(Reuters) -Israel said it bombed Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday in response to missile fire by the Iran-aligned militants at Israel over the past two days, marking another front in fighting in the Middle East.
The Israeli strikes killed at least four people and wounded 29, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said in a statement, and residents said the bombing had caused power outages in most parts of the port city of Hodeidah.
Israel’s military said in a statement that dozens of aircraft, including fighter jets, had attacked power plants and a sea port in Hodeidah and the port of Ras Issa.
It was the second such Israeli attack on Yemen in just over two months. In July, Israeli warplanes struck Houthi military targets near Hodeidah after a Yemeni drone hit Tel Aviv and killed one man.
“Over the past year, the Houthis have been operating under the direction and funding of Iran, and in cooperation with Iraqi militias in order to attack the State of Israel, undermine regional stability, and disrupt global freedom of navigation,” the military statement said.
Yemen’s Houthi militants, backed by Iran, have repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Israel in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians, since the Gaza war began with a Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
In their latest attack, the Houthis said they had launched a ballistic missile on Saturday towards the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, which Israel said it had intercepted. Israel intercepted another Houthi missile on Friday.
In a post on X, Mohammed Abdulsalam, a spokesperson for the Houthis, said Sunday’s Israeli strikes would not cause the group to “abandon Gaza and Lebanon”.
Iran condemned the Israeli strikes, saying they had targeted civilian infrastructure, and President Masoud Pezeshkian said Israel should not be allowed to attack countries in the Iran-aligned “Axis of Resistance” one after the other.
The Houthi movement earlier mourned Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, its ally in an Iran-backed alliance opposing Israel, following his death in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari, Maayan Lubell and Reyam Mukhasahf;Writing by Hatem Maher;Editing by Sharon Singleton and Helen Popper)
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