The Director-General of the World Health Organization said he and his colleagues “narrowly escaped death” while surrounded in an Israeli air strike on an airport in Yemen.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recounted that he felt “completely exposed” during the attack, which killed at least six people, in an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
He and other UN staff were leaving Sanaa in western Yemen on Thursday after a trip to negotiate the release of UN detainees and assess the humanitarian situation in the country when the airport was bombed.
The Israeli army said it carried out “strikes based on intelligence information on military targets” belonging to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
“It was very chaotic, you know, people were in chaos and running everywhere,” Dr. Tedros said on Saturday.
He added, “There was no shelter, so we were completely exposed. It's a matter of luck, otherwise if the missile had deviated a little, it could have hit our heads.”
“So my colleague actually said, 'After all that, we narrowly escaped death,'” he added.
The WHO chief – who has led the organization since 2017 and has made regular public appearances during the Covid pandemic – said his presence at the airport was known to the public before the strike.
But he added: “It doesn't matter if I was there or not. The life of any civilian is life, and my life is no better than another human being's life.”
Dr. Tedros said that the airport is a civilian facility and therefore should not be attacked by Israel.
The Israeli military said the airport was used by Houthi rebels “to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region” which they used to attack Israel, as well as to receive “senior Iranian officials.”
He added, “This is another example of the Houthis exploiting civilian infrastructure for military purposes.”
The Houthi-run Saba news agency said three people were killed at the airport and 30 others were wounded.
She added that three other people were killed and 10 wounded in other strikes that targeted power stations and a port in the region.
It is unclear whether the dead were civilians or Houthi rebels.
The Iran-backed group described the attacks as “barbaric” and “aggressive.” It pledged to continue launching strikes on Israel until the conflict in the Gaza Strip stops.
Houthi rebels have been attacking Israel since the first months of the war, which began in October 2023 when Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people.
Israel responded to the Houthi attacks with intermittent strikes.
The Houthis said on Saturday that they launched an attack on the Nevatim air base in central Israel. The Israeli army said that the Air Force intercepted a missile launched from Yemen before it crossed into Israeli airspace.
The Houthis are an armed political and religious group supported by Iran. The group has ruled large parts of western Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, since the overthrow of the internationally recognized government in 2015.
