The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) targeted a Yemeni fuel depot and port on Saturday in a strike attack responding to Houthi rebel attacks on Israel over the past months. The strike is Israel’s first retaliation in Yemen following an attack on Tel Aviv by a Houthi drone which killed one person and injured 10 others.

Al-Masirah, a news media outlet controlled by the Houthi, reported on the Israeli strike on Saturday. It condemned the targeting of oil storage facilities at the port of Hodeidah and the power station for the province. It said that the attack resulted in “several civilian casualties and injuries, including burn victims”. Three people were confirmed killed and 87 wounded.

According to the news outlet, the Houthi Parliament called on the international community to condemn Israel’s “aggression aimed at exacerbating Yemen’s suffering after more than nine years of aggression and blockade,” and criticized the international community’s “failure to end the Israeli aggression on Gaza, attributing it to double standards that enabled Israel’s continued violence and regional destabilization”.

The IDF said that the port of Hodeidah is being used by Houthi rebels to import Iranian weapons. The IDF targeted the port as a means of preventing this importation of weapons and causing the rebels financial damage, according to Israeli media.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a press briefing that Israel is “fighting a multi-front war” with Iran “funding, arming and directing its terror proxies in their attacks on Israel”. He elaborated:

Over the last nine months, the Houthi terrorist group … in Yemen has launched over 200 aerial attacks against Israeli civilians and infrastructures. On Friday morning in one of these UAV attacks, the Houthis fired an Iranian explosive UAV from Yemen into Israeli territory which hit an Israeli apartment building … killing an Israeli civilian and injuring several others. (…) Israel’s necessary and proportionate strikes were carried out in order to stop and repel the Houthi’s terror attacks after 9 months of continues aerial attacks toward Israeli territory.

The Houthi Armed Forces confirmed on Sunday that “the forthcoming retaliation will be substantial and significant”.