DUBAI: The Zionist military said on Saturday fighter jets had struck Houthi military targets in the area of Hodeida port in Yemen in response to hundreds of attacks carried out against the Zionist entity in recent months. The strikes against oil facilities in the port caused fatalities, the Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV said, citing the health ministry. “The Zionist entity will pay the price for targeting civilian facilities, and we will meet escalation with escalation,” Houthi politburo member Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti said in a post on social media.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels had claimed a drone attack on Tel Aviv on Friday that left one person dead, saying it marked a “new phase” in its operations against the Zionist entity. The rebels fired a “new drone called ‘Yafa’, which is capable of bypassing the enemy’s interception systems,” their spokesman, Yahya Saree, said on social media. It struck “one of the important targets in the occupied Jaffa region, what is now called...Tel Aviv,” he said, adding “the operation has achieved its goals successfully”.

Zionist authorities said an explosion hit an apartment building in Tel Aviv at 3:12 am (0012 GMT), killing one person and wounding four. The Zionist army said the blast was “caused by the falling of an aerial target”, based on an initial inquiry. Chief spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the military assessed that the drone, which hit the building near the beachfront close to US Embassy premises in Tel Aviv, was an upgraded Iranian-made Samad-3 model. “Our estimation is that it arrived from Yemen to Tel Aviv,” he told a press briefing.

The explosion, which footage shared on social media suggested came from the sea and did not trigger air raid alarms, occurred hours after the Zionist military confirmed it had killed a senior commander of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon. A Zionist official said the military was still investigating why the drone did not trigger the alarm, but initial reports suggested the aircraft was identified but the sirens were not sounded due to “human error”. “We’re talking about a large UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) that can fly large distances,” the military official told journalists after the strike.

The Houthis pledged to turn Tel Aviv into a “primary target” after months of drone and missile attacks targeting shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in response to the Gaza war. A member of the rebel movement’s politburo, Hezam Al-Asad, called the strike “unprecedented”. In an interview with the pro-Iranian channel Al-Mayadeen, he said the attack marked a “new phase” of operations against the Zionist entity which would increase in the coming period.

Politburo member Bukhaiti said the attacks would not stop until a Gaza ceasefire was reached. “Our demand is fair: Stop the genocide in Gaza, lift the siege on its residents, and we will stop our military operations,” he said on social media platform X, sharing footage of the aftermath of the drone strike. Top Houthi official Mohamed Ali Al-Houthi said the “first operation” to strike Tel Aviv marked a “qualitative shift” in the group’s anti-Zionist campaign.

The Houthis have previously claimed attacks targeting the southern Zionist resort of Eilat and port cities of Ashdod and Haifa, but Friday’s strike is the first operation claimed by the rebels against Tel Aviv. The Houthis’ military spokesman declared the Zionist commercial hub “an unsafe area” on Friday, saying it “will be a primary target within the range of our weapons”. Saree said the Huthis “have a bank of targets” in the Zionist entity, including “sensitive military and security targets”. They “will continue... to strike those targets in response to the enemy’s massacres and daily crimes against our people in the Gaza Strip,” he said.

Later on Friday, the Houthis said they struck a Singapore-flagged vessel with missiles and drones because its owner had docked ships in Zionist ports. The attack was confirmed by maritime security firm Ambrey, which said “a Singapore-flagged container ship was ‘hit’ by projectiles” southeast of the Yemeni port city of Aden.

Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority identified the container ship as the Lobivia, saying the attack caused a fire which had since been extinguished. “All crew are accounted for and are safe,” it said in a statement, adding the ship had sailed “under her own propulsion” to Berbera Port in the breakaway Somaliland region of Somalia to assess the damage and determine necessary repairs.

The Huthis have attacked at least 88 commercial vessels since their campaign against shipping started in November, according to a tally compiled by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank. Houthi attacks have prompted some shipping companies to detour around southern Africa to avoid the Red Sea, a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of global trade, according to the International Chamber of Shipping. – Agencies