Israeli airstrikes hit Sanaa, Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital, after Israel’s military said it intercepted a drone launched toward the country earlier in the day. Both the Israeli military and the Houthis acknowledged the strikes, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Israel described the site it attacked only as a Houthi military target and did not provide further information about its location or function. The strikes affected densely populated parts of Sanaa, including an area on the western side of the city. A resident, Hussein Salem, reported seeing smoke rising after the attack.
The limited official detail left the scale and consequences of the operation unclear. The supplied evidence did not confirm that any named Houthi official was killed or injured. Claims beyond the reported strike, target description and absence of immediate casualty reports therefore remained unsupported.
The Israeli military said the drone intercepted earlier on August 28 was the third Houthi attack of that kind within a week. The latest exchange followed Israeli strikes on Sanaa four days earlier that killed at least 10 people. According to accounts from the Houthis and Israel’s military, that earlier operation struck a military site near the presidential palace, a power station and an oil facility under Houthi control.
The Houthis have fired missiles and drones toward Israel and attacked vessels in the Red Sea during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The group says those actions support Palestinians. Israel and a United States-led coalition have responded with repeated strikes in Houthi-held areas of Yemen, including Sanaa and the coastal city of Hodeida. An Israeli attack put Sanaa’s airport out of operation in May.
The Trump administration announced an agreement with the Houthis that same month under which U.S. strikes would stop in exchange for an end to attacks on shipping. The Houthis said the arrangement did not require them to halt operations against targets they regarded as connected to Israel, leaving that part of the regional confrontation unresolved.
The August 28 strikes also came as France, Germany and the United Kingdom began a process intended to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. The mechanism could renew restrictions involving Iranian assets, weapons transactions and ballistic missiles. Iran rejected the European action as unlawful and unjustified.
Against that broader backdrop, the Sanaa attack represented another direct exchange between Israel and the Iran-backed Houthis. Immediate reporting established that strikes occurred and that a drone had been intercepted, while casualty figures and a fuller account of the target were still unavailable.
