US airstrikes on Yemen kill 31 after Houthis vow to target Red Sea shipping over Israel’s blockade of Gaza
The US military conducted overnight airstrikes on Yemen in what president Donald Trump claimed was a response to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, killing at least 31 people, most of them women and children, at the start of a campaign expected to last many days.
The airstrikes came after the Houthis threatened to resume attacks on ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea over its blockade of Gaza.
Israel cut off power, halted all international aid supplies to the war-ravaged Palestinian territory earlier this month and renewed deadly attacks, imperiling the fragile ceasefire.
The Houthis targeted around 100 military and civilian ships with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels and killing four sailors, between October 2023, when Israel launched its war on Gaza, and January 2025, when the ceasefire took effect.
Mr Trump also warned Yemen’s chief ally, Iran, that it needed to immediately halt support to the Houthis, who rule most of the Arab country. If Iran threatened the US, he said, “America will hold you fully accountable and we won’t be nice about it!”
The top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded on Sunday that the Houthis took their own strategic and operational decisions.
“We warn our enemies that Iran will respond decisively and destructively if they take their threats into action,” Hossein Salami told state media.
The strikes — which one US official told Reuters might continue for weeks — was the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since Mr Trump took office in January. It came as the United States ramped up sanctions pressure on Tehran while trying to bring it to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme.
“To all Houthi terrorists, your time is up, and your attacks must stop, starting today. If they don’t, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before,” Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
The attacks killed at least 31 people and injured over 100, mostly women and children, Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Yemeni health ministry said on Sunday.
The Houthi political bureau described the American attacks as a “war crime.” “Our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to respond to escalation with escalation,” it said in a statement.
The attacks targeted the capital Sanaa, the southwestern city of Taiz and the town of Dahyan in northwestern Saada area, Al Masirah TV reported.
Dahyan is where Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the enigmatic leader of the Houthis, often meets his visitors.
“The explosions were violent and shook the neighborhood like an earthquake. They terrified our women and children,” Sanaa resident Abdullah Yahia told Reuters.
