The Israeli military launched major airstrikes on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa on Thursday, an assault that came after a Yemeni drone struck the Israeli city of Eilat, as the Houthis have vowed their attacks on Israel won’t stop until there’s an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Yemeni Health Ministry spokesman Anis al-Asbahi said the Israeli attacks targeted “civilian, service, and residential facilities, causing damage to a number of homes.” He said that at least eight people were killed and 142 were wounded, but it’s a preliminary death toll that’s expected to rise.
Footage and photos from Yemen’s Al Masirah TV show significant damage to a residential area of Sanaa and Yemenis, including children, being treated at a hospital.
The Israeli military said the strikes on Sanaa involved 20 warplanes that dropped 65 munitions on several targets it claimed belonged to the Houthis’ “security and intelligence apparatus.” Israeli media described the attack as Israel’s largest yet on Yemen, though the IDF recently killed 31 people at newspaper offices in Sanaa, marking the worst massacre of journalists since 2009, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Thursday’s attack was the fulfillment of a threat he made a day earlier after the Yemeni drone attack hit Eilat, which wounded over 20 Israelis. Katz, who has been threatening Yemen with Biblical plagues, claimed that the strikes “eliminated dozens of Houthi terror operatives, and destroyed stockpiles of UAVs and weaponry.”
The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have maintained a defiant tone in the face of ramped-up Israeli attacks. According to Yemen’s SABA news agency, the Foreign Ministry of the Sanaa-based government said after the latest Israeli airstrikes that Yemen will “continue to respond to the blatant Zionist aggression and will continue to teach the Zionist entity the harshest lessons.”
The Houthis are known for their resilience and did not back down in the face of a very heavy US bombing campaign that the Trump administration conducted from March 15 to May 6, which killed more than 250 civilians. The US gave up on trying to get the Houthis to stop their attacks on Israel and blockade of Israeli shipping and agreed to a ceasefire with the group.
