Israeli jets raided the airport in Gaza and Yemen where the WHO official was about to board the plane

Israel’s military said the airstrikes in Yemen on Thursday were aimed at them Houthi rebel-the capital city of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida. The director-general of the World Health Organization said that the bomb happened when he was about to board the plane in Sanaa, and a member of the crew was injured. The Israeli military later told the Associated Press that it did not know the WHO chief was in the area.

“The air traffic control tower, the rest area – just a few meters from where we were – and the runway were damaged,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of WHO on X, added that he and his colleagues are safe. “We will have to wait until the damage to the airport is repaired before we leave.” He did not mention the reason for the bombing.

Tedros said at least two people died in the attack at the airport. On Friday, he said in a short message posted on social media that, along with an injured member of his flight team, the WHO team was flown to Jordan, where an injured member of the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service will receive further treatment.

“We are very grateful to the UNHAS team for their work and the quick exit from #Yemen, where we were in the UN mission to negotiate for the release of our imprisoned colleagues,” said Tedros, adding: “Attacks on civilians and people in need must stop, everywhere.”

According to BBC News, a video inside the airport shows panicked people leaving the airport immediately after the strike.

The Israeli strikes in Yemen came a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “the Houthis will also learn what Hamas and Hezbollah and the Assad regime and others have learned.”

The Israel Defense Forces said the targets included “military infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime in its military operations at Sana’a International Airport and the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations,” as well as other military infrastructure in several ports.

Iran-backed Houthi media confirmed the strikes to Telegram but did not provide immediate details. The Houthi media said three people died in the strikes and 14 were injured.

The U.S. military has also targeted the Houthis in Yemen for months, including in recent days, in response to the group’s bombing of commercial and military vessels and Israel. Israeli officials said another missile launched by the Houthis was intercepted by air defense systems on Friday before reaching Israeli territory.

The United Nations has noted that Yemen’s rebel-held ports are important humanitarian routes to the impoverished nation. According to BBC News, Tedros was in Yemen to assess the humanitarian situation there, in addition to trying to negotiate the release of UN staff imprisoned in the country.

Over the weekend, 16 people were injured when a Houthi missile hit a playground in Tel Aviv. Last week, Israeli airstrikes attacked Sanaa and Hodeida, killing nine people, calling it a response to earlier attacks by the Houthis. The Houthis have also been directing shipping through the Red Sea corridor, calling it solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.

Israeli strike outside hospital in Gaza

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike killed five Palestinians outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip overnight, the Health Ministry said in the area. Gaza officials said they were journalists working for a local radio station. Israeli soldiers say they are soldiers posing as journalists.

The strike hit a car outside the Al-Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The Palestinian Journalists Union said the victims were working for the local news agency Al-Quds Today, a television station linked to the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, Reuters reported.

Islamic Jihad is the youngest and most extreme partner of Hamas and participated in the Oct. 7 attack. 2023 in southern Israel, which led to the war. The Israeli military identified four of the men as propagandists and said that intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad fighters obtained by the military in Gaza, confirmed that all five were members of the group.

Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups conduct political, media and humanitarian activities in addition to their armed wings.

Associated Press photos showed the van’s charred shell, with compression marks visible on the rear doors. The crying young men attended the funeral outside the hospital. The bodies were wrapped in cloth, and blue vests were placed over them.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says more than 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the start of the war. Israel has not allowed foreign journalists to enter Gaza without the military.

Israel has blocked the pan-Arab Al Jazeera network and accused six of its journalists from Gaza of being terrorists. The Qatar-based broadcaster denies the allegations and accuses Israel of trying to cover up its coverage of the war, which focuses on civilian deaths as a result of Israeli military operations.

Separately, the Israeli military said a 35-year-old soldier was killed in fighting in central Gaza early Thursday. 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of this operation in more than a year.

The fighting began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border and attacked nearby military bases, farming communities and a music festival. They killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped about 250. About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, at least one in three is believed to have died.

Israeli air and ground attacks on Gaza have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health. The attack caused widespread destruction and displaced nearly 90% of the 2.3 million people from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are crowded into filthy tent camps along the coast, with little protection from the cold and wet winter.

On Thursday and Thursday, people mourned eight Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli attack in the West Bank town of Tulkarem on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israel’s military said the soldiers opened fire after the soldiers attacked the soldiers, and said they were aware that civilians were injured in the raid.