Israel strikes Houthi rebels in Yemen's capital

A woman reacts during the funeral of five Palestinian journalists who were killed by an Israeli airstrike.

By Josef Federman and Wafaa Shurafa

Dec. 26, 2024 7:50 AM PT

DEIR AL BALAH, Gaza Strip — A new round of Israeli airstrikes in Yemen on Thursday targeted the Houthi rebel-held capital of Sana and multiple ports, while the World Health Organization’s director-general said the bombardment occurred nearby as he prepared to board a flight in Sana, 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 his United Nations 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.

The Israeli strikes followed several days of Houthi launches setting off sirens in Israel. The Israeli military said it attacked infrastructure used by the Houthis at the international airport in Sana and ports in the cities of Hudaydah, 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 didn’t immediately respond to questions about Tedros’ post but issued a statement saying it had “capabilities to strike very far from Israel’s territory — precisely, powerfully, and repetitively.”

The strikes came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the Houthis, too, will learn what Hamas and Hezbollah and [former Syrian President Bashar] Assad’s regime and others learned” as his military has battled those powerful proxies of Iran.

The Iran-backed Houthis’ media outlet confirmed the strikes in a post on the messaging app Telegram but gave no immediate details. The U.S. military also has targeted the Houthis in Yemen in recent days.

The United Nations has noted that 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. Last week, Israeli jets struck Sana and Hudaydah, killing nine people; Israel called 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.

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

5 journalists killed in Gaza

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

The strike hit a van outside Al Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The journalists were working for the local news outlet Al-Quds Today, a television channel affiliated with Islamic Jihad, a 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, which ignited the latest war. The Israeli 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 video showed the incinerated shell of a van, with press markings visible on the back doors. Sobbing young men attended the funeral outside the hospital. 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 when they travel with the military.

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 that a 35-year-old reserve soldier was killed during fighting in central Gaza early Thursday. A total of 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation more than a year ago.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border in an attack on nearby army bases and farming communities. They killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250. About 100 hostages are still in Gaza, at least a third of whom are 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 driven around 90% of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are packed into squalid tent 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 the city of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry. The Israeli military said that it opened fire after militants attacked soldiers, and it was aware that uninvolved civilians were harmed in the raid.

Federman and Shurafa write for the Associated Press. Federman reported from Jerusalem.