Press TV - The spokesman for Yemen’s Armed Forces says Yemeni army troops and allied fighters from Popular Committees are fully prepared to deliver a befitting response to the Tel Aviv regime in case the Israeli military launches an act of aggression against the crisis-hit Arab country.

Speaking at a symposium organized by the Moral Guidance Department of Yemeni Armed Forces and dubbed "Israeli ambitions in Yemen" in the capital Sana’a on Wednesday, Brigadier General Yahya Saree elaborated on the recent remarks by the leader of the Houthi Ansarullah movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi that “Yemenis won’t hesitate to respond to Israel’s folly.”

Saree highlighted that Yemeni Armed Forces have developed great defense capabilities in the fields of missile technology and unmanned aerial vehicles, and have the potential to hit vital targets deep inside the Israeli-occupied territories.

The senior Yemeni military official then pointed to Israel’s historical hostility toward Yemen, Arab and Muslim states, and the Tel Aviv regime’s plots to establish and expand its control over strategic sites in the Persian Gulf, Bahrain and the Red Sea.

For his part, deputy director of the Moral Guidance Department for Media Affairs, Brigadier Abdullah bin Amer, pointed to Israel’s hostility through history toward Yemen and its ambitions to occupy a number of Yemeni islands in the Red Sea.

Ben Amer then made a reference to a number of statements made by Israeli officials since 1966, emphasizing that they document the Tel Aviv regime’s great ambitions and plans to control the most strategically important areas on the Yemeni coasts, most notably Hudaydah in the western sector of the country.

Yemeni missile forces away Saudi F-15 fighter jet

Elsewhere in his remarks, Saree stated that a Saudi F-15 fighter aircraft, flying in the skies over Yemen’s mountainous northwestern province of Sa’ada, had to back away after Yemeni forces and allied fighters from Popular Committees launched a surface-to-air Saqib missile.

He noted that Yemeni armed forces will continue to protect the Yemeni airspace at any cost.

Houthi stressed in a televised speech broadcast live from Sana’a on November 9 that Yemeni people will not hesitate to deal a stinging blow to Israel in case the Tel Aviv regime commits the folly of attacking Yemen.

“Our people will not hesitate to declare jihad against the Israeli enemy, and to launch the most severe strikes against sensitive targets in the occupied territories if the enemy engages in any folly against our people,” the Ansarullah leader said then.

“We reaffirm our anti-Israel position and that the regime is an occupying one. This is a principled humanitarian, moral and religious commitment,” he added.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past four and a half years.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.