Rebel-held Yemen airport gets first flight since Zionist strike
SANAA: Members of Yemen's Houthi-affiliated security forces stand guard during a rally in solidarity with Palestinians in Sanaa on May 16, 2025. -- AFP
SANAA: The airport in the rebel-held Yemeni capital Sanaa resumed limited commercial flights on Saturday, Houthi authorities said, after damage from Zionist air strikes forced a suspension earlier this month.
'Today we are resuming flights to and from Sanaa airport after its rehabilitation,' the Houthi administration's deputy transport minister, Yahya Al-Sayani, told the rebels' Al-Masirah television. The broadcaster earlier reported the 'arrival at Sanaa airport of a first Yemenia Airways flight with 136 passengers on board'. The airport, which since 2022 has handled UN humanitarian flights and a limited commercial service by Yemenia to and from Amman, was heavily bombed by Zionist entity on May 6 in response to a Houthi missile strike on Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. The Sanaa airport's general director Khaled Al-Shaief put the cost at around $500 million.
Yemenia's limited service between Sanaa and the Jordanian capital provides the sole commercial air link between rebel-held areas and the outside world. It is an exemption from an air blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia and its allies in 2015 when they intervened to prevent the beleaguered government being swept away by a lightning Houthi advance. Sayani said the Houthi authorities hoped to expand the service to two flights a day 'in the coming days'. The Iran-backed Huthis have carried out dozens of drone and missile attacks against Zionist entity since the Gaza war began with Hamas's attack in October 2023. —AFP
The Yemeni rebels have also targeted Zionist-linked shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in a campaign they say is in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
On Friday, Zionist bombed the Houthi-held Red Sea ports of Hodeida and Salif following three missile attacks in as many days. It threatened to target the Houthi leadership if the attacks continued. – AFP
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