Houthi terrorists got a lucky shot at Israel on Sunday with a missile strike near Ben Gurion Airport, wounding four — and the IDF wasted no time in striking back at prime Houthi-held real estate in Yemen.
Details are still a bit thin, but the videos are... explosive.
Reports vary — between 30 IAF jets and up to 50 in a joint operation with the U.S. — but either way, it was big. Sorting out the discrepancy during a breaking story isn’t easy, and not even the official statements are much help.
A just-released statement from Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu seems to confirm a joint action, but without enough detail to be certain. “I can’t elaborate on all of that," Netanyahu said. "The US, in coordination with us, is also operating against them. It’s not ‘one and done.’”
“We acted before," he said, "we will act in the future too.”
Here's local video just uploaded to X and other platforms, purportedly of a Yemeni "cement factory," hit by today's airstrikes.
Documentation attributed to the attack on a cement factory in Hodeidah by Israeli warplanes. pic.twitter.com/433tobqpLd
— KAH (@jewishgaza) May 5, 2025
While I don't hold a Ph.D. in How Stuff Burns, that doesn't look to me like the way a cement factory would burn. Cement just kind of sits there, you know? That's its one job. Two, if you count "not burning" separately.
On the flip side, in a war where one side is composed of terrorists who hide their deadly missile stashes in concrete bunkers, a cement factory seems like a legitimate target.
Another legit target is Yemen's port at Hudaydah, right at the top of the list. Israel hit it four times in 2024, starting with a major airstrike in July targeting a power station, an oil refinery, and fuel storage facilities. A smaller attack followed in September and two waves of strikes in December, all following missile attacks on Israel.
Or "toward Israel," as the terrorist-lovers at Reuters like to say.
And Another Thing: Israel seems to finally be getting into FAFO in a big way. While it's tangential to this story, Jerusalem today announced the start of Operation "Gideon’s Chariots," a major new offensive in the Gaza Strip. John Spencer reported that "the IDF will operate with full force, expand its presence across Gaza, and remain in every captured area."
If you want to put pirates out of business — and while they don't fly the Jolly Roger, they do prey on global shipping — there are time-honored ways of getting the job done. CDR Salamander told his readers in March what needs to happen to Houthi-controlled Yemen:
- [They] should have no central electrical power.
- No ships should be able to enter her ports.
- No aircraft should be able to land on her airfields.
- No bridges should be standing.
If it's true that a joint USAF-IAF effort just put the port of Hudaydah out of business, that's good news. Hudaydah is the second-largest port in Yemen, and the Houthis have controlled it since 2015. So now would be a good time to remind you that the only way for Iran to keep the Houthis fully supplied with weapons is by sea.
Stay tuned. This story isn't over yet, not by a 1,200-mile airstrike.
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