Israel launched strikes at Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday after the Houthi militants fired missiles at Israel over the past two days, marking a fresh exchange in another front of the regional conflict.
The Israeli military said in a statement that dozens of aircraft, including fighter jets, attacked power plants and a seaport at the Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports.
The strikes caused power outages in most parts of the port city of Hodeidah, residents said.
“Over the past year, the Houthis have been operating under the direction and funding of Iran, and in co-operation with Iraqi militias in order to attack the state of Israel, undermine regional stability, and disrupt global freedom of navigation,” the statement said.
Israel strikes Beirut for third day as terms for ceasefire with Hizbullah put forward
Israel accused of Gaza war crimes over forced displacements
France deploys thousands of police for Israel football match in Paris after Amsterdam violence
Israeli forces kill 22 in Gaza and force new displacement in north of strip
Yemen’s Houthi militants have fired missiles and drones at Israel repeatedly in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians, since the Gaza war began with a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th.
In their latest attack, the Houthis said they had launched a ballistic missile on Saturday towards the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, which Israel said it intercepted. Israel also intercepted another Houthi missile on Friday.
The Houthi movement earlier mourned Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, its ally in an Iran-backed alliance opposing Israel, following his death in an Israeli air strike in Beirut.
The Israeli military said it killed more than 20 Hizbullah members of different ranks when they assassinated Nasrallah, the Lebanese Shia militant group’s leader, at Hizbullah’s headquarters in Beirut on Friday.
“More than 20 other terrorists of varying ranks, who were present at the underground headquarters in Beirut located beneath civilian buildings, and were managing Hizbullah’s terrorist operations against the state of Israel, were also eliminated,” the military said.
Some of the Hizbullah figures the military says were killed include Ali Karaki, a member of Hizbullah’s Jihad council and the commander of the organisation’s southern front; Ibrahim Hussein Jazini, head of Nasrallah’s security unit; and Samir Tawfiq Dib, who the Israeli military describes as “Nasrallah’s long-time confidant and adviser”.
Karaki had escaped death a few days prior, after Israel said it attempted to assassinate him in an air strike on Dahieh last Monday.
Israel has continued its attacks on Lebanon, claiming to have hit dozens of Hizbullah targets and killing another Hizbullah figure, a day after the Lebanese militant group confirmed leader Nasrallah died in the Israeli strike on Beirut.
The Israeli military said in a post on X that it killed a top Hizbullah leader, Nabil Kaouk, one of the few remaining senior leaders of the organisation. Kaouk was the deputy head of Hizbullah’s central council.
He was reportedly one of those being considered to succeed Nasrallah as the head of Hizbullah.
Fighting between Hizbullah and Israel continued through the night and early morning, with Israeli warplanes carrying out air strikes across south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley.
Lebanon’s state news agency reported an Israeli air strike on a house in the town of Ain, in the Bekaa valley, eastern Lebanon, killed 11 people earlier on Sunday.
Among those killed by Israel’s overnight air strikes were four paramedics while they were working in their medical centre in Tair Dirba, south Lebanon, Lebanon’s national news agency reported on Sunday.
The day before, Israeli strikes killed 33 people and injured 195, the country’s health ministry reported.
Israel has killed hundreds of people, including children, in its attacks on Lebanon over the past week, which included the massive strike on a densely populated area of south Beirut that is believed to have killed Nasrallah on Friday and levelled several entire apartment blocks.
Iran vowed to avenge his death on Saturday, while US president Joe Biden said his killing provided a “measure of justice for his many victims”. Mr Biden did not mention the many civilians killed by Israel, including children, in this week’s attacks.
Lebanon is to hold three days of official mourning for Nasrallah from Monday, according to the prime minister’s office. Hizbullah has yet to announce a date for his funeral.
[ Israel’s assassination of Hizbullah leader is an alarming escalation in conflictOpens in new window ]
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said targeting Nasrallah was “an essential condition to achieving the goals we set”.
In his first public remarks since the killing, Mr Netanyahu said: “He wasn’t another terrorist. He was the terrorist.”
He said Mr Nasrallah’s killing would help bring displaced Israelis back to their homes in the north and would pressure Hamas to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
But with the threat of retaliation high, Mr Netanyahu warned the coming days would bring “significant challenges” and warned Iran against trying to strike.
“There is no place in Iran or in the Middle East that Israel’s long arm cannot reach. And today you know how much that is true,” he said.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 6,000 wounded as a result of Israeli attacks in the past two weeks, the health ministry said, and about one million Lebanese people have been displaced by the strikes, including hundreds of thousands since Friday, Nasser Yassin, the minister co-ordinating the government’s crisis response, has told Reuters. – Reuters/Guardian