Israeli air strikes on Yemen airport ‘were metres from WHO chief’

A new round of alleged Israeli air strikes in Yemen have targeted the Houthi rebel-held capital and multiple ports while the World Health Organisation’s director-general said the bombardment occurred nearby as he prepared to board a flight.

“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few metres from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on the social media platform X.

“Our mission to negotiate the release of UN staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen concluded today. We continue to call for the detainees’ immediate release.”

He added that he and UN colleagues were safe.

“We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave,” he said. UN spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay later said the injured person was with the UN Humanitarian Air Service.

Israel’s army later told The Associated Press it was not aware that the WHO chief was at the location in Yemen.

The Israeli strikes followed several days of Houthi launches setting off sirens in Israel.

The Israeli military in a statement said it attacked infrastructure used by the Iran-backed Houthis at the international airport in Sanaa and ports in Hodeida, Al-Salif and Ras Qantib, along with power stations, asserting they were used to smuggle in Iranian weapons and for the entry of senior Iranian officials.

Israel’s military added it had “capabilities to strike very far from Israel’s territory — precisely, powerfully, and repetitively”.

The strikes, carried out over 1,000 miles from Jerusalem, came a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “the Houthis, too, will learn what Hamas and Hezbollah and Assad’s regime and others learned” as his military has battled those more powerful proxies of Iran.

The Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah reported multiple deaths and showed broken windows, collapsed ceilings and a bloodstained floor and vehicle.

Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the strikes. The US military has also targeted the Houthis in recent days.

The UN has said the targeted ports are important entry points for humanitarian aid for Yemen, the poorest Arab nation that plunged into a civil war in 2014.

Over the weekend, 16 people were wounded when a Houthi missile hit a playground in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, while other missiles and drones have been shot down.

Last week, Israeli jets struck Sanaa and Hodeida, killing nine people, calling it a response to previous Houthi attacks. T

he Houthis also have been targeting shipping on the Red Sea corridor in what it says is an act of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

They launched the attacks after Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, with more than a thousand being killed and hundreds taken hostage.

The UN Security Council has an emergency meeting on Monday in response to an Israeli request that it condemn the Houthi attacks and Iran for supplying them with weapons.

Associated Press – PA