The Israeli army has reported that it has bombed positions of Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the port of the city of Hodeida, on the Red Sea coast, on Saturday.
The attack was carried out “in response to the hundreds of attacks carried out against the State of Israel in recent months,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed the attacks live with Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi sitting next to him, as shown in images released by the president’s office an hour and a half after the attacks.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant also followed the operation with Netanyahu and Halevi from the Air Force Command Center, an attack carried out “by Israeli aircraft on the port of Hodeida, 2,000 kilometers from the State of Israel,” his ministry said in a statement.
“The fire that is currently burning in Yemen is seen across the Middle East. The first time the Houthis harmed an Israeli citizen, we hit them. We will do it wherever necessary,” said Gallant, who approved the operation in Hodeida this morning after a meeting with the military leadership early on Saturday.
The minister said that the Houthis have attacked Israel “more than 200 times” in recent months, adding that “the blood of Israeli citizens has a price.” “This has been made clear in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen and elsewhere: if they dare to attack us, the result will be identical,” he threatened. Local media reported that Israel had sent F-35 jets to the port city, while numerous users had posted videos on social media showing the aircraft flying over the Red Sea, recorded from the city of Eilat, in southern Israel.
Houthis confirm casualties
For their part, the Houthis have confirmed that there are casualties in the Israeli attack in Hodeida. “A brutal Israeli aggression against Yemen targeted civilian facilities, oil depots and the power station in Al Hodeida (…) so that we stop supporting Gaza, which is a dream that will not come true,” said the spokesman for the Houthi insurgents, Mohamed Abdelsalam, on his official X account.
He said that “this brutal attack will only increase the determination, firmness and continuity of the Yemeni people (…) in support of Gaza.”
Yemeni Houthi TV channel Al Masira has broadcast what it says are “the first images of hostile bombardment of Hodeida,” showing a fire and a column of thick black smoke rising from a location near the sea.
The Houthi Ministry of Health has also said that “bombing by the Israeli enemy” has caused “martyrs and injuries,” without specifying a figure so far.
On Friday, Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked Tel Aviv with a drone, killing a 50-year-old Israeli man and wounding eight others. The Houthis also claimed the launch of a ballistic missile and three other drones against Tel Aviv, intercepted by the anti-aircraft batteries deployed by the US in the region before reaching Israeli airspace, but a fourth drone exploded over the city. Although it was detected by the Iron Dome defense system, it was not intercepted because it was not classified as a hostile object due to “human error.” It is the Houthis’ longest-range attack against Israel since they began attacking ships linked to the country in the Red Sea, as well as the southern city of Eilat, since November 19, “in solidarity” with the Gaza militias, although none have been fatal or caused serious damage.
Hodeida is a port city in western Yemen that is frequently used by Yemeni rebels to launch attacks on Israeli ships. Since the beginning of the year, the United States and the United Kingdom have carried out numerous airstrikes against positions of the Houthis – backed by Tehran – in Yemen, from where the Houthi insurgents launch missile and drone attacks against shipping in the Red and Arabian seas. These actions have caused a sharp reduction in traffic on one of the most important commercial routes in the world.
These clashes represent a new escalation of tension in the Middle East and threaten to spread the offensive in the Gaza Strip to other regional fronts. Meanwhile, in the Strip, at least 37 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll since the start of the war to 38,919, most of whom are women and children.
Source: www.eldiario.es
