AIR strikes by the United States pounded the outskirts of Yemen’s port city of Hodeida on Tuesday night, killing at least eight people, the Houthi-led government said.

The strikes hit Hodeida’s al-Hawak district, the rebels said, and wounded 16 people. The area is home to the city’s airport, used by the Yemenis in the past to target Israeli and US shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians under attack in Gaza.

The intense US campaign against the blockade has killed at least 79 people, according to casualty figures released by the Yemenis.

Footage aired by the rebels’ al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying wounded to waiting ambulances and rescuers searching by the light of their mobile phones. 

The target appeared in the footage to be a home in a residential neighbourhood.

Some experts see this as being  part of a wider “decapitation” campaign launched by the Trump administration to kill rebel leaders; others put this down to indiscriminate attacks by the US.

Other strikes targeted Yemen’s mountainous Amran governorate, north of the rebel-held capital of Sanaa. 

The Yemenis said the US strikes hit telecommunication equipment. 

Previous US strikes also targeted telecommunications gear in Amran near Jebel Aswad, or the “Black Mountain.”

Strikes later apparently targeted Jebel Nuqum near Sanaa. Others hit Dhamar and Ibb governorates, wounding three.

The US military’s central command did not immediately acknowledge the strikes. 

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking in the Oval Office on Monday during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that the US was “not going to relent” in its campaign targeting the Yemenis.

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