On 17 April 2025, the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

conducted 14 airstrikes on a key oil terminal in Ras Isa in

Houthi The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, is a Zaydi Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaydi Shias, with their namesake leadership being drawn largely ...

-controlled

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

. The strike killed at least 80 people and injured another 171, making it the deadliest attack in Yemen since the beginning of the March 2025 United States strikes on Yemen.

Background

On 15 March 2025, the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

launched a large-scale campaign of air and naval strikes against Houthi targets in

, marking the largest U.S. military operation in the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

during President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

's second term. The strikes targeted radar systems, air defenses, and ballistic and drone launch sites used by the Houthis to attack commercial shipping and naval vessels in the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

and

Gulf of Aden The Gulf of Aden (; ) is a deepwater gulf of the Indian Ocean between Yemen to the north, the Arabian Sea to the east, Djibouti to the west, and the Guardafui Channel, the Socotra Archipelago, Puntland in Somalia and Somaliland to the south. ...

Airstrikes

On 17 April 2025, the Ras Isa oil terminal—located about north of the port city of Hodeida—was struck by 14 U.S. airstrikes. Footage showed large fires, explosions and destroyed fuel tankers in the area, as well as at least 10 charred bodies and men being treated for burns. The

United States Central Command The United States Central Command (USCENTCOM or CENTCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previous responsibilit ...

claimed to have targeted the area to "degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis." According to

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera Media Network (AJMN; , ) is a private-media conglomerate headquartered in Wadi Al Sail, Doha, funded in part by the government of Qatar. The network's flagship channels include Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English, which pro ...

correspondent Mohammed al-Attab, the air raids took employees and truck drivers by surprise, with the first air raids hitting the area as they were working. Around 70% of imports and 80% of humanitarian aid to Yemen goes through the ports of Ras Isa, Hodeida, and

as-Salif As-Salif (, , also transliterated as al-Salif) is a coastal village in western Yemen. It is located in a bay of a headland that forms the southern coast of the Kamaran Bay. As-Salif is recognized for its large deposits of rock salt. Historically, ...

Al-Masirah Al-Masirah ( ''al-Masirah'', which means "The Journey") is a Yemeni TV channel owned by the Houthi movement which was launched in 2012. It is headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon. History The President of the board of Al-Masirah is Mohammed Abduls ...

reported that many of the dead were oil workers, adding that five paramedics were killed in secondary U.S. strikes as health authorities arrived at the scene.

Reactions

* : The Houthis condemned the strikes as a "full-fledged war crime, as the port is a civilian facility and not a military one," and that "the US administration fully responsible for the consequences resulting from its escalation in the Red Sea." Following the strikes, the Houthis announced missile attacks on Israel and two U.S. airstrike carriers. * : The U.S. Central Command claimed that the airstrikes were undertaken to degrade the economic source of the Houthis, adding that "The Houthis, their Iranian masters, and those who knowingly aid and abet their terrorist actions should be put on notice that the world will not accept illicit smuggling of fuel and war material to a terrorist organization."

International

* : Iran strongly condemned the strikes as "barbaric." * : Hamas denounced the strikes as a "blatant aggression."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ras Isa oil terminal airstrikes, 2025 2025 airstrikes 2025 building bombings 2025 in international relations 2025 in Yemen Airstrikes conducted by the United States Airstrikes during the Yemeni civil war (2014–present) Al Hudaydah Governorate in the Yemeni civil war (2014–present) Building bombings in Yemen Naval bombing operations and battles Middle Eastern crisis (2023–present) Red Sea crisis Second presidency of Donald Trump April 2025 in Yemen Industrial fires and explosions