Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s rebel-held capital and port city after Houthi attack targets Israel
Associated PressDUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A series of intense Israeli airstrikes shook Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, fellow members of Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance.” Israel’s military said that it conducted two waves of strikes in a preplanned operation that began early Thursday and involved 14 fighter jets. “After Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria, the Houthis are almost the last remaining arm of Iran’s axis of evil,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement released Thursday. The strikes happened just after Israel’s military said that its air force intercepted a missile launched from Yemen before it entered the country’s territory.