A WAVE of air attacks on Yemen’s Ras Isa oil port killed at least 74 people and wounded 171 others, the Houthi-led Yemeni government said today.

The attack, confirmed by the US military’s Central Command, represents one of the highest reported death tolls so far in the campaign launched under President Donald Trump that has involved hundreds of strikes since March 15. 

The Yemenis launched a missile toward Israel later today that the Israeli military claimed was intercepted.

The al-Masirah satellite news channel aired graphic footage of the aftermath of the attack on Ras Isa port, showing corpses strewn across the site. 

It said paramedic and civilian workers at the port had been killed in the attack, which sparked a massive explosion and fires.

The US said its forces took action to deprive the Yemenis of “illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorise the entire region for over 10 years.”

The Yemenis said in a statement: “This completely unjustified aggression represents a flagrant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and independence and a direct targeting of the entire Yemeni people.

“It targets a vital civilian facility that has served the Yemeni people for decades.”

Central Command declined to comment when reporters pressed them regarding the civilian casualties.

The Ras Isa port, a collection of three oil tanks and refining equipment, sits in Yemen’s Hodeida governorate along the Red Sea. 

The port is also the terminus of an oil pipeline stretching to Yemen’s energy-rich Marib governorate, which remains held by a US and Saudi Arabia-backed faction. 

The new campaign of air strikes started after the Yemenis threatened to begin targeting Israeli and US ships again over Israel blocking aid entering the Gaza Strip. 

Yemen targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors from November 2023 until January of this year.