SANAA: Israel struck the international airport in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa on Wednesday, the Iran-backed Houthis and the Israeli military said.
“Israeli aggression on Sanaa International Airport,” the Houthis’ Al-Masirah television channel posted on X, later reporting that multiple strikes had hit an aircraft and the runway at the facility.
Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz said fighter jets had carried out the strikes on Houthi “terror targets” at the airport in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, a day after the group fired two projectiles at Israel.
The Israeli military said in a statement the strikes had destroyed aircraft belonging to the group.
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“The aircraft struck were used by the Houthi terrorist organisation for the transfer of terrorists who advanced terrorist attacks against the state of Israel,” the military said.
“Similarly to the Hodeida and Salif ports that were struck last week, the main airport of Sanaa is continuously operated by the Houthi regime and is used by them for terror purposes,” it added.
The airport – which since 2022 has handled UN humanitarian flights and a limited commercial service by Yemenia to and from Amman – was heavily bombed by Israel on May 6 in response to a Houthi missile strike on Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv.
On May 17, Houthi authorities said Sanaa airport had resumed limited commercial flights.
The Huthis began firing at shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in November 2023, weeks after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, prompting military strikes by the US and Britain beginning in January 2024.
Earlier this month, the United States agreed a ceasefire with the Huthis, who have controlled large swathes of Yemen for more than a decade, ending weeks of intense American strikes on rebel-held areas of the country.
The Huthis however have continued to target Israel with frequent salvos, including strikes targeting Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.
The Huthis also recently warned they would impose a “naval blockade” on the Israeli port of Haifa after the country’s military intensified its offensive in Gaza.
Earlier this month, Israel threatened to target the Houthi leadership.
The Huthis had earlier paused their attacks during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza that collapsed in March.
The conflict in Yemen has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, although fighting decreased significantly after a UN-negotiated six-month truce in 2022.
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