Israeli warplanes carried out a wave of overnight airstrikes against Houthi military positions in northern and western Yemen, the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday, retaliating for a ballistic missile fired the previous day toward the southern city of Beersheba and dramatically widening the geographic footprint of the month-old war with Iran.

The strikes, which began shortly after midnight local time and continued into the early morning, targeted what the IDF described as Houthi command-and-control facilities, missile assembly workshops and launch sites in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, as well as the Red Sea port of Hudaydah. Footage broadcast on Yemeni and pan-Arab networks showed plumes of smoke rising over the Hudaydah docks, where the Houthi-aligned authorities said power infrastructure and fuel tanks had been damaged.

In a statement issued by Hebrew-language military spokesman Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, the IDF said roughly 30 aircraft, including F-35I and F-15 fighters, had taken part in the operation, flying more than 1,800 miles to reach their targets. “The Houthi regime has chosen to act as a forward arm of Iran’s aggression and has fired ballistic missiles at Israeli civilians,” Hagari said. “Whoever fires on the State of Israel will pay a price, regardless of distance.”

The IDF said preliminary assessments indicated that all aircraft returned safely. The military declined to specify whether any of the strikes had been coordinated with U.S. Central Command, which has maintained an enlarged naval presence in the region since fighting between Israel, the United States and Iran erupted in late February.

Saturday’s missile launch, which triggered air-raid sirens across the Beersheba metropolitan area and parts of the northern Negev, marked the first time during the current war that a Houthi projectile had penetrated deep enough into Israeli territory to set off civilian alerts. Israeli air defenses, including the Arrow long-range interceptor system, brought the missile down before it reached populated areas, the IDF said. No casualties were reported, though debris damaged a warehouse in the Bedouin town of Rahat.

Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree confirmed Saturday’s launch in a televised address, framing it as a response to Israeli strikes earlier in the week against Iranian steel factories near Isfahan and nuclear-related sites at Natanz. In a second statement issued Sunday afternoon following the Israeli airstrikes, Saree vowed further attacks and said the group would target “all Israeli ships and Zionist interests” passing through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb strait.

“The Yemeni armed forces will not stand by while our brothers in Iran, Lebanon and Gaza are being slaughtered,” Saree said. “The aggression against Sana’a will be met by an aggression against Tel Aviv.”

The escalation pushes the conflict, which until now had largely been contained to Iran, Iraq and the Gulf, into a third theater of operations. Saturday alone saw Iranian missiles strike a U.S. air base in Saudi Arabia, wounding at least 12 American service members, and additional Iranian projectiles intercepted by Saudi and Emirati air defenses over the Arabian Peninsula. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Saturday evening that Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear and industrial sites would carry “a heavy price.”

Regional reaction to the Yemen strikes was swift. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling for “maximum restraint” and warning that further escalation could destabilize maritime traffic through the Suez Canal, which has already seen reduced volumes since the war began. Jordan and Oman echoed those concerns, while Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry expressed “deep concern” about the widening of hostilities but stopped short of criticizing Israel directly. Riyadh continues to host U.S. forces and has been a target of Iranian missile fire in recent days.

In Ankara, the Turkish presidency reiterated its call for an immediate ceasefire and said the multilateral peace track underway in Islamabad, which Turkey is helping to facilitate alongside Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, “must not be allowed to collapse.” Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar told reporters in the Pakistani capital that delegations from Tehran and several Gulf states were still expected to attend a working session scheduled for Monday.

U.S. officials offered measured backing for the Israeli operation. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, briefing reporters in Washington, said the United States “recognizes Israel’s right to defend itself against missile attacks targeting its civilian population,” while declining to confirm or deny any American role in the planning. Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder said U.S. forces in the region were on heightened alert and that additional Patriot batteries had been repositioned to bases in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

In New York, the United Nations Security Council was expected to convene an emergency session Sunday evening at the request of Russia and Algeria. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in a statement issued from Geneva, urged “all parties to step back from the abyss” and warned that “a regional war is no longer a hypothetical scenario but a present danger.”

Global markets, already battered by the conflict, appeared poised for further turbulence at Monday’s open. The S&P 500 has fallen 4.3 percent since hostilities began in late February, while Brent crude closed Friday above $119 a barrel, its highest level in more than a decade. Analysts at Eurasia Group said the Yemen strikes were likely to revive concerns about freedom of navigation through Bab el-Mandeb, through which roughly 12 percent of global seaborne trade passes.

For Israel, the operation underscored a strategic gamble that aggressive retaliation across multiple fronts will deter further attacks rather than invite them. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a brief video statement Sunday morning, said the Houthis “will not have immunity simply because they sit far from our borders,” adding that Israel would “continue to act, in any arena, against anyone who seeks our destruction.”

Whether that calculation holds, analysts said, may depend less on Israeli airpower than on whether the Islamabad peace track can produce a framework acceptable to Tehran and Washington in the coming days. Until then, the war’s map continues to grow.