The Israeli army launched air strikes on sites in Yemen and Lebanon on Saturday. The bombing of what the army described as Houthi targets in the western Yemeni port city of Hodeidah followed Friday’s fatal drone attack by the rebel group in Tel Aviv.
Israeli strikes later on Saturday targeted depots in southern Lebanon said to have been storing ammunition belonging to Hizbullah, three security sources told Reuters.
A number of “military targets” were hit in Hodeidah, a Houthi stronghold, the Israeli army said, adding that its attack was “in response to the hundreds of attacks carried out against the state of Israel in recent months”.
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the port was used as an entry point for Houthi militia to receive Iranian weapons. He said the strikes, some 1,800km from Israel’s borders, were a reminder to enemies that there was no place that Israel could not reach.
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Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes were intended to send a message to the Houthis. “The fire that is currently burning in Hodeidah is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,” Gallant said in a statement. “The Houthis attacked us over 200 times. The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them. And we will do this in any place where it may be required.”
The Almasirah television channel, run by the Houthi movement, said 80 people were wounded in the air strikes. Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam wrote on social media platform X that Yemen was subjected to a “blatant Israeli aggression” that targeted fuel storage facilities and the province’s power station.
He said the attacks aimed “to increase the suffering of the people and to pressure Yemen to stop supporting Gaza” but will only make the people of Yemen and its armed forces more determined to sustain that support.
The drone attack by Houthi rebels on Friday killed one person in the centre of Tel Aviv and wounded at least 10 others near the United States embassy.
Since January, the US and British forces have been striking targets in Yemen, in response to the Houthis’ attacks on commercial shipping that the rebels have described as retaliation for Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza. However, many of the ships targeted are not linked to Israel.
The joint-force air strikes have so far done little to deter the Iran-backed force.
The attacks on the Hizbullah targets later on Saturday in the town of Adloun, about 40km north of Lebanon’s border with Israel, set off a string of loud explosions heard by witnesses across the south of Lebanon
Elsewhere, Palestinians have welcomed Friday’s landmark ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories violates international law. The US State Department on Saturday criticised the decision.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas called the UN court’s decision “historic” and said Israel must be compelled to implement it, while the Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, called it a “watershed moment”.
Jordan’s foreign minister also welcomed the ICJ decision. “It is a clear ruling on the side of Palestinians people’s right to justice, freedom & statehood,” Ayman Safadi in a post on X.
The UN court on Friday ordered Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories “as rapidly as possible” and make full reparations for its “internationally wrongful acts” in a sweeping and damning advisory opinion that says the occupation violates international law.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, would shortly transmit the advisory opinion to the 193-member world body and “it is for the general assembly to decide how to proceed in the matter”, UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said.
The ICJ’s opinion said Israel should pay reparations to Palestinians for damages caused by the occupation. It also found that the UN security council, the general assembly and all states had an obligation not to recognise the occupation as legal and not to give aid or support toward maintaining it.
The court’s findings are not binding but carry weight under international law.
Israel’s foreign ministry rejected the court’s opinion as “fundamentally wrong” and one-sided, and repeated its stance that a political settlement in the region could only be reached by negotiations.
“The Jewish nation cannot be an occupier in its own land,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
The US criticized “the breadth” of the the court’s decision, with Washington saying it would complicate efforts to resolve the conflict.
“We have been clear that Israel’s programme of government support for settlements is both inconsistent with international law and obstructs the cause of peace,” a US State Department spokesperson said on Saturday in an email.
“However, we are concerned that the breadth of the court’s opinion will complicate efforts to resolve the conflict,” the State Department added.
The State Department said the ICJ opinion that Israel must withdraw as soon as possible from the Palestinian territories was “inconsistent with the established framework” for resolving the conflict.
Washington said that framework took into account Israel’s security needs, which it says were highlighted by the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Those attacks killed 1,200, with around 250 people taken as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Elsewhere, US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said a long-sought ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was within sight.
Speaking at the Aspen security forum in Colorado on Friday, he said: “I believe we’re inside the 10-yard line and driving toward the goalline in getting an agreement that would produce a ceasefire, get the hostages home and put us on a better track to trying to build lasting peace and stability.
“There remains some issues that need to be resolved, that need to be negotiated. We’re in the midst of doing exactly that.”
The United States has been working with Qatar and Egypt to try to arrange a ceasefire to free hostages held since the October 7th Hamas attacks, and get more humanitarian aid into the enclave devastated by Israeli air strikes.
Mr Netanyahu is set to travel to Washington next week and address a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday. He is expected to meet Joe Biden if the US president has recovered from Covid-19 by then, the White House said.
At least 13 people have been killed in three Israeli air strikes that hit refugee camps in central Gaza, according to Palestinians health officials, as ceasefire talks continue in Cairo.
Among the dead in Nuseirat Refugee Camp and Bureij Refugee Camp were three children and one woman, according to Palestinian ambulance teams that transported the bodies to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
The 13 bodies were counted by AP journalists at the hospital. – Agencies