Israel has launched attacks on Yemen’s largest airport as well as key infrastructure in the capital of Sanaa in a second day of retaliatory action against the Houthi rebel group.
A senior member of the Israeli Defence Force said that the Air Force attacked and destroyed a Houthi base at Sanaa International Airport, completely shutting the facility down.
The Israeli military also struck other targets around the Yemeni capital, following an attack on the Hodeidah Port on Monday.
Posting images from a meeting at the Air Force Base in Kirya on Monday evening, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We will continue to act forcefully against any threat to the state of Israel.”
Israeli Defence Force Colonel Avichay Adraee said the strikes were in retaliation for a Houthi attack on Tel Aviv Airport on Sunday.
“The terrorist Houthi regime uses the airport, like the Hodeidah port that was attacked yesterday, to transport weapons and activists, and it is continuously operated for terrorist purposes,” he said on Tuesday afternoon.
“This is further evidence of how the terrorist Houthi organisation exploits civilian infrastructure for terrorist purposes.”
Several power stations in the Sana’a region were also attacked, Col Adraee said, as they were being exploited by the Houthi group.
“The Al-Omran Cement Factory, north of Sanaa, was also attacked. It is considered one of the Houthis' most important resources for building tunnels and military infrastructure. Targeting the factory constitutes a blow to the regime's economy and its military armament methods,” Col Adraee said.
אמש בבור חיל-האוויר בקריה, במהלך התקיפה נגד שלטון הטרור הח׳ותי בתימן.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) May 6, 2025
נמשיך לפעול בעוצמה נגד כל איום על מדינת ישראל. pic.twitter.com/sfHnQcFdot
Tuesday’s attacks followed the Israeli strike on Hodeidah port, which killed at least one and left 35 others injured.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets struck Houthi targets in Hodeidah and its vicinity on Monday, disabling the area which “serves as a hub for the transfer of Iranian weapons and equipment for military needs,” the military claimed in a statement.
It said the strikes were "carried out in response to repeated attacks carried out by the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel in which surface-to-surface missiles and unmanned aircraft were launched".
In the aftermath of the attack, the Houthis, who largely control the Arab nation, shut down the area around the port and the factory.
Although Yemen said the extent of the damage was unknown, images showed a fire engulfing the container berth of the port.
Anonymous sources told Reuters that 70 per cent of the port’s five docks, warehouses and customs area were damaged. The strikes occurred as two ships were unloading their cargo, a port worker said.
Hodeidah is the second-largest port in the Red Sea after Aden, and it is the entry point for about 80 per cent of Yemen's food imports.
Israel carried out more than 10 strikes targeting the port as well as Al Salakhanah and Al Hawak neighbourhoods in the city of Hodeidah, local residents said. Four missiles struck the cement factory.
Shortly before the Israeli attack, the US military had carried out airstrikes near the capital Sanaa, The Times of Israel said.
The Israeli attacks came after a Yemeni ballistic missile landed near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Sunday, sending a plume of smoke into the air and causing panic among passengers.
In a televised statement claiming responsibility for the strike, Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree warned airlines that Israel’s main international airport was “no longer safe for air travel”.
The Iran-backed Yemeni group has intensified missile attacks on Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. They have been firing at Israel and shipping in the Red Sea, significantly disrupting maritime trade, since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.
The war started after nearly 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and 251 others taken hostage during a Hamas attack on southern Israel. Israel’s air and ground assault that followed has killed 52,000 Palestinians thus far, according to health officials in the Hamas-run strip, and displaced many of its 2.2 million people.
Israel on Monday approved a plan to seize the whole of Gaza and control the flow of aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Mr Netanyahu had vowed retaliation for Sunday's missile strike in Tel Aviv which escaped interception by the country’s air defence systems. After the strikes on Hodeidah, Houthi official Abdul Qader al-Mortada said in an X post that Israel should wait for the "unimaginable".
In March, American president Donald Trump ordered his military to ramp up airstrikes on Yemen. The attacks have killed hundreds of people so far.
US airstrikes on an oil port in April killed 74 people and wounded 171, the Houthis said.
