Israeli military says it has struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to attacks

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — The Israeli army said Saturday it has struck several Houthi targets in western Yemen following a fatal drone attack by the rebel group in Tel Aviv the previous day.

The Israeli strikes appeared to be the first on Yemeni soil since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, and they threatened to open a new front in the region as Israel battles proxies of Iran.

A number of “military targets” were hit in the western port city of Hodeidah, a Houthi stronghold, the Israeli army said, adding that its attack was in response to “hundreds of attacks” against Israel in recent months.

“The Houthis attacked us over 200 times. The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them. And we will do this in any place where it may be required,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement.

The Ministry of Health in Sanaa said that 80 people were wounded in a preliminary toll of the strikes in Hodeidah, most of them with severe burns.

Israel’s military said it alone carried out the strikes and “our friends were updated.” An Israeli Defense Forces official didn’t say how many sites were targeted, but told journalists that the port is the main entry point for Iranian weapons. The official didn’t say whether it was Israel’s first attack on Yemen.

The drone attack by Houthi rebels killed one person in the center of Tel Aviv and wounded at least 10 others near the U.S. Embassy early Friday.

Virtually all projectiles fired from the southern Arabian country toward Israel have been intercepted. Israel said air defenses detected the drone on Friday but an “error” occurred. Experts have expressed doubt about the Houthis’ ability to overwhelm Israel’s air defense system from about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away.

“The distance just makes it difficult to launch the kind of barrage that would be necessary to inflict major damage,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Since January, U.S. and U.K. forces have been striking targets in Yemen, in response to the Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping that the rebels have described as retaliation for Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza. However, many of the ships targeted weren’t linked to Israel.

The joint force airstrikes so far have done little to deter the Iran-backed force.

Analysts and Western intelligence services have long accused Iran of arming the Houthis, a claim Tehran denies. In recent years, U.S. naval forces have intercepted a number of ships packed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and missile parts en route from Iran to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

The Houthis have long-range ballistic missiles, smaller cruise missiles and “suicide drones,” all capable of reaching southern Israel, according to weapons experts. The Houthis are open about their arsenal, regularly parading new missiles through the streets of Sanaa.

Deadly strikes inside Gaza

Also Saturday, at least 13 people were killed in three Israeli airstrikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza overnight, according to Palestinian health officials, as cease-fire talks in Cairo appeared to make progress.

Among the dead in the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps were three children and one woman, according to Palestinian ambulance teams that transported the bodies to nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. Associated Press journalists counted the 13 corpses.

Earlier, a medical team delivered a live baby from a Palestinian woman killed in an airstrike that hit her home in Nuseirat on Thursday. Ola al-Kurd, 25, was rushed by emergency workers to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza in the hope of saving the unborn child. Hours later, doctors told the AP that a baby boy had been delivered.

The still-unnamed newborn is stable, but has suffered from a shortage of oxygen and has been placed in an incubator, Dr. Khalil Dajran said on Friday.

Al-Kurd’s “husband and a relative survived yesterday’s strike, while everyone else died,” Majid al-Kurd, the deceased woman’s cousin, told the AP on Saturday. “The baby is in good health based on what doctors said.”

The war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. The terrorist attack in October killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and militants took about 250 hostage. About 120 remain in captivity, with about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.