According to media reports, Israeli airstrikes hit the west coast port of Yemen, wounding at least 87 others and three individuals. Airstrikes, conducted on Saturday, targeted Houthi rebels following an attack claimed by the Iran-backed group on Tel Aviv, as reported by CNN.
The IDF announced that fighter jets attacked a number of military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime around Hodeidah Port in Yemen. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated this was direct retaliation for an Israeli citizen's death in a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv the previous day.
According to the Israelis, it is the first Israeli military operation in Yemen. The Houthis' spokesman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, said that it had also hit civilian targets and a power station, besides denouncing the airstrikes. He said that the attacks were "brutal Israeli aggression" aimed at increasing their pressure on the suffering of the Yemeni people, thus forcing them to give up their support for Gaza, CNN reports.
A spokesman for the Houthi army, Yehya Saree, threatened to retaliate: The Houthis would strike Israeli vital interests; Tel Aviv remained vulnerable. "We are ready for a long war with this enemy until the aggression is stopped and the siege on the Palestinian people is lifted," Saree said.
Netanyahu explained the air raids, saying that the Hodeidah Port had served military purposes and as a gateway for weapons that Iran supplied to the Houthis. He accused it further of involvement in attacks against international shipping in the Red Sea. According to the Prime Minister, this operation, conducted some 1,800 kilometers from the borders of Israel, demonstrates the will to respond to threats.
An IDF spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, tied the airstrikes to continued provocations on the part of Houthi rebels and underlined that since October 2023, when the conflict with Hamas in Gaza broke out, over 200 projectiles had been launched toward Israel. Houthis have on several occasions attacked Israel using drones and missiles, some of them shot down by the Israeli defenses or allied forces. The latest drone attack on Tel Aviv, which left 10 people injured, reportedly used a new drone evading interception systems.
The conflict has also witnessed the Houthis attacking US assets and commercial shipping in the Red Sea. While the UK and the US responded to the attacks with strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, Israel had kept aloof from those actions until now.
An Israeli Defense official indicated that the strikes this time were all Israeli-led, unlike in the past when, according to him, American and British forces were leading the response. He added that a decision by Israel to act independently had been influenced by the death of an Israeli citizen in Tel Aviv.
He further revealed that Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had alerted his US counterpart, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, before conducting the attack. It was such a quick response because of months of planning for the same.
A White House official stated that US President Joe Biden had been briefed on the developments in the Middle East. While coordination with Israel over the airstrikes was not done by the United States, the spokesperson asserted its recognition of Israel's right to self-defense.
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