Israel strikes Houthis in Yemen after drone hits Tel Aviv

A day after the group’s drone struck Tel Aviv, Israel conducted airstrikes on the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeidah in Yemen.
According to Yoav Gallant, the minister of defense, his nation wanted to make a statement to the Houthi movement.

“The fire that is currently burning in Hodeidah, is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,” he stated.
According to news agencies with ties to the Houthis, the strikes on Saturday left three people dead and over 80 injured. Mohammed Abdulsalam, a spokesperson for the Houthis, described the strikes as a “brutal Israel aggression against Yemen”.

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The Israeli military said early on Sunday morning that it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen before it entered Israeli airspace.
Additionally, it stated that Israel’s Red Sea port of Eilat had triggered air sirens “in response to the possibility of falling shrapnel.”
The Israeli bombings, according to Mr. Abdulsalam, were intended to put pressure on the Houthis to cease their assistance for the Palestinians in Gaza, which he said would not occur.
For the first time in recent months, Israel has taken direct action in response to what it claims are hundreds of drone and missile attacks from Yemen against its land.

Huge flames could be seen roaring on Saturday night in footage from Hodeidah. Israel reportedly attacked a neighboring power plant and oil storage facilities along the coast, according to the Houthi-run government in Sanaa.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released a statement stating: “IAF [Israeli Air Force] fighter jets conducted an extensive operational strike over 1,800km [1,118 miles] away against Houthi terrorist military targets” in the vicinity of the port of Hodeidah, following nine months of continuous aerial attacks by the Houthis in Yemen toward Israel.

According to the statement, the operation on Saturday was known by the codename Outstretched Arm. “The IDF is capable of operating wherever required and will strike any force that endangers Israelis,” the statement stated.
According to Mr. Gallant, the reason Israeli jets attacked the group was because they had injured Israelis.
“We were assaulted by the Houthis more than 200 times. We hit them the first time they hurt an Israeli citizen. And wherever it’s necessary, we’ll carry this out,” he declared.

Following the attacks, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his nation will protect itself “by all means” on Saturday night.
In a broadcast speech, he declared, “Anyone who harms us will pay a very heavy price for their aggression,” alleging that the port served as a point of entry for Iranian weaponry.
He added that it demonstrated to Israel’s adversaries that there was nowhere it could not go.

An Israeli military officer claimed that an Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that had been modified to fly a great distance struck a block of apartments in Tel Aviv on Friday.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for the attack and promised to launch more.
A 50-year-old man who had recently immigrated to Israel from Belarus was killed in the attack, and eight other people were hurt.
According to an Israeli military officer, “human error” prevented the defense forces from attempting to fire down the approaching drone despite their detection of it.

Previously, only few Houthi drones and missiles fired towards Israel were known to have reached Tel Aviv; instead, all of them were intercepted.
On Saturday night, Houthi-run media cited the movement’s executive body, the Houthi Supreme Political Council, as stating that there will be a “effective response” to the airstrikes.
The US and UK have been conducting airstrikes against the Houthis for months in an attempt to prevent them from attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, despite the fact that Israel has never attacked the Houthis in Yemen.

At first, the Houthis claimed that they were targeting ships that were either bound for or coming from Israel. Since the start of the airstrikes, the organization has also targeted vessels associated with the US and the UK, even though many of the vessels have no relation to Israel.