Houthis claim responsibility for strikes on southern Israel and a US ship
The Houthi rebels of Yemen said on Sunday they had carried out strikes targeting southern Israel and a US ship in the Red Sea. “Our naval operations will not stop until the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip stops,” said Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesman, during a televised speech.
Saree said the group launched an attack targeting “vital areas in Eilat, southern Israel, with ballistic missiles, achieving direct hits.”He added that they also hit the US vessel in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones. The reported attack came after Israeli airstrikes had targeted fuel tanks and a power station in the western Yemeni port city of Al Hudaydah, killing three people and wounding 87, according to the Houthi Health Ministry. Israel and the US did not react immediately to the Houthi claims.
Saree promised that the Houthis’ retaliation for the attack “is inevitably coming and will be great.”The Israeli military announced it had conducted the air raids, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing them as a “direct response” to a drone attack by the Iran-aligned Houthi group on Tel Aviv on Friday that killed an Israeli and wounded ten others.
The Houthis have been attacking, with missiles and drones, vessels that are Israeli-owned, flagged, operated, or headed to Israeli ports in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in a show of solidarity with Gaza, which has been under devastating Israeli onslaught since Oct. 7.
