TEL AVIV  -  Hours after the Israel forces carried out intense airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel’s operations are protecting not just itself from the Iran-backed rebel group but the entire world.

“They are not only attacking us,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “They are attacking the entire world. They are attacking international shipping and trade routes.” Dozens of fighter jets struck Houthi targets at the Hodeida port — which Israel has struck twice before — and, for the first time, in the rebel-held capital Sana’a, in the early hours of Thursday morning. IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirmed that among the targets hit in the “precise strikes” were “ports and energy infrastructure,” which he accused the Houthis of harnessing for “their military actions,” including missile and drone launches against Israel and attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

“When Israel acts against the Houthis, it acts for the entire international community,” Netanyahu said, adding that the US and many others “understand this well.” He suggested that the rebel group was among the last Iranian proxies still active “after Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria.”

The Houthis, he said, “are learning and they will learn the hard way that anyone who attacks Israel pays a very heavy price.”