Photo: Huthi Ansarullah Media Center Agence France-Presse A photo obtained by Yemen's Huthi Ansarullah Media Center shows a huge column of fire following Israeli strikes in the Yemeni rebel-held port city of Hodeida on July 20, 2024.
France Media Agency to Hodeida
Posted at 2:31 p.m. Updated at 8:30 p.m.
- Middle East
Israeli airstrikes on the strategic port of Hodeida in Yemen killed three people, Houthi rebels said on Sunday, two days after a deadly drone attack carried out in Tel Aviv by these insurgents.
Israeli warplanes bombed the Houthi-held port of Hodeida on Saturday, causing a massive fire.
The Saba news agency, run by the rebels and citing their Ministry of Health, gave a toll on Sunday of “three martyrs and 87 wounded”.
These air raids came the day after a Houthi drone attack killed one person in Tel Aviv after defeating the Israeli defense system.
According to experts, these are the first strikes announced by Israel against Yemen, a country afflicted by a war between the Houthis and the government, located about 1,800 kilometers from Israel.
< p>Supported by Iran, Israel's sworn enemy, the Houthis, claiming to act in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza, have for months been carrying out attacks against ships presented as linked to Israel off the coast of Yemen and have fired missiles against Israeli cities, the vast majority of which were intercepted.
“I have a message for Israel’s enemies: make no mistake. We will defend ourselves by all means, on all fronts. Anyone who attacks us will pay a very heavy price,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address.
“The blood of Israeli citizens has a price,” asserted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. “The fire burning in Hodeida is visible throughout the Middle East and its significance is clear. »
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The Israeli army claimed that its “warplanes struck military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime in the Hodeida port area, in response to hundreds of “attacks carried out against Israel” by these rebels.
This port, essential in particular for humanitarian aid, serves as a “main supply route for the delivery of Iranian weapons from Iran to Yemen, starting with the drone used in the Tel Aviv attack, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari charged.
“The Zionist entity will pay the price for its strikes against civilian installations, and we will respond to escalation with escalation,” warned Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, a member of the political bureau of the Houthis who control large areas of Yemen including Hodeida (west).
Most of the injured suffer from “severe burns,” according to the Houthi health ministry.
Fire and flames
According to a senior Houthi official, Mohammed Abdelsalam, the attack targeted “storage facilities of fuel and a power plant,” which supplies electricity to Hodeida, in order to “put pressure on Yemen to stop supporting” the Palestinians.
“We will respond to this aggression […] We will not hesitate to strike vital targets of the Israeli enemy,” threatened Yahya Saree, military spokesperson for the insurgents.
The Houthi television channel Al-Massirah broadcast images of Yemenis injured in the strikes and receiving treatment in hospitals. Several have bandages and are lying on stretchers. A man interviewed by the channel said many of the injured were port employees.
The strikes caused a huge fire that ravaged the port, which was covered in a imposing column of black smoke, according to images from Al-Massirah.
“The city is in the dark, people are in the streets and queues formed at gas stations that closed,” said one resident.
A month after the start of the Gaza war sparked by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7, the Houthis began carrying out attacks on merchant ships said to be linked to Israel in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden, essential maritime zones for global trade.
“Dangerous” turning point
“We fully recognize Israel's right to self-defense,” said a spokesperson for the US National Security Council, emphasizing that the United States, Israel's ally, “does not were not involved in the strikes” on Hodeida.
Began in 2014, the war in Yemen, a poor country on the Arabian Peninsula, caused one of the most serious crises humanitarian organizations in the world.
Mohammed Albasha, Middle East analyst for the US-based Navanti Group, said: “Traders now fear that [the strikes] will worsen the already critical food and humanitarian security situation, as the majority of trade transit through the port of Hodeida.”
This port is a key entry point for fuel and goods into rebel-held areas of Yemen, a- he said.
For Lebanese Hezbollah, which also opened a front against Israel after the war in Gaza, the Israeli raids in Yemen mark a “dangerous turning point in confrontation.”