WHO chief caught up in Israeli airstrike ‘lesson’ on Yemen

London: The director-general of the World Health Organisation was caught up in a wave of Israeli airstrikes on Yemen that injured a member of his flight’s crew.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had been about to board a flight at Sanaa International Airport overnight when it came under attack. He was leaving after a mission to negotiate the release of the United Nations staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen.

The Israeli strikes on Sanaa left the airport control tower a blackened shell. Credit: AFP

The Israeli military said its warplanes struck “Houthi terror regime” targets at Sanaa airport, as well as military infrastructure at the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was leaving Yemen when Israeli aircraft attacked. Credit: AP

Airstrikes also hit military infrastructure in the Al-Hudaydah, Salif, and Ras Issa ports on the western coast, it added.

In a statement, Ghebreyesus said: “As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa, about two hours ago, the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured.

“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge – just a few metres from where we were – and the runway were damaged.” He added he, his UN and WHO colleagues were safe.

The Houthis are currently the last of Iran’s proxies in the Middle East still attacking Israel in solidarity with terror groups in Gaza after the Israel Defence Forces inflicted a series of devastating blows against Hezbollah in Lebanon, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The Iran and Hezbollah-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria was overthrown a fortnight ago by rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The expansive strikes against key infrastructure in Yemen suggest a new push against Iran’s proxies in the region.

In a video released after the attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue attacks on the Houthi rebels “until the job is done”. He said: “We are determined to cut this branch of terrorism from the Iranian axis of evil.”

Smoke rises from the area around the international airport in Sanaa after the strikes.Credit: AP

Iran has supported the Houthis financially and militarily for years, providing the terror group with its ballistic missiles, but the recent events in the Middle East have left Tehran weakened.

“The Houthis will also learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime and others have learned, and this will also take time. This lesson will be understood across the Middle East, I tell you, in those days at this season,” Netanyahu said before the strikes.

Pressure has been growing on his government after four Houthi ballistic missile attacks on Israel in the past week, one of which, south of Tel Aviv, injured 16 people.

According to the IDF, the Houthi rebels were using the sites to “transfer Iranian weapons to the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials”. The IDF added: “This is a further example of the Houthis’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes.”

Three people were killed in the strikes, Al Masirah, a Houthi-run TV station, reported, adding that 14 others were wounded.

People were filmed running through the airport’s terminal while an air raid siren blared, and a large smoke plume billowed above a building.

Israel and the United Nations have long been at odds over Gaza, and several of the UN’s agencies have condemned its actions in the territory on the world stage.

The WHO has been particularly critical of Israeli strikes on hospitals in Gaza, and in January, Ghebreyesus broke down in tears as he described the “hellish” conditions there.

Israel maintains that its strikes target Hamas and other terror groups and that the conditions in Gaza are caused by the Palestinian groups that control it.

There was nothing to suggest that Israel deliberately targeted the airport while the WHO chief was there.

The Telegraph, London

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