israel in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, in what it says is a campaign of solidarity with Palestinians amid Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 45,000 people – the majority being women and children.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi’s political bureau, claimed the US is part of the recent Israeli attacks on his country.
