Eight dead following Israeli strike on Houthis in Yemen
Smoke rises from the sites of Israeli airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen [Reuters]
Eight people are dead after Israeli troops bombed Yemen’s capital city, Sanaa, the BBC via AFP reported on September 25th. The bombing, carried out by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was a targeted attack against the Houthis’ military, security and intelligence services.
142 people were injured in the attack, including civilians; first responders have been looking beneath the rubble for casualties.
However, the Houthi-led Yemeni government’s health ministry condemned Israel’s “brutal crime”, saying that residential buildings and civilian infrastructure were struck.
In a statement, the IDF said it will “operate against the ongoing and repeated attacks of the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel, [and] will conduct additional offensive operations against the Houthi regime in the near future.”
On X, Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, said that his nation “delivered a powerful strike on numerous terror targets of the Houthi terror organisation in Sanaa”.
The Health Ministry spokesman Dr Anees al-Asbahi said the IDF has committed the “deliberate and systematic targeting of civilian, service, and residential facilities.”
The bombing is the latest attack by Israel against the Houthis in Yemen, after airstrikes killed 35 people and injured 131 on September 10th. Houthi military targets that the Israeli military’s air force struck were located in Sanaa and the Al Jawf governorate.
On September 4th, Katz threatened to unleash biblical plagues upon Houthi rebels in response to missile attacks on Israel.
Katz issued a statement on X that read: “The Houthis are firing missiles at Israel again. A plague of darkness, a plague of the firstborn, we will complete all ten plagues.”
The defence minister was alluding to the plagues from the book of Exodus, which the Hebrew God brought upon Egypt to push the pharaoh to liberate the enslaved Israelites. Katz attempted to invoke the “plague of the firstborn.”
The Houthi missile attacks were likely retaliation against Israel after the country killed prominent Houthi leaders, including the prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi, in an attack on August 28th.
Since November 2023, the Houthis have launched attacks against international vessels in the Red Sea; the rebels claim this is done in solidarity with Palestinians being impacted by Israel’s military operation in Gaza.
The Houthis, a Yemeni rebel group with ties to Iran, have controlled large portions of north-western Yemen since they ousted the globally-recognised government a decade ago.
BBC via AFP, Maghrebi.org
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