Israel’s military launched multiple attacks on Houthi sites in northern Yemen, a day after its widely-criticized airstrike against Hamas officials on Qatari soil.

By Liam Stack and Shuaib Almosawa
Liam Stack reported from Tel Aviv and Shuaib Almosowa from Sana, Yemen.
Sept. 10, 2025Updated 1:09 p.m. ET
The Israeli military attacked several sites in Yemen on Wednesday that it said were connected to the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia that has fired missiles and drones at Israel since the war in Gaza began almost two years ago.
Anees al-Asbahi, spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry, said in a statement that at least nine people had been killed in the strikes on Wednesday and 118 more injured. Those figures could not be independently verified.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said the attacks were in part a response to a Houthi drone attack that shut down an airport in southern Israel for several hours earlier this week.
“We pounded them today again from the air — in their terror facilities, their terror bases with a great many terrorists and other facilities as well,” he said in a video statement. “Whoever attacks us, we will reach them.”
The Iran-backed Houthi militia, originally a rebel group, has controlled northern Yemen, including the capital, Sana, since a civil war a decade ago. After the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, as the subsequent war in Gaza got underway, the Houthis began firing missiles and drones at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea. The group said it was acting in solidarity with Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, and Israel has repeatedly bombed Houthi targets in retaliation.
The Israeli attacks on Wednesday came a day after Israel carried out an airstrike against Hamas officials in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which has acted as a mediator between Hamas and Israel. Arab and Western nations strongly criticized that strike.
Mr. Netanyahu’s government has been more aggressive than ever recently in attacking its enemies across the region. In addition to waging a devastating war in Gaza for almost two years, it invaded Lebanon last year to fight the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which had regularly fired rockets into Israel. Israel bombed Iran for 12 days in June, it has carried out strikes and ground incursions in Syria.
The Israeli military said fighter jets had struck several areas of the northern Al-Jawf province in Yemen and Sana, including military camps, the offices of the militia’s public information department and a fuel storage site.
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Muhyiddin al-Ansi, 42, said his home in Sana, near a Houthi government building that was struck on Wednesday, shook violently during the attack.
“All the windows were completely destroyed, he said. “The ground was trembling beneath us.”
Mahdi al-Mashat, the president of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, said the group would respond to the Israeli strikes. “The brutal Zionist aggression against our country is a failure,” he said in statements carried by the Houthi-linked network, al-Masirah TV.
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The militia has also threatened shipping lanes in the Red Sea that are vital to global trade, firing on — and sometimes sinking — ships as part of what it has said is an effort to blockade Israel, which lies more than 1,000 miles to its north. That has often forced vessels to take a much longer route around Africa, rather than passing through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, disrupting trade.
In response, the Israeli military has repeatedly sent fighter jets to bombard ports, power stations and other sites in Houthi-controlled parts of the country. But that has failed to stop the Houthi’s attacks.
Last month, the Israeli military struck a gathering of cabinet members in Yemen, killing the Houthi prime minister, Ahmed al-Rahawi, and several other officials.
Mr. al-Rahawi’s death was seen as an escalation in Israel’s military effort to end the Houthi missile attacks, although his role in the government was largely symbolic. Power in the Houthi militia is largely concentrated in the hands of its founder, Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.