Three hurt as Houthis hit Jazan and Najran airports; Riyadh confirms minor injuries

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation said on Tuesday that two civilian airports near the Yemen border were hit on Monday evening, leaving three people with minor injuries and causing material damage. The airports named in the authority's statement are King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Airport in Jazan and Najran Airport.

The authority said specialised teams dealt with the attacks as they happened, that the injured were taken to hospital, and that damage assessment was still under way. It said it was taking measures to protect passengers and staff. Al Jazeera's headline on the same statement used the phrase severe injuries. The body of the authority's account, as carried by Al Jazeera and by Türkiye Today, says the injuries were minor. The confirmed public number is three.

Yemen's Houthis, who also use the name Ansar Allah, said late on Monday that their forces had targeted sites across southern Saudi Arabia, including airports and military sites. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree went further in a statement carried by Anadolu and reported by Türkiye Today. He said the group had run three operations with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones. The first, he said, targeted King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and disrupted air traffic. The second, he said, hit an Aramco refinery at Rabigh, in the Mecca region, and started a fire. The third, he said, hit Abha Airport, the Khamis Mushait base and the Akfa camp in Asir, plus sites in Najran and Jazan.

Riyadh has not confirmed the Riyadh airport strike, the Rabigh fire, or the Asir targets in the civil aviation statement that named Jazan and Najran. Saree's account and the authority's account overlap on those two southern airports. They do not overlap, on the public record so far, on the rest of the list. Saree framed the strikes as a response to what he called 60 Saudi air and missile attacks over the previous 24 hours on Sanaa and on the provinces of Al-Jawf, Taiz, Hajjah, Saada and Marib.

The Saudi-led coalition said early on Tuesday that it had destroyed a ballistic missile launch platform in Sanaa, which the Houthis have held since 2014, and a storage site in Saada holding 20 ballistic missiles. Those are coalition claims. They sit next to a government offensive that, according to Al Jazeera, has pushed Houthi forces back from the Bab al-Mandeb strait and retaken the Red Sea port of Mocha. The coalition said 100 fighter jets were providing air support. Saudi naval forces have also opened an operation in Hodeidah governorate.

The airport strikes landed in the same week that Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia said they would activate deterrence measures under their Mecca joint defence agreement and deploy forces to the kingdom. Al Jazeera reported that agreement on Monday, as the Presidential Leadership Council's offensive, which Riyadh and the recognised Yemeni government call Operation Dawn of Yemen, pressed toward territory the Houthis still hold, including the capital.

Jazan and Najran are not symbolic targets. King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Airport is the civilian field for Jazan, the Red Sea province that faces the fighting around Hodeidah and the strait. Najran Airport serves the inland province that has taken Houthi fire in earlier rounds of the war, including the cross-border campaign of 2019 and 2020 that hit Abha and Najran more than once. A hit on a civilian field, even with minor injuries, changes the insurance and scheduling calculation for any carrier still using those two strips.

Gulf Cooperation Council secretary-general Jassim al-Budaiwi called the strikes a dangerous escalation and asked other governments to treat attacks on civilian infrastructure as such. The practical test is narrower. It is whether GACA reopens both airports on a normal timetable, and whether Saree's claim of a fire at Rabigh shows up in an Aramco or civil defence statement. Until that statement exists, the verified damage is three minor injuries and material harm at Jazan and Najran, plus a coalition claim of a destroyed launcher in Sanaa and a missile store in Saada.