Huge crowds demonstrated in Yemen’s capital on Friday, a day after Israeli jets pounded Huthi rebel targets in response to missile and drone attacks by the Iran-backed group.
Tens of thousands of people gathered in rebel-held Sanaa, chanting and brandishing Kalashnikovs, placards and pistols as they listened to fiery anti-Israel speeches.
Large-scale demonstrations are a regular occurrence in Sanaa under the Iran-backed Huthis but Friday’s protest followed a surge in hostilities with Israel, which struck multiple sites on Thursday.
Six people were killed, including four at Sanaa’s international airport where World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was waiting for a flight.
In response, the Iran-backed Huthis fired a missile at Tel Aviv airport and said they launched drones at the city and a ship in the Arabian Sea.
Israel’s military said “one missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted before crossing into Israeli territory”. There was no comment on the other attacks claimed by the Huthis.
The rebels, who have controlled much of impoverished Yemen for a decade, have fired dozens of missiles and drones at Israel during the nearly 15-month Gaza war, saying they are acting in support of the Palestinians.
At the demonstration, bearded men in headdresses held up Yemeni and Palestinian flags and waved jambiyas, Yemen’s traditional curved dagger.
“The equation has changed and has become: (targeting) airport for airport, port for port, and infrastructure for infrastructure,” Huthi supporter Mohammed al-Gobisi said at the demonstration.
“We will not get tired or bored of supporting our brothers in Gaza.”
Omar Abdullah, another man in the crowd, said: “You (Israelis) will not break the Yemeni people, you will not humiliate them, and you will not subjugate them even if they starve.”
Flights resumed from Sanaa airport on Friday despite a badly damaged control tower, whose observation deck was gutted by a direct hit.
Broken glass also littered the ground where large windows had been shattered in the airport building, an AFP photographer saw.
The WHO chief posted on X that he had safely reached Jordan with his team, including a colleague who was injured in the attack and needs further treatment.
The Huthis’ Deputy Transport Minister Yahya al-Sayani said Yemen’s only international airport was busy with passengers when the fighter jets struck.
“The attack happened when there were a lot of passengers and a plane departing at 7:00 pm,” he told a press conference.
“There was another plane planned to land and it did land directly after the attack.”
Sanaa airport, which reopened to international flights in 2022 after a six-year gap, offers a regular service to Jordan’s capital, Amman, on the Yemenia airline.