Trump halts US attacks on Yemen as Israel hits airport

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00:00The Israeli military says it fired on Yemen's main airport this Tuesday.

00:04Israel had earlier warned people to leave the area around Sanaa International Airport,

00:09a day after Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen

00:14in response to the Houthi missile landing near an Israeli airport,

00:18or rather Israel's main airport, Ben-Gurion at Tel Aviv.

00:22That happened on Sunday.

00:23Eyewitnesses back in Yemen said there were four strikes also in the capital, Sanaa.

00:30Well, let's bring in Noga Tarnopolski for more on this situation.

00:36Noga, of course, is our correspondent in Jerusalem.

00:39Noga, a very good evening to you.

00:41What can you tell us about this strike then on Yemen?

00:47Well, there are a number of interesting details.

00:50One is this was an explicit, overt strike on civilian infrastructure,

00:57the international airport of Sanaa,

00:59and it seemed to be a not very subtle response to the Houthi effort and to the Houthi threat

01:06that it could simply shut Israel off from the world.

01:09Israel has one major international airport,

01:12and the one Houthi missile that managed to get through Israel's air defenses

01:16hit in this very, very delicate spot of the airport.

01:20Israel has been almost without flights since Sunday.

01:23As a result, airlines continue to delay their return.

01:27There will be few flights, I think, at least until mid-May.

01:30And this was Israel basically saying,

01:33you attacked our airport, we will demolish yours.

01:36It seems to me that simple.

01:39What makes it interesting is a few details.

01:42The United States, which has been the principal force attacking Houthis in recent months,

01:48tried to stay away from these sort of explicitly civilian targets

01:52and attacked almost entirely Houthi military targets.

01:57Tonight, just as Israeli planes had landed back home,

02:01Donald Trump announced a sort of a ceasefire.

02:06He said there would be an end to the war,

02:09that the Houthis had promised him that they would no longer attack U.S. ships,

02:14and he said that as a result, the U.S. would no longer attack the Houthis in Yemen.

02:20Subsequently, Oman confirmed a ceasefire between the Houthis and the United States.

02:27This seems to leave Israel very exposed.

02:31The Israeli government was stunned by Trump's statement.

02:34It has been counting on American support.

02:37And the Houthis seem to have been given, advertently or inadvertently,

02:40a carte blanche from the White House to keep attacking Israel

02:44in the knowledge that there won't be further American strikes in retaliation.

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