Houthis say at least nine killed in Israeli air strikes

Dubai: A series of intense Israeli airstrikes shook Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel. Thursday’s strikes risk further escalating conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthis, whose attacks on the Red Sea corridor have drastically impacted global shipping.

The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fellow members of Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance”. Israel’s military said it conducted two waves of strikes in a preplanned operation that began early Thursday and involved 14 fighter jets.

The military said the first wave of strikes targeted Houthi infrastructure at the ports of Hodeida, Salif and the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea. Then, in a second wave of strikes, the military said its fighter jets targeted Houthi energy infrastructure in Sanaa. “After Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis are almost the last remaining arm of Iran’s axis of evil,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement released Thursday. “They are learning and they will learn the hard way, that whoever harms Israel pays a very heavy price for it”, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu added.