Director General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed that he was at an airport in the capital of Yemen when Israeli forces launched a deadly strike on the facility.
On Friday, the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency reported that rebel forces had targeted Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The Israel Defense Forces and an airport spokesperson said they were not aware of the incident.
Israel attacked several targets in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, marking a major escalation in a growing conflict with Iranian support. Houthis rebel forces there and, at the end of the year, locked in a war on several fronts across the Middle East.
Israeli forces launched the attack on Sanaa International Airport amid escalating exchanges of fire with the Houthis, with the Israeli army intercepting a missile launched from Yemen on Wednesday that injured 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 “meters” from the Israeli-affected area.
“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 United Nations workers detained there and to assess the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge, 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 until the airport is repaired before we can leave. Yemen.
On Friday evening, Ghebreyesus said on X that he was in Jordan, alongside a UN worker injured during the strike, who was now receiving additional medical treatment.
Dr. Anees Alasbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthis’ health ministry in Sanaa, said in a statement that at least three people were killed and at least 13 others injured following the strike. He later added that at least three other people were killed in another strike.
The World Food Program said a WFP-contracted air crew member was among those injured in the strike and was receiving medical treatment.
“Humanitarians are not a target,” the organization said in a statement. published on
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the strike, including whether it was aware of the WHO delegation’s presence at the airport when it carried out the strike.
Israeli officials hailed the attack as a demonstration of the country’s ability to “reach out and strike any threat” to Israelis, with the strike following a recent intensification of Houthi attacks against Israel.
“Over the years, we have developed capabilities to strike very far from Israeli territory – precisely, powerfully and repetitively,” IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said in a statement posted online.
The Houthis – a rebel movement controlling much of Yemen and supported by Iran – have have vowed to continue their attacks on Israel and on commercial shipping in the Red Sea until the end of the war in Gaza.
The Israeli army reported Thursday evening that at least one missile launched from Yemen had been intercepted “before crossing Israeli territory.”
United Nations Secretary-General António 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 UN delegation was inside Sanaa airport at the time of the strike, he called on “all parties to cease their military actions and show the utmost withholding”.
“International law must be respected,” he said.
Yarden Segev, Omer Békin, Courtney Kube And Dan DeLuce contributed.