The Israeli military conducted airstrikes in Yemen on Sunday after Iranian-backed Houthis there fired three missiles at Israel over the past couple of weeks.
The strikes, coming as Israel also bombarded Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, highlighted how the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has expanded to other parts of the Arab world where Iranian-supported groups dominate.
For months, the Houthis have been conducting attacks against Israel and menacing trade in the Red Sea in solidarity with Hamas, whose fighters spearheaded the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, setting off the war in Gaza. Israel’s strikes on Sunday marked the second known time that Israel has retaliated against the Houthi attacks by striking in Yemen, around 1,000 miles away from its southernmost tip.
In a statement, the military said dozens of its planes had participated in attacking power stations and a seaport in the province of Hodeidah that it claimed were being used to import munitions from Iran, military supplies and oil.
Nasruddin Amer, a Houthi spokesman, said Israel’s attacks would not prevent the group from continuing to fire on Israel. “We’re at war with the Zionist enemy and our operations will not stop,” he said in a text message.
Al-Masirah, a TV channel affiliated with the Houthis, reported that the strikes hit oil depots at the Ras al-Issa port as well as areas near the Hodeidah port. In a post on X, Mr. Amer said the oil depots at the Ras al-Issa and Hodeidah ports had been emptied in advance.
A spokesman from the Houthi-run health ministry said on Sunday that four people had been killed and about 40 were wounded, some of whom were in critical condition. “This is an initial tally and paramedics are still working on the scenes,” said Anis al-Asbahi, the spokesman of the Sana-based health ministry.
Humanitarian experts have warned that targeting ports in northern Yemen could exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation.
“Over half of Yemen’s population is dependent on humanitarian aid,” and much of it flows in through ports in the country’s north, said Niku Jafarnia, a researcher for Human Rights Watch focusing on Yemen.
On Friday and Saturday, the Houthis fired missiles toward central Israel. The Israeli military said both were intercepted.
On July 19, the Houthis launched a drone attack on Tel Aviv that crashed into a building near the U.S. Embassy, killing one person and wounding several others.
A day later, Israeli fighter jets bombed the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, which is controlled by the Houthis. The July strikes killed three people and injured 87, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
Human Rights Watch called Israel’s retaliation at the time “an apparently unlawful indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians.”
The Houthis are a Yemeni Shiite militia that over the past decade has seized control of large parts of western Yemen, including the capital, Sana, and the Red Sea coastline. While the group’s antagonism toward Israel long preceded the war in Gaza, the Houthis had rarely attacked Israeli interests before last October.
Since November, the Houthis have targeted ships that they claim have links to Israel in the Red Sea, a key trade route between Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In response, the United States, Britain and other allies of Israel have attacked Houthi weapons depots, missile systems and radar facilities in Yemen.
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