SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The Israeli army said Saturday it has struck several Houthi targets in western Yemen following a fatal drone attack by the rebel group in Tel Aviv the previous day.
The Israeli strikes appeared to be the first on Yemeni soil since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, and they threatened to open a new front in the region as Israel battles proxies of Iran.
A number of “military targets” were hit in the western port city of Hodeidah, a Houthi stronghold, the Israeli army said, adding that its attack was in response to “hundreds of attacks” against Israel in recent months.
“The Houthis attacked us over 200 times. The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them. And we will do this in any place where it may be required,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement.
The Ministry of Health in Sanaa said that 80 people were wounded in a preliminary toll of the strikes in Hodeidah, most of them with severe burns.
A huge column of fire erupts following Israeli strikes in Yemen’s Huthi-held port city of Hodeida on July 20, 2024. Israeli warplanes struck the Huthi-controlled Yemeni port of Hodeida on July 20, a day after a drone attack by the Huthi rebels killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, both sides said. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
– via Getty Images
Israel’s military said it alone carried out the strikes and “our friends were updated.” An Israeli Defense Forces official didn’t say how many sites were targeted, but told journalists that the port is the main entry point for Iranian weapons. The official didn’t say whether it was Israel’s first attack on Yemen.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam posted on X that the “blatant Israeli aggression” targeted fuel storage facilities and the province’s power station. He said the attacks aim “to increase the suffering of the people and to pressure Yemen to stop supporting Gaza.”
Abdulsalam said the attacks will only make Yemen’s people and armed forces more determined to support Gaza. “There will be impactful strikes,” Mohamed Ali al-Houthi of the Supreme Political Council in Yemen wrote on X.
A media outlet controlled by Houthi rebels in Yemen, Al-Masirah TV, said the strikes on storage facilities for oil and diesel at the port and on the local electricity company caused deaths and injuries, and several people had severe burns. It said there was a large fire at the port and power cuts were widespread.
Health officials in Yemen said the strikes killed a number of people and wounded others, but didn’t elaborate.
The drone attack by Houthi rebels killed one person in the center of Tel Aviv and wounded at least 10 others near the U.S. Embassy early Friday.
Virtually all projectiles fired from the southern Arabian country toward Israel have been intercepted. Israel said air defenses detected the drone on Friday but an “error” occurred. Experts have expressed doubt about the Houthis’ ability to overwhelm Israel’s air defense system from about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away.
“The distance just makes it difficult to launch the kind of barrage that would be necessary to inflict major damage,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Since January, U.S. and U.K. forces have been striking targets in Yemen, in response to the Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping that the rebels have described as retaliation for Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza. However, many of the ships targeted weren’t linked to Israel.
The joint force airstrikes so far have done little to deter the Iran-backed force.
Analysts and Western intelligence services have long accused Iran of arming the Houthis, a claim Tehran denies. In recent years, U.S. naval forces have intercepted a number of ships packed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and missile parts en route from Iran to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
The Houthis have long-range ballistic missiles, smaller cruise missiles and “suicide drones,” all capable of reaching southern Israel, according to weapons experts. The Houthis are open about their arsenal, regularly parading new missiles through the streets of Sanaa.
Smoke rises after Israeli warplanes launch airstrikes in the central Gaza Strip on July 20, 2024. (Photo by Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Anadolu via Getty Images
Deadly strikes inside Gaza
Also Saturday, at least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza overnight, according to Palestinian health officials, as cease-fire talks in Cairo appeared to make progress.
Among the dead in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps were three children and one woman, according to Palestinian ambulance teams that transported the bodies to nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Associated Press journalists counted the 13 corpses.
Earlier, a medical team delivered a live baby from a Palestinian woman killed in an airstrike that hit her home in Nuseirat on Thursday. Ola al-Kurd, 25, was rushed by emergency workers to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in the hope of saving the unborn child. Hours later, doctors told the AP that a baby boy had been delivered.
The still-unnamed newborn is stable, but has suffered from a shortage of oxygen and has been placed in an incubator, Dr. Khalil Dajran said on Friday.
Al-Kurd’s “husband and a relative survived yesterday’s strike, while everyone else died,” Majid al-Kurd, the deceased woman’s cousin, told the AP on Saturday. “The baby is in good health based on what doctors said.”
The war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has killed more than 38,900 people, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The war has created a humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal Palestinian territory, displaced most of its 2.3 million population and triggered widespread hunger.
Hamas’ attack in October killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and militants took about 250 hostage. About 120 remain in captivity, with about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.
Unrest in the West Bank
In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 20-year-old man was shot dead by Israeli forces late Friday. Commenting on the shooting, the Israeli army said its forces opened fire on a group of Palestinians hurling rocks at Israeli troops in the town of Beit Ummar.
A witness said that Ibrahim Zaqeq wasn’t directly involved in the clashes and was standing nearby. Zaqeq “just looked at them, they shot him in the head,” Thare Abu Hashem said.
On Saturday, Hamas identified Zaqeq as one of its members.
Violence has surged in the territory since the war in Gaza began. At least 577 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli fire since then, according to the Ramallah-based Health Ministry, which tracks Palestinian deaths.
In Cairo, international mediators, including the United States, are continuing to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased deal that would halt the fighting and free about 120 hostages in Gaza.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel that would release Israeli hostages captive by the group in Gaza is “inside the 10-yard line,” but added “we know that anything in the last 10 yards are the hardest.”
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Wafaa Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Jack Jeffery reported from the West Bank city of Ramallah.
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A previous version of this story was corrected to show that the first name of the U.S. secretary of state is Antony, not Anthony.
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