Israel has launched air strikes on the Houthi movement in Yemen, a day after a drone launched by the group hit Tel Aviv, in what is being reported as a reprisal attack.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the strike was meant to serve as a warning to the group.
“The fire that is currently burning in Hodeidah, is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,” he said.
Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam reported a “brutal Israel aggression against Yemen”.
He said Israel’s aim was to use the strikes to mount pressure on the Houthis to withdraw support for the Palestinians in Gaza, a mission he said was an impossible task.
The attack is Israel’s first direct response to what it says have been hundreds of Yemeni drone and missile attacks targeted at its territory in recent months.
The strikes landed on the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeidah on Saturday evening.
Footage from Hodeidah showed huge fires raging. The Houthi-run government in Sana’a said Israel struck oil storage facilities close to the shore, as well as a nearby power plant. It said there were civilian casualties.
Gallant said Israeli fighter jets had struck the group as a reprisal for Friday’s attack on Tel Aviv.
“The Houthis attacked us over 200 times. The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them. And we will do this in any place where it may be required,” he said.
Speaking in a televised address on Saturday evening after the attacks, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would defend itself “by all means”.
“Anyone who harms us will pay a very heavy price for their aggression,” he said, claiming the port was an entry point for Iranian weapons.
He also said the attack also showed Israel’s enemies there was no hiding place.
On Friday a block of flats in Tel Aviv was hit by what an Israeli military official said was an Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which had been modified to fly long distance.
The Houthis, over 1,000 miles (1,600km) away in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the attack, and vowed to carry out more.
A 50-year-old man who had recently moved to Israel from Belarus, was killed in the attack while eight others were injured.
The Israeli military official said its defence forces had detected the incoming drone but had not tried to shoot it down because of “human error”.
Before Friday’s drone strike, almost all Houthi missiles and drones fired towards Israel had been intercepted and none were known to have reached Tel Aviv.
Although Israel has not responded to the Houthis’ provocation in Yemen before, the US and UK have been launching airstrikes against the group for months to attempt to stop the Houthis from attacking commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
At the beginning, Houthis initially said they were attacking ships connected with Israel, or heading to or from there. However, many of the vessels have no connection with Israel and since air strikes began the group has also targeted vessels linked to the UK and US.
Source: BBC News
