Israel said it bombed Houthi targets in Yemen yesterday in response to missile fire by the Iran-aligned group at Israel over the past two days, marking another front in fighting in the Middle East.
The Israeli strikes killed at least four people and wounded 29, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said in a statement, and residents said the bombing had caused power outages in most parts of the port city of Hodeidah.
Israel’s military said in a statement that dozens of aircraft, including fighter jets, had attacked power plants and a sea port in Hodeidah and the port of Ras Issa.
It was the second such Israeli attack on Yemen in just over two months. In July, Israeli warplanes struck Houthi targets near Hodeidah after a Yemeni drone hit Tel Aviv and killed one man.
“Over the past year, the Houthis have been operating under the direction and funding of Iran, and in co-operation with Iraqi militias in order to attack the State of Israel, undermine regional stability, and disrupt global freedom of navigation,” the military statement said.
Yemen’s Houthis have repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians, since the Gaza war began with a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.
In their latest attack, the Houthis said they had launched a ballistic missile on Saturday towards the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, which Israel said it had intercepted. Israel intercepted another Houthi missile on Friday.
In a post on X, Mohammed Abdulsalam, a spokesperson for the Houthis, said yesterday’s Israeli strikes would not cause the group to ‘abandon Gaza and Lebanon’.
The Houthi movement earlier mourned Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, its ally in an alliance opposing Israel, following his death in an Israeli air strike in Beirut.
Yesterday, Israel attacked more targets in Lebanon, where its intensifying bombardment over two weeks has killed a string of top Hizbollah leaders and driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
Israel vowed to keep up its assault. “It has lost its head, and we need to keep hitting Hizbollah hard,” Israel’s military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said.
Meanhwile, Saudi Arabia said yesterday it stands by the Lebanese people in light of current events, making its first comment since Israel’s killing of Nasrallah but making no mention of him.
In a statement, the Saudi foreign ministry emphasised that Lebanon’s sovereignty must be preserved.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Israeli strikes yesterday had killed more than 100 people and that 14 medics had been killed in airstrikes over the past two days.
Israeli drones hovered over Beirut overnight and for much of yesterday, with the loud blasts of new air strikes echoing around the Lebanese capital.
Israel rapidly ramped up its attacks on Hizbollah two weeks ago with the declared goal of making northern areas safe for residents to return to their homes, killing much of the group’s leadership. Israel’s defence minister is now discussing widening the offensive.
US Senator Mark Kelly, who leads a Senate Armed Services subcommittee, said the bomb that Israel used to kill Nasrallah was an American-made 900kg guided weapon.
In Iran, which helped create Hizbollah in the early 1980s, senior figures mourned the death of a senior Revolutionary Guards member killed alongside Nasrallah, and Tehran called for a UN Security Council meeting on Israel’s actions.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was moved to a secure location in Iran after Nasrallah’s killing, sources told Reuters.
Nasrallah’s body was recovered intact from the site of Friday’s strike, a medical source and a security source told Reuters yesterday. Hizbollah has not yet said when his funeral will be held.
Nasrallah had not only made Hizbollah into a powerful domestic force in Lebanon during his 32 years as leader, but helped turn it into the lynchpin of Iran’s network of allied groups in the Arab world.
Supporters of the group and other Lebanese who hailed its role fighting Israel, which occupied south Lebanon for years, mourned him yesterday.
“We lost the leader who gave us all the strength and faith that we, this small country that we love, could turn it into a paradise,” said Lebanese Christian woman Sophia Blanche Rouillard, carrying a black flag to work in Beirut.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without saying how many were civilians. The government said a million people – a fifth of the population – had fled their homes.
In Beirut, some displaced families spent the night on the benches at Zaitunay Bay, a string of restaurants and cafes on Beirut’s waterfront. Yesterday morning, families with nothing more than a duffle bag of clothes had rolled out mats to sleep on and made tea for themselves.
The UN World Food Programme began an emergency operation to provide food for those affected by the conflict.
Israel’s military said the air force had struck dozens of targets in Lebanon including launchers and weapons stores while its navy said it had intercepted eight projectiles coming from the direction of Lebanon and one from the Red Sea.
It said dozens of Israeli aircraft including fighter jets had attacked power plants and Rass Issa and Hodeidah ports, accusing the Houthis of operating “under the direction and funding of Iran” and in co-operation with Iraqi militias.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Our message is clear — for us, no place is too far”. Nasrallah’s death capped a traumatic fortnight for Hizbollah, starting with the detonation of thousands of communications devices used by its members. Israel was widely assumed to have carried out that action but has not confirmed or denied it did.
However, Lebanon’s top Christian cleric, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al Rai, said Nasrallah’s killing had “opened a wound in the heart of the Lebanese”.
Rai has previously voiced criticism of the Hizbollah, accusing it of dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts.
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