The Israeli army said that air strikes in Yemen on Thursday targeted sites The rebel HouthiThe capital, Sanaa, and the port of Hodeidah. The Director-General of the World Health Organization said that the bombing occurred while he was about to board a plane in Sanaa, wounding a crew member. The Israeli military later told The Associated Press that it was not aware that the World Health Organization chief was at the site.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge – just a few meters from where we are – and the runway were damaged,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of the World Health Organization said on X, adding that he and his colleagues were fine. “We will need to wait until the damage to the airport is repaired before we can leave.” The source of the bombing was not mentioned.
Tedros said that at least two people were killed in the attack on the airport. The WHO delegation has been evacuated to Jordan, along with the injured member of the flight crew, where the injured UN Humanitarian Air Service member will receive further medical treatment, he said on Friday in a short message posted on social media.
“Deep gratitude to the UN Humanitarian Air Services Team for their service and rapid evacuation from #Yemen, where we were on a UN mission to negotiate the release of our detained colleagues,” Tedros said, adding: “Attacks on civilians and humanitarian workers must stop, in “Everywhere.” “
Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
According to BBC News, video from inside the airport showed terrified people running out of the terminal immediately after the strike.
The Israeli strikes on Yemen came a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the Houthis will also learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime and others have learned.”
The Israeli army said that the targets included “the military infrastructure used by the terrorist Houthi regime in its military activities at both Sanaa International Airport and the Haziz and Ras Qanatab energy stations,” in addition to other military infrastructure at several ports.
Media outlets affiliated with the Iran-backed Houthis confirmed the strikes in a post on the Telegram app, but did not provide immediate details. Houthi media said that three people were killed in the raids and 14 others were injured.
The US military has also targeted the Houthis in Yemen for months, including in recent days, in response to the group’s regular missile and drone attacks on international commercial and military ships and on Israel. Israeli officials said that air defense systems intercepted another missile fired by the Houthis on Friday before it reached Israeli territory.
The United Nations has noted that rebel-controlled ports in Yemen are important entry points for humanitarian aid to the impoverished country. According to BBC News, Tedros was in Yemen to assess the humanitarian situation there, in addition to trying to negotiate the release of UN staff detained in the country.
At the weekend, 16 people were injured when a Houthi missile hit a stadium in Tel Aviv. Last week, Israeli aircraft bombed Sanaa and Hodeidah, killing nine people, describing it as a response to previous Houthi attacks. The Houthis also targeted shipping in the Red Sea corridor, describing it as showing solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
An Israeli raid outside a hospital in Gaza
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said that an Israeli raid killed five Palestinians outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip overnight. Gaza officials said they were journalists working for a local media outlet. The Israeli army said they were activists posing as journalists.
The strike hit a car outside Al Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Journalists Union said the victims were working for the local Al-Quds Al-Youm news channel, a television channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement, Reuters reported.
Ramadan Abed/Reuters
Islamic Jihad is a smaller, more extreme ally of Hamas and participated in the October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel, which sparked the war. The Israeli military identified four of the men as militant propaganda promoters, and said intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad activists found by soldiers in Gaza, confirmed that all five belonged to the group.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian armed groups operate political, media, and charitable operations in addition to their armed wings.
Associated Press footage showed the burned-out shell of the truck, with press marks visible on the back doors. Sobbing young men attended the funeral outside the hospital. The bodies were wrapped in shrouds, with blue compression vests draped over them.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says that more than 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war. Israel did not allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza except within a military presence.
Israel banned the Al Jazeera Arabic network and accused six of its correspondents in Gaza of being armed. The Qatar-based channel denies the allegations and accuses Israel of trying to silence its coverage of the war, which has largely focused on civilian casualties from Israeli military operations.
Separately, the Israeli military said that a 35-year-old reservist soldier was killed during fighting in central Gaza early Thursday. 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation more than a year ago.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed the border in an attack on nearby military bases, farming communities and a music festival. They killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped about 250. About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, and at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
The air and ground attack launched by Israel on Gaza led to the death of more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health. The attack caused widespread destruction and forced about 90% of the population of 2.3 million people to leave their homes. Hundreds of thousands are crammed into squalid camps along the coast, with little protection from the cold, wet winter.
Today, Thursday, citizens mourned eight Palestinians who were martyred as a result of Israeli military operations in the city of Tulkarm and its surroundings in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The Israeli army said that forces opened fire after gunmen attacked soldiers, and said that it was aware of uninvolved civilians who were injured in the raid.
