The Israeli air force launched heavy airstrikes on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Sunday as the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have continued their blockade of Israeli shipping and attacks on Israeli territory in response to Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
Yemeni media said that the strikes targeted a power plant and an oil facility and that at least two civilians were killed and 35 were injured. Israel also claimed that it targeted the Yemeni presidential palace in Sanaa, which it said was “located within a military site.”
Israeli missile strikes on Yemen have typically targeted energy infrastructure. The last Israeli attack on Yemen occurred last week, when Israeli Navy missile boats struck another power plant in Sanaa.
Sunday’s strikes came after the Israeli military claimed that a Houthi missile that was fired at Israel on Friday was a cluster bomb for the first time. The Israeli military said that the missile broke up in the air, and one small submunition landed in the yard of a home in the central Israeli town of Ginaton, but no casualties were reported.
Israeli strikes on Yemen have done nothing to deter the Houthis, who have been clear that their attacks and blockade on Israeli shipping won’t stop until there’s a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory. Yemeni officials remained defiant in the face of the latest Israeli attack.
The Foreign Ministry for the Houthi-led government, which controls territory where about 70% to 80% of Yemenis live, said that the “Zionist aggression will not go unpunished” and also urged the “international community to assume its humanitarian and moral responsibilities by pressuring the occupying entity to end its campaign of starvation, aggression, and blockade against the Palestinian people, which has persisted for nearly two years.”
The US also failed to stop Houthi attacks on Israel during a heavy bombing campaign from March 15 to May 6, which killed more than 250 Yemeni civilians. Israel was recently pushing for the US to start bombing Yemen again, but there’s no sign that the Trump administration will relaunch airstrikes as the Houthis are committed to not targeting US ships in the region, as long as the US doesn’t start targeting Yemen again.
