The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said he and his colleagues “escaped death narrowly” while being caught up in an Israeli air strike on an airport in Yemen.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recounted feeling “completely exposed” during the attack, which killed at least six, in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He and other UN staff had been leaving Sanaa, in western Yemen, on Thursday following a trip to negotiate the release of UN detainees and assess the humanitarian situation in the country when the airport was hit.

Israel’s military said it carried out “intelligence-based strikes on military targets” belonging to Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

“It was very chaotic, you know, people were in disarray and running everywhere,” Dr Tedros said on Saturday.

He added there was “no shelter, so we were completely exposed. It’s a matter of luck, otherwise if the missile deviated just slightly it could have been on our heads”.

“So my colleague actually said, after all that, we escaped death narrowly,” he said.

The WHO chief – who has led the organisation since 2017 and made regular public appearances during the Covid pandemic – said his presence at the airport was public knowledge prior to the strike.

But he added: “It doesn’t matter whether I’m there or not. Any civilian life is life – my life is not better than another human being.”

Dr Tedros said the airport is a civilian facility and therefore should not have been attacked by Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the airport had been used by Houthi rebels “to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region” which it used to attack Israel, as well as to welcome “senior Iranian officials”.

“This is a further example of the Houthis’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes,” it added.

The Houthi-run Saba news agency said three people were killed at the airport and a further 30 injured.

It said another three people were killed and 10 wounded in other strikes, which targeted power stations and a port in the region.

It is unclear whether the fatalities were civilians or Houthi rebels.

The Iran-backed group described the attacks as “barbaric” and “aggressive”. It vowed to continue launching strikes on Israel until the conflict in the Gaza Strip ceased.

Houthi rebels have been attacking Israel since the first months of the war, which began in October 2023 when Palestinian militants launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing around 1,200.

Israel has retaliated against Houthi attacks with intermittent strikes.

On Saturday, the Houthis said they had launched a strike on the Nevatim airbase in central Israel. The IDF said a missile from Yemen was intercepted by the air force before crossing into Israeli airspace.

The Houthis are an armed political and religious group backed by Iran. The group has ruled large parts of western Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since ousting the internationally recognised government in 2015.