Sanaa — Israel airstrikes on Yemen’s capital early Sunday, striking civilian infrastructure and killing at least four people, in what regional observers condemned as a reckless act of aggression designed to punish a nation already crippled by years of war.
Explosions shook Sanaa as Israeli fighter jets bombed power stations, a fuel depot, and a military site near the presidential palace. Hospitals across the city struggled to cope as at least 67 civilians, many of them women and children, arrived with burns and shrapnel wounds. Local officials warned the death toll could climb as rescuers pulled bodies from rubble.
The strikes followed a Houthi missile attack on Israel the previous day, when rebels launched a projectile carrying cluster munitions that hit near Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv. Though it caused no injuries, Israel seized upon the incident to escalate the conflict thousands of miles away, hitting one of the poorest Arab capitals with overwhelming force.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the assault as “decisive,” while Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed to choke Yemen further through a naval blockade. Analysts, however, saw a familiar pattern: Israel invoking “self-defense” to justify collective punishment of civilians, a tactic long criticized during its ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
For nearly two years, the Houthis have attacked Red Sea shipping lanes and fired missiles toward Israel, declaring solidarity with Palestinians under siege in Gaza. Sunday’s airstrikes exposed how Israel, backed by the US and Western powers, seeks to expand its war across the region, drawing Yemen deeper into a conflict it did not initiate.
Human rights monitors sharply criticized Israel’s actions. “This was not a military necessity. This was indiscriminate punishment against civilians,” said one aid official, noting that strikes on fuel and electricity facilities will worsen Yemen’s humanitarian nightmare. Already plagued by famine, shortages, and disease, the country now faces deeper blackouts and supply disruptions.
By escalating in Sanaa, Israel risks dragging the wider Middle East into the Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Analysts warn that the attacks by Israel are less about security and more about intimidation, an attempt to silence regional resistance to its brutal Gaza genocide. For Yemenis, it is another chapter of devastation inflicted by a state that acts with impunity, shielded by Western silence, and fueled by American tax dollars that have a long history of betraying allies and also betraying its own people, too.
According to the Associated Press, more than ten Israeli warplanes took part in the attack, one of the most extensive Israeli operations beyond its borders in years. The AP noted that the Houthis described their missile strike as part of ongoing resistance to Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, while Israel framed its bombing of Sanaa as defense, despite overwhelming evidence of disproportionate civilian suffering.
