Israeli combat aircraft flew more than 1,000 miles to hit the port city of Hudaydah in western Yemen on Monday, after Hutis militants fired a ballistic missile that landed near the main international airport of Israel this weekend.
There were no immediate reports or victims.
The Israeli strike was the last Tit-for Tat volley between Israel and the Houthis, the armed group backed by Iran that controls much of the northwest of Yemen. For more than a year, the hutis have been shooting missiles and drones in Israel, in what they call a campaign of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel, the United States and Britain, along with other countries, have repeatedly bombarded militants in an attempt to force them to cease their attacks. The hutis have also attacked and threatened ships, both commercial and military, crossing the Red Sea as part of an alleged attempt to block Israel, even thought that many of the ships had tentative Israeli ties.
On Sunday morning, an Hutà ballistic missile evaded the air defenses of several layers of Israel before hitting near the Ben-Gurion International Airport, which is slightly outside the coastal city of Tel Aviv. Israeli leaders quickly promised to respond strongly.
On Monday night, the objectives of Israeli military bombardment in Hudaydah, with airplanes that hit the port, which the military said as “a main source of income for the hutà regime”, as well as a concrete factory east of the city. The port is the main duct for food imports, fuel and help to enter the impoverished in northern Yemen, where more than 20 million people live.
Despite the months of air attacks of retaliation and attacks with ballistic missiles, Neinder Israel or the hutis have achieved their declared objectives. The Hutis have pledged to continue shooting against Israel until the end of the Israeli campaign against Hamas in Gaza, which Israel seems to be ready to intensify.
Some Israeli military analysts have argued that the options to submit the distant enemy of the country are limited, even with international support.
President Trump has increased the US military campaign against the hutis, which is under the Biden administration. Trump has promised that the group will be “annihilated” and has pressed the sanctions of the United States against the militia. Hello, he also redesigned the group as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
American officials have offered little public information about recent US operations against Hutis. But Hutis officials have said that US strikes have killed a large number or civilians. However, the tolls could not be verified independently, since the hutis maintain tight control over the flow of information outside the areas under their influence.
In April, an American strike attacked the port of Ras Isa, an important fuel deposit in Hudaydah, killing at least 74 people and wounding more than 150, said Anes Al-Asbahi, spokesman for the Ministry of Health Houthi administered. He identified many as civil port workers.
