The death toll from an Israeli strike on Yemen’s rebel-held Hodeida port climbed to six, Houthi health authorities said yesterday, with firefighting teams battling a blaze at the harbor.
Israel said it carried out the strike in response to a drone attack by the Houthis on Tel Aviv, which killed one person on Friday.
More operations against the Houthis would follow “if they dare to attack us,” Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant said.
Photo: AFP
Saturday’s strike on the port, a key entry point for fuel and humanitarian aid to Yemen, is the first claimed by Israel in the country, about 2,000km away.
It killed six people and injured 83, many of them with severe burns, while three people were missing, the rebel-run health ministry said in a statement carried by Houthi media.
Earlier, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the rebels’ “response to the Israeli aggression against our country is inevitably coming and will be huge.”
After the strike, the Israeli military yesterday said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen toward the Red Sea resort town of Eilat, adding that “the projectile did not cross into Israeli territory.”
The Houthi rebels had fired ballistic missiles toward Eilat, Saree said.
The announcement came as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze in Hodeida, with thick plumes of smoke above the city, an Agence France-Presse correspondent said.
Fuel storage tanks and a power plant at the port were still ablaze amid “slow” firefighting efforts, a port employee said.
The employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security concerns, said that it could take days to contain the fire, a view echoed by experts on Yemen.
“There is concern that the poorly equipped firefighters may not be able to contain the spreading fire, which could continue for days,” said Mohammed Albasha, senior Middle East analyst for the US-based Navanti Group.
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