By Ahmed Tolba, Clauda Tanios and Jana Choukeir
CAIRO/JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel launched strikes against ports and energy infrastructure in Houthi-held parts of Yemen on Thursday and threatened more attacks against the Iran-aligned militant group, which has launched hundreds of missiles at Israel over the past year.
As Israeli jets were in the air, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile headed towards central Israel which destroyed a school building in Ramat Efal in the western part of Tel Aviv with what a military spokesperson described as falling shrapnel.
The Houthis – who have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since November 2023, in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s war with Hamas – said they had attacked Tel Aviv overnight, launching two ballistic missiles and hitting “precise military targets”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “After Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis are nearly the last remaining arm of Iran’s axis of evil. They are learning and they will learn the hard way, that whoever harms Israel – pays a very heavy price for it.”
Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah are also allies of Iran.
The Israeli attack, involving 14 fighter jets and other aircraft, came in two waves, with a first series of strikes on the ports of Salif and Ras Issa and a second series hitting the capital Sanaa, military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told reporters.
“We made extensive preparations for these operations with efforts to refine our intelligence and to optimize the strikes,” he said.
Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthis, said the airstrikes killed nine people, seven in Salif and two in the Ras Issa oil facility, both in the western province of Hodeidah.
Two sources at the port of Hodeidah told Reuters that an Israeli strike destroyed a tugboat, but the port has several others capable of towing ships to the dock.
In Sanaa, the strikes also targeted two central power stations south and north of the capital, Sanaa, which Al Masirah said had cut electricity to thousands of families.
An official from the Electricity Department in Sanaa told Reuters that airstrikes hit fuel depots at two power stations—one in Dhahban, north of the capital, and the other in Haiz, south of Sanaa. He said fires had been contained and electricity was expected to be restored within hours.
The Israeli attacks followed a strike on Monday by U.S. aircraft against a command and control facility operated by the Houthis, which control much of Yemen.
THREATS, WARNINGS
The Houthis vowed to respond to the Israeli attacks.
“The Israeli attack will not deter Yemen from responding to this heinous aggression and supporting Gaza,” the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised speech.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Israel would continue to respond to Houthi attacks.
“I warn the leaders of the Houthi terrorist organisation: Israel’s long hand will reach you as well,” Katz said in a post on X. “Whoever raises a hand against the state of Israel, his hand will be cut off; whoever harms, will be harmed sevenfold.”
The Israeli military said specialists were examining the site of the strike in Ramat Efal and it was trying to confirm whether one or two missiles had been fired.
Some Israeli media reported that the missile had hit the school, but Shoshani said the initial indications suggested it was hit by missile debris.
One possibility was that the fuel tank “which is an enormous piece of metal, kept going” after the missile was intercepted, he said.
“But again, we will be smarter when we see the results at the scene,” he said.
(Reporting by Ahmed Tolba in Cairo, Clauda Tanios and Jana Choukeir in Dubai; additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem and Mohammed Ghobari in Aden; Editing by Stephen Coates, Clarence Fernandez, Andrew Heavens, William Maclean and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
