Israel strikes Houthi rebels in Yemen's capital while the WHO chief says he was meters away

[December 27, 2024]  By JOSEF FEDERMAN and WAFAA SHURAFA

JERUSALEM (AP) — A new round of Israeli airstrikes in Yemen on Thursday targeted the Houthi rebel-held capital and multiple ports, while the World Health Organization's director-general said the bombardment occurred nearby as he prepared to board a flight in Sanaa, with a crew member injured.

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

He added that he and U.N. colleagues were safe. “We will need to wait for the damage to the airport to be repaired before we can leave,” he said, without mentioning the source of the bombardment. U.N. spokesperson Stephanie Tremblay later said the injured person was with the U.N. Humanitarian Air Service.

At least three people were later reported killed and dozens injured in the airport strike. The U.N. team members left the airport and were “safe and sound” in Sanaa while the injured crew member was being treated at a hospital, she said.

Tremblay said the damage assessment would be made on Friday morning to see whether WHO chief and the U.N. team can leave Yemen.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the escalation in attacks between Yemen and Israel and described Thursday’s attacks as “especially alarming,” Tremblay said.

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

The Israeli strikes followed several days of Houthi launches setting off sirens in Israel. Overnight, the Israel said the Houthis fired yet another missile, triggering air raid sirens in central Israel, jolting thousands of people awake and forcing them to scramble to shelters. The army said it intercepted the missile before it reached Israeli airspace and there were no reports of injuries.

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 Israeli 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 U.S. military also has targeted the Houthis in recent days.

The U.N. has said the targeted ports are important entryways 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. The Houthis also have been targeting shipping on the Red Sea corridor, calling it solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Smoke rises from the area around the International Airport following an airstrike, as seen from Sanaa, Yemen, Thursday, Dec. 26, 2024. The Israeli military reported targeting infrastructure used by the Houthis at the Sanaa International Airport, as well as ports in Hodeida, Al-Salif, and Ras Qantib, along with power stations.(AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

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

5 journalists killed in Gaza

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike killed five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital in Gaza overnight, the territory's Health Ministry said. The Israeli military said all were militants posing as reporters.

The strike hit a car outside Al-Awda Hospital in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The journalists were working for local news outlet Al-Quds Today, a television channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Islamic Jihad is a smaller and more extreme ally of Hamas and took part in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel that ignited the war. Israel's military identified four of the men as combat propagandists and said that intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad operatives found by soldiers in Gaza, had confirmed that all five were affiliated with the group.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups operate political, media and charitable operations in addition to their armed wings.

Associated Press footage showed the incinerated shell of a van, with press markings visible on the back doors. Sobbing young men attended the funeral. The bodies were wrapped in shrouds, with blue press vests draped over them.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 130 Palestinian reporters have been killed since the start of the war. Israel hasn't allowed foreign reporters to enter Gaza except on military embeds.

Israel has banned the pan-Arab Al Jazeera network and accused six of its Gaza reporters of being militants. The Qatar-based broadcaster denies the allegations and accuses Israel of trying to silence its war coverage, which has focused heavily on civilian casualties from Israeli military operations.

Another Israeli soldier killed

Separately, Israel's military said a 35-year-old reserve soldier was killed during fighting in central Gaza. A total of 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.

Israel's air and ground offensive has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry. It says more than half the fatalities have been women and children, but doesn't say how many of the dead were fighters. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

The offensive has caused widespread destruction and hunger and driven around 90% of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid camps along the coast, with little protection from the cold, wet winter.

Also Thursday, people mourned eight Palestinians killed by Israeli military operations in and around Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israeli military said it opened fire after militants attacked soldiers, and it was aware of uninvolved civilians who were harmed in the raid.

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