فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
Israeli fighter jets carried out airstrikes on Saturday against Houthi rebel targets in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah, causing a massive fire. These strikes come in the wake of a drone attack on Tel Aviv executed by these insurgents on Friday.
This marks the first airstrikes announced by Israel against Yemen, a country embroiled in civil war, where the Houthis, claiming solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, have been launching attacks for several months against ships they allege are linked to Israel in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The Israeli military said in a statement: “A short while ago, Israeli fighter jets struck military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime in the port area of Hodeidah in Yemen, in response to the hundreds of attacks carried out by these Iran-backed rebels against the State of Israel in recent months.”
Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, warned: “The Zionist entity will pay the price for targeting civilian facilities, and we will respond to escalation with escalation.”
In a statement on social media, Mohammed Abdelsalam, a senior Houthi official, denounced the “brutal Israeli aggression” against the strategic port of Hodeidah. He added that the attack targeted “fuel storage facilities and a power plant” in Hodeidah “to pressure Yemen to stop its support” for Palestinians.
The Houthi Health Ministry stated that “enemy raids” had caused casualties, without providing a precise toll.
Al-Masirah TV channel broadcast images of Yemenis allegedly receiving treatment in hospitals after the strikes, with many shown bandaged and lying on stretchers. A man interviewed by the channel said that many of the wounded were port employees.
The strikes caused a massive fire that ravaged the port, covering it with a thick column of black smoke, according to images from Al-Masirah. The channel reported that “civil defense teams and firefighters are trying to extinguish the fire burning in the port’s oil tanks.”
This escalation comes amid the ongoing war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, which erupted following an unprecedented attack by the movement on Israeli soil on October 7th last year.
