A joint US and UK air raid on Houthi missile launchers in Yemen has killed 16 people and injured more than 40, according to the Houthi health ministry.
There is no independent way of confirming the death toll, but if accurate it would represent the single largest loss of life since the US and UK started their campaign to degrade the Houthi military in January.
The airstrikes hit the capital, Sana’a, the port of Hodeidah, and Taiz in the south-west of the Houthi-controlled area of Yemen.
The Houthis described all those killed and hurt in Hodeidah as civilians – a claim it was not possible to confirm.
US forces said the raids destroyed eight unmanned aerial vehicles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and surrounding waters. “It was determined that these UAVs and sites presented a threat to US and coalition forces and merchant vessels in the region,” US Central Command said.
The British Ministry of Defence said the joint operation targeted three locations in Hodeidah, which it said housed drones and surface-to-air weapons.
Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s had conducted strikes on Hodeidah and farther south in Ghulayfiqah, the MoD said. It described the targets as “buildings identified as housing drone ground-control facilities and providing storage for very long-range drones, as well as surface-to-air weapons”.
“As ever, the utmost care was taken in planning the strikes to minimise any risk to civilians or non-military infrastructure,” it said.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the strikes “were taken in self-defence in the face of an ongoing threat that the Houthis pose”.
It was the fifth combined British-US operation to attack Houthi positions since January.
The Houthis have been attacking western-linked shipping in the Red Sea for months, in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, but there has been a sharp increase in activity this week, as well as claims that the rebels have been handed more powerful missiles by the Iranians. The militia said it had targeted 12 vessels in three seas in a week, with six attacks taking place on Tuesday.
The Houthis focused on Friday morning on just one of the strikes, which they said hit a building housing Hodeidah Radio and civilian homes.
A Houthi military spokesperson said the Hodeidah raids resulted in 16 deaths and 41 wounded.
The spokesperson said Houthi forces had launched retaliatory missiles against the USS Dwight Eisenhower in the Red Sea. There were no reports of damage. The Eisenhower had been used by the US to dispatch F/A-18 fighter jets.
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The spokesperson said: “The Yemeni armed forces affirm that the crimes of the American-British aggression will not prevent them from performing their religious, moral and humanitarian duty towards the Palestinian people, and that their operations will continue until the aggression stops and the siege on the oppressed Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.”
The Houthis captured the capital of the politically divided country in 2014.
The British government has said it agreed to join a US naval operation to protect freedom of navigation and to try to root out the sites from where the Houthis were firing missiles. A separate EU mission is undertaking a more defensive naval operation to protect shipping.
There are signs that China, previously seemingly disengaged from the disruption to commercial shipping, wants the Houthis to stop.
The Chinese foreign ministry this week called for “an end to the harassment of civilian vessels and to ensure the safety of waterways in the Red Sea”. Beijing expressed its readiness to play a constructive role in this regard.
The foreign minister of the UN-recognised Yemeni government, Shaya al-Zindani, has been to Beijing on an official visit, the first since his appointment on 27 March.
The total number of vessels passing through the Suez canal fell from 1,094 in November to 85 in March, then rose to 159 in April. Much of the traffic has gone around the Cape of Good Hope.
