World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed that he was inside an airport in Yemen’s capital when Israeli forces launched a deadly attack on the facility.
On Friday, the Houthi-controlled SABA news agency reported that rebel forces had attacked Israel’s Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. The Israel Defense Forces said they were not aware of the incident.
Israel struck multiple targets in Yemen on Thursday, including Sana’a International Airport, marking a major escalation in a growing conflict with Iran-backed Houthi rebel forces there and as it ended the year locked in a multi-front war across the Middle East.
Israeli forces launched the attack in the middle of Sana’a airport amid an escalating exchange of fire with the Houthis, and the Israeli military intercepted a missile launched from Yemen a day earlier on Wednesday that wounded several people. The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it had received reports of around nine people injured, according to Reuters.
Ghebreyesus said he and other WHO colleagues were preparing to board a flight just “metres” from the area attacked by Israel.
“My colleagues at the UN and WHO are safe,” Ghebreyesus said in a statement published on X. He was in the country to negotiate the release of UN workers detained there and assess Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure hall – just a few meters from where we were – and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his team would have to wait for the airport to be repaired before they could do it. leave Yemen.
It was unclear whether they had been able to leave Sana’a early Friday morning.
Dr. Anees Alasbahi, spokesman for the Houthi Health Ministry in Sana’a, said in a statement that at least three people were killed and at least 13 others were injured as a result of the attack. He later added that at least three other people were killed in another attack.
The World Food Program said a WFP-contracted aircrew member was among those injured in the attack and was receiving medical treatment.
“Humanitarian workers are not a target,” the organization said in a statement published on X on Thursday, highlighting the critical work of humanitarian organizations operating in Yemen, including to prevent famine in a country ravaged by an ongoing civil war. since 2014.
The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the attack, including whether it was aware of the presence of the WHO delegation at the airport when it carried out the attack.
Israeli officials praised the attack as a sign of Israel’s ability to “reach out and attack any threat” to Israelis, and the attack came after a recent escalation of Houthi attacks against Israel.
“Over the years, we have developed capabilities to strike far from Israel’s territory, precisely, powerfully and repetitively,” IDF Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi said in a statement posted online.
The Houthis, a rebel movement that controls much of Yemen and is backed by Iran, have They vowed to continue their attacks on Israel and commercial shipping in the Red Sea until the war in Gaza ends.
The IDF reported late Thursday that at least one missile launched from Yemen had been intercepted “before crossing into Israeli territory.”
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres condemned the violence in a statement published Thursday on X, warning that he was “deeply concerned about the risk of further escalation in the region.”
Noting that a high-level United Nations delegation was inside Sana’a airport at the time of the attack, he called on “all parties to cease military actions and exercise maximum restraint.”
“International law must be respected,” he said.
Yarden Segev, Courtney Kube and Dan De Luce contributed.
