Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared a post by US President Donald Trump from a month and a half ago, in which he warned that Iran would be held responsible for attacks by the Houthis.
"President Trump is absolutely right! Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran. Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror master," Netanyahu wrote.
In his post from March, the US President wrote: "Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from and are created by Iran. Any further attack or retaliation by the 'Houthis' will be met with great force, and there is no guarantee that that force will stop there. Iran has played "the innocent victim" of rogue terrorists from which they've lost control, but they haven't lost control. They're dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, "Intelligence." Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran, and Iran will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!"
Earlier in the day, during a meeting with President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus, who arrived in Israel in a show of solidarity just hours after the Houthi attack, Netanyahu stressed: "We're being challenged, the whole world is being challenged by the Houthis, including in the dastardly attack they did today near Ben-Gurion airport. We will not tolerate it. We will take very strong action against them. And we always remember that they act with their patron Iran's direction and support. We will do what we need to do to take care of our security, to respond effectively, and to give Iran due warning that this cannot continue."
President Christodoulides called for the release of the hostages, and Netanyahu replied: "Indeed. And that is obviously something that we are pressing Hamas to do and enjoying the support of our friends, asking others to press not only Hamas but Qatar, which has overwhelming influence over Hamas, which it doesn’t always use but could use. In fact, we had a hostage deal about to materialize that would have released almost half of the hostages and with the help of Egypt. We didn’t see the Qatari cooperation, that's to say the least, that could have brought this deal to fruition. That's what we expect to see: the support of our friends and the pressure of those who can press Hamas because you're right. The repeat, release of the hostages and repatriation of the living and those who are not living back in Israel is a number one requirement from international, from morality, from common sense."