ISTANBUL 

Israel carried out airstrikes in Yemen a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened retaliation over a missile fired by the Houthi group that landed near Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s Channel 12 said the Israel Air Force targeted more than 10 locations across Yemen, with a primary focus on Houthi concrete factories and the strategic Red Sea port of Al Hudaydah.

The channel reported that the Air Force launched 48 strikes on targets in Yemen, including what an Israeli official described as a “massive blow” to the city’s port.

It said dozens of Israeli aircraft bombed several targets in the Al Hudaydah port area and Bajil district in Al Hudaydah Governorate.

The network cited reports saying that around 30 Israeli warplanes took part in bombing the western port city of Al Hudaydah.

The airstrikes marked Israel’s first direct military response after the Houthis fired a missile at Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, wounding eight people and prompting at least 12 airlines to suspend flights.

The Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV channel reported that six US-Israeli raids targeted Al Hudaydah’s port.

It said another strike hit Bajil district in Al Hudaydah Governorate and there were additional strikes on a concrete factory in the same area.

At least two people were killed and 42 wounded in the airstrikes on the governorate, according to the channel.

The US has not commented on the strikes.

Israel’s Maariv daily quoted an unnamed political source as saying that “the port of Al Hudaydah suffered significant damage from our strikes, but it cannot be said that it was destroyed.”

Yedioth Ahronoth, another Israeli daily, reported that the military dubbed the operation “Port City.”

The Israeli military said in a statement that its fighter jets struck “targets belonging to the Houthi regime in the port of Al Hudaydah.”

It added that the attacks were conducted “in response to the repeated attacks by the Houthi regime against the State of Israel, during which surface-to-surface missiles and UAVs were launched toward Israeli territory and its civilians.”

The targeted sites in the port served as a central supply source for the Houthis, the army claimed.

It also said that it struck “the Bajil Concrete Plant, east of the city of al-Hudaydah, which functions as “a significant economic resource and is used for the construction of underground tunnels and infrastructure for the terrorist regime.”

The army alleged that the strike “further degrades the Houthi regime’s economic and military buildup capabilities.”

On Sunday evening, Netanyahu vowed to launch strikes on Yemen after the Houthis targeted Ben Gurion Airport.

The Houthi group vowed to carry out “qualitative strikes” against Israel in response to the airstrikes.

The threat came in a statement by Hashem Sharaf al-Din, a spokesman for the Houthi-run unrecognized government.

“The Israeli enemy’s targeting of the port and a concrete factory in Yemen expands the list of targets for the Yemeni armed forces (Houthis) within the usurping Israeli entity,” the statement said.

The Houthis did not specify the nature or timing of the planned retaliation.

Yemen has faced an intensified US military campaign since mid-March, including around 1,300 air and naval strikes, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties, according to the Houthis.

The Houthis have targeted ships passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden since November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 52,600 people have been killed in a brutal Israeli assault for more than 19 months, most of them women and children.

The group halted attacks when a Gaza ceasefire was declared in January between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas but resumed them after Israel's renewed airstrikes on Gaza in March.