UNITED NATIONS — Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s main airport as a civilian Airbus 320 with hundreds of passengers on board was landing and a U.N. delegation was waiting to leave, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official in Yemen said Friday.
Julien Harneis told U.N. reporters that the most frightening thing about the two airstrikes on Thursday wasn’t their effect on him and about 15 others in the VIP lounge at the international airport in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, including the head of the U.N. World Health Organization.
Rather, it was the destruction of the airport control tower as a Yemenia Airways plane was taxiing in after touching down.
“Fortunately, that plane was able to land safely and the passengers were able to disembark, but it could have been far, far worse,” said Harneis, who was with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in the lounge.
He said one airstrike landed approximately 300 meters (330 yards) south of the VIP lounge and another about 300 meters to the north around 4:45 p.m., while about five members of the U.N. team were outside the building.
“Not only obviously did we have zero indication of any potential airstrikes, but we cannot remember the last time there were airstrikes in Sanaa during daylight hours,” Harneis said in a video news conference from Sanaa.
The U.N. said at least three people were killed and dozens injured in the strike. Among the injured was a crew member from the U.N. Humanitarian Air Service, which was about to fly the U.N. delegation of some 20 people out of Sanaa.
He suffered a serious leg injury from shrapnel and lost a lot of blood, Harneis said.
Immediately after the airstrikes, Harneis said, U.N. security officials moved the delegation out of the VIP building and into five armored cars where they waited for approximately 40 minutes to ascertain what happened and help the injured crew member.
He was taken to a hospital in Sanaa and underwent four hours of surgery while the rest of the delegation spent the night in a U.N. compound, Harneis said. The U.N. plane with Tedros and the U.N. team, including the injured crew member, was able to depart for Jordan on Friday afternoon – without an operating control tower.
The United Nations said the injured crew member was taken to a hospital in Jordan, and Tedros was heading back to Geneva, where WHO is based,
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who control Sanaa and much of the country’s north, have gone after Israel since it started attacking Gaza following the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks by Gaza’s Hamas militants on southern Israel. The Houthis have attacked ships in the Red Sea, disrupting one of the world’s main maritime routes, and recently stepped up missile and drone attacks on Israel. Early Saturday, the Israeli Air Force reported intercepting yet another missile from Yemen, as sirens woke Israelis around Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.
Israel has escalated its response.
The Israeli army said it wasn’t aware that the WHO chief or U.N. delegation were at the Sanaa airport on Thursday. Israel said it bombed the airport because it is used by the Houthis and Iran.
Harneis responded, stressing that the airport is civilian, not military, and is used for transporting U.N. and other humanitarian workers, and for one civilian flight — Yemenia to and from Amman, Jordan. The flight operates as a result of an international agreement, and thousands of Yemenis have used the flight to get advanced medical treatment abroad, he said.
Yemen is the Arab world’s poorest nation and has been engulfed in a 10-year civil war between the Houthi rebels, who control Sanaa and much of the country’s north, and the internationally recognized government forces in the south.
Tedros was in the country to discuss its worsening humanitarian crisis and to seek the release of about 50 people detained by the Houthis since June from the U.N., nongovernmental organizations and civil society.
Harneis said 18 million Yemenis — about half the country’s population — need humanitarian assistance this year, and the U.N. expects the number to increase to 19 million next year because of the worsening economy.
In addition to airstrikes on the Sanaa airport, Israel has been attacking the country’s key port of Hodeida, in western Yemen.
Harneis said Yemen relies on imports through Hodeida for 80% of its food and more than 90% of its medical supplies to the north.
A recent Israeli airstrike destroyed two tugboats and is estimated to have reduced the harbor’s capacity by 50%, the U.N. official said, while damage from Thursday’s airstrikes hasn’t been assessed yet.
As for the detainees, Harneis said he joined the WHO chief at meetings with the Houthi prime minister, foreign minister and a member of the group’s Supreme Political Council. He said they received commitments on the detainees’ possible release and a pathway to it, and on conditions under which they are being held.