Israel attacked Houthi targets, including three ports and a power plant, in Yemen early on July 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa, and Salif were all hit along with the Ras Qantib power plant, according to the IDF. It is the first time Israel has attacked targets in Yemen in almost a month.
In a separate statement posted to social media platform X, the IDF’s chief Arabic language spokesperson, Col. Avichay Adraee, said dozens of planes were involved in the strikes against the ports, which he said that Houthi terrorists use to “transfer combat equipment from the Iranian regime, which is used to advance terrorist plots against the State of Israel and its allies.”
Adraee said that the “terrorist Houthi regime exploits the maritime domain to project force and carry out terrorist attacks on cargo and commercial ships in international shipping lanes.”
“The targeted sites demonstrate how the Houthi regime uses civilian infrastructure for terrorist purposes,” he wrote, according to an English translation.
Hours after the strikes, the Israeli military stated that two missiles were launched from Yemen and that attempts were made to intercept them, but the results of that attempt were still under review, according to Israeli media outlet Ynet.
The Israeli ambulance service stated that it had not received any calls regarding missile impacts or casualties following the launches from Yemen, according to The Times of Israel.
Israel also attacked a ship, the Galaxy Leader, in Ras Isa port, which was seized by Houthis in late 2023, the military noted on July 7.
“The Houthis had installed a radar system on the ship to track vessels and facilitate terrorist activity,” IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said in a July 6 statement on X.
Following the Israeli strikes, a Houthi spokesperson said that their air defenses had confronted the Israeli strike with “a number of locally manufactured surface-to-air missiles.”
The statement, reported by the Houthi-run Saba news agency, also announced a series of strikes launched by the terrorist group against Israel, targeting Lod Airport and the ports of Ashdod and Eilat.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported that Israel launched a series of strikes on Hodeidah, shortly after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning for people at the three Yemeni ports.
The assault came hours after a ship was attacked off the coast of Hodeidah on July 6. The crew abandoned the vessel as it took on water.
The attack off the southwest coast of Yemen, on the Liberian-flagged vessel Magic Seas, was the first such incident reported in the vital shipping corridor since mid-April.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but security firm Ambrey said the vessel fits the typical profile of a Houthi target.
The Houthis, who control much of Yemen, have been firing at Israel and targeting shipping in the Red Sea since the start of the 2023 conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in what they describe as solidarity with the Palestinians.
They are a self-described arm of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” and have demonstrated that they are capable of launching regular attacks on Israel.
Also known as Ansar Allah, the Houthis are a Zaidi Shia movement that unseated Yemen’s internationally recognized government from the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. They currently control an area encompassing about 80 percent of the country’s 32 million people.
The group was redesignated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in March after the Biden administration removed the designation in 2021.
In a Jan. 22 executive order, the White House stated that the Houthis threaten “the security of American civilians and personnel in the Middle East, the safety of [the United States’] closest regional partners, and the stability of global maritime trade.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
