Israel strikes Yemen after Houthis claimed drone attack in Tel Aviv

Israel said Saturday that it had carried out airstrikes on a port city in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militant group, in an attack that sparked massive fires and caused deaths and injuries, the Israel Defense Forces and the Houthi-run Masirah news channel said.

The attack came a day after the Houthis, an Iranian-allied group, claimed responsibility for a rare drone attack on Tel Aviv that killed one person and struck just yards from a U.S. Embassy branch office.

A brief IDF statement Saturday said that its jets had struck “military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime” in the port of the city, Al-Hodeida, in response to “hundreds of attacks” carried out against Israel in recent months. The Hodeida strikes were approved at a rare Saturday Sabbath emergency cabinet meeting called in the afternoon, according to Israeli media reports.

The United States and Britain have been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen for months, in an unsuccessful bid to end Houthi attacks on maritime traffic in the Red Sea. Israel’s attack Saturday heralded a further expansion of the war in Gaza, and added a volatile new dynamic to what has become a building regional conflict.

The Houthis have framed their attacks, many on commercial ships in the Red Sea, as aimed at ending Israel’s offensive in Gaza. Mohammed Abdulsalam, a Houthi spokesman, writing on X, said the strikes Saturday “will not deter the Yemeni people or its brave armed forces, but only increase their determination and steadfastness in supporting Gaza.”

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