Yemen’s Houthi-controlled Sana’a International Airport is set to resume operations on Wednesday following an Israeli airstrike one week ago, according to the Yemen News Agency (SABA).
The main runway has been repaired and is now ready to receive incoming civilian flights, the news outlet reported Tuesday, as Yemen’s Prime Minister Ahmed Ghaleb Al-Rahwi and his First Deputy, Scholar Mohamed Miftah, inspected the final preparations for resuming operations at the airport together with a host of other officials.
Technical and engineering teams reportedly completed preparations in the “departure and arrival halls, VIP lounges, the airport’s main runway and docking areas,” SABA reported.
Al-Rahwi confirmed to media that the airport is “now fully ready to resume its normal functions, meeting all security and safety requirements in accordance with approved international standards.”
A photo taken by news agency reveals, however, that work on the airport is not quite complete.
Operations were suspended after Israeli forces attacked the airport one week ago in response to a Houthi missile strike on Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport two days earlier.
“As a result of the Israeli aggression on Sana’a International Airport and the resulting extensive damage, it was decided to suspend all flights to and from the airport until further notice,” airport director Khaled al-Shayef told the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news network on May 8.
Al-Shayef said at that time that it would cost more than $500 million to repair the damage at the airport.
“It will take a long time to rehabilitate and resume the airport’s operations,” he explained. “The enemy caused heavy losses after attacking with two types of missiles. The enemy destroyed the terminals, along with all the equipment and devices in them. The warehouse was completely destroyed.”
