Al Arabiya correspondent Mohammed Al-Ashqar had just finished setting up for a live broadcast near Yemen's Bab el-Mandeb Strait when a Houthi missile slammed into the ground close to his position, turning a routine report into a harrowing, 76-second brush with disaster. Footage of the moment shows Al-Ashqar standing on a highway in full press gear, microphone in hand, before a sudden explosion erupts behind him, sending a massive plume of dust and smoke billowing into the sky. The camera keeps rolling through the chaos, capturing the immediate aftermath as the blast rocks the area around the journalist and his crew. The strike came as Houthi forces launched missiles toward the strait, a stretch of coastline where Al-Ashqar was reporting alongside Yemeni government forces.

The near-miss unfolded amid a major escalation in the fight for Bab el-Mandeb, one of the world's most strategically vital waterways, where Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have been pushing a large-scale counteroffensive to wrest control of the coast back from the Houthis. The incident is a stark reminder of just how dangerous it has become for journalists covering the conflict, with reporters increasingly finding themselves caught in the crossfire as Iran-backed Houthi forces continue targeting strategic positions along the Red Sea. Al-Ashqar is not the first correspondent to come under fire while reporting from the strait, and the latest footage is already circulating widely as a vivid illustration of the risks war correspondents face simply by doing their jobs. Both the government and Houthi sides continue to dispute who currently holds the upper hand along this critical stretch of coastline.