The head of the World Health Organization said he was about to board a flight in the Yemeni capital when the airport came under bombardment.

The US military on Tuesday said it hit targets in Yemen targeting the Houthi militia, hours after the Iran-backed group launched attacks on Israel. The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said its warships and aircraft attacked a number of Houthi-linked sites,

Israel is signaling a wider campaign against Houthi militants in Yemen, a mountainous and impoverished country more than 1,000 miles from Israeli territory.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was about to board a plane at the Sanaa International Airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said.

Israel’s devastating campaigns against Iran’s regional allies have severely weakened its arch-enemy’s ability to project its power, but Yemen’s Tehran-backed Houthi rebels remain a stubborn thorn in its side,

The Biden administration directed new airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Tuesday, as the United States and its ally Israel struggle to halt a campaign of regional assaults by the Iranian-backed militant group.

Yemen’s Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said that the country would continue to defend itself after several U.S. strikes targeted facilities in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday.

CENTCOM says it struck ‘Houthi targets’ in Sanaa and coastal locations in Yemen, days after Israel targeted the country.