SANAA, Yemen 

Yemen’s Houthis said Sunday that Israeli attacks would not deter the group from continuing their military escalation in support of the war-torn Gaza Strip.

At least six people were killed and 83 others injured in Israeli airstrikes on the port of Al Hudaydah in western Yemen on Saturday, according to the Houthi-run Health Ministry.

The Israeli army claimed responsibility for the attacks, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described them as a "direct response" to a drone attack launched by the Houthi group on Tel Aviv on Friday, which killed an Israeli and injured 10 others.

“The Israeli aggression on Yemen will not benefit the enemy or provide it with deterrence, and will not deter us from continuing the escalation in support of Gaza,” Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said in a televised speech.

He said the anti-Israel fronts in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen “have succeeded in disrupting the Israeli enemy's strategy of isolating Gaza.”

Israel “is moving in the opposite direction towards collapse, retreat, and erosion of deterrence,” he added.

Saturday’s airstrikes marked the first direct Israeli response to recent Houthi attacks.

American officials told private Israeli Channel 12 that Tel Aviv conducted the attack on Al Hudaydah independently, without any military involvement from Washington.

The Houthis have been targeting ships that are Israeli-owned, flagged, operated or headed to Israeli ports in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden with missiles and drones in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, where nearly 39,000 people have been killed in a devastating military offensive since Oct. 7, 2023.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala