The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said he and his colleagues “barely survived” when they were caught in an Israeli air strike on an airport in Yemen.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told of feeling “totally exposed” during the attack, which killed at least six, in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He and other UN staff were leaving Sanaa, in western Yemen, on Thursday following a trip to negotiate the release of UN prisoners and assess the humanitarian situation in the country when the airport was struck.
Israel’s military said it had carried out “intelligence-based strikes against military targets” of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
“It was very chaotic, you know, people were confused and running everywhere,” Dr Tedros said on Saturday.
He added that “there is no shelter, so we were completely exposed. It’s lucky, otherwise if the arrow deviated a little it could have been on our heads”.
“Indeed, my partner said that after all that, we barely survived,” he said.
The WHO official – who has led the organization since 2017 and has been a regular public figure during the Covid crisis – said his presence at the airport was known to the public before the strike.
But he added: “It doesn’t matter if I’m there or not. Any public life is a life – my life is no better than someone else’s.”
Dr. Tedros said that the airport is a civilian area, so it should not have been attacked by Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the airport was being used by Houthi rebels to “smuggle Iranian weapons into the region” which they used to attack Israel, and to receive “high-ranking Iranian officials”.
“This is another example of the Houthis’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes,” it added.
The Houthi-affiliated Saba news agency said three people died at the airport and 30 others were injured.
It said three other people were killed and 10 injured in other strikes that targeted power stations and ports in the region.
It is not clear whether the dead were civilians or Houthi rebels.
The Iran-backed group described the attack as “barbaric” and “violent”. It has vowed to continue its strikes in Israel until the end of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
The Houthi rebels have been attacking Israel since the first months of the war, which began in October 2023 when the Palestinian army launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200 people.
Israel has retaliated against the Houthi attacks with continuous strikes.
On Saturday, the Houthis said they launched a strike on Nevatim Airport in central Israel. The IDF said the missile from Yemen was intercepted by the air force before crossing into Israeli airspace.
The Houthis are an armed political and religious group supported by Iran. The group has controlled large parts of western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since ousting the internationally recognized government in 2015.
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