TEL AVIV, May 16. /TASS/. Israel will continue attacking Houthi targets in Yemen in response to their strikes on the Israeli territory and will be seeking to eliminate the Houthi leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said after another series of airstrikes on Yemeni ports.
He recalled that the Israeli military has already eliminated head of Hamas’ armed wing Mohammed Deif, Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Hamas political bureau head Ismail Haniyeh. Apart from that, the Kan radio station reported on May 13 that one of Israel’s recent strikes on the Gaza Strip targeted Yahya Sinwar’s brother and senior Hamas military commander Mohammad Sinwar. His death has not yet been confirmed however, but Katz mentioned him among those eliminated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
"As we said, if the Houthis continue to fire missiles on Israel, they will suffer painful blows, and we will also strike the heads of terror just as we did to Deif and the Sinwars in Gaza, to Nasrallah in Beirut and Haniyeh in Tehran," he wrote on his X page.
"We will hunt down and eliminate Abdul-Malik al-Houthi in Yemen as well. We will defend ourselves by our own strength against any enemy," Katz warned.
The IDF said earlier in the day that more airstrikes had been delivered on Yemen targeting the Red Sea ports of Hodeida and al-Salif in the Houthi-controlled Hodeida governorate. "These ports are used to transfer weapons and are a further example of the Houthi terrorist regime's systematic and cynical exploitation of civilian infrastructure in order to advance terrorist activities," the IDF said.