Israel attacks Houthi targets in Yemen as it continues bombardment of Lebanon | Yemen

Israel launched a wave of airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday as it continues to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, expanding an assault on Iran-backed allies across the Middle East, risking the slide into a potentially devastating regional conflict on multiple fronts.

The attack on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen involved dozens of Israeli aircraft and appears to have targeted fuel facilities, power stations and docks at the ports of Ras Issa and Hodeidah. long crisis in the region.

Israeli military officials said the raid targeted the Houthis, an armed Iranian-backed group that controls most of Yemen. The Houthis have shot at Israeli targets for months in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. They have also targeted international shipping in the Red Sea. On Saturday, the Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s main international airport as Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, arrived.

The sites targeted Sunday were used by the Houthis, who seized the Yemeni capital Sana’a in 2014, to “transfer Iranian weaponry to the region and supplies for military needs,” the Israeli military said in a statement. declaration.

“Over the past year, the Houthis, under the direction and financing of Iran and in coordination with Iraqi militias, have operated to attack the State of Israel, undermine regional stability and disrupt global freedom of navigation,” the military said.

Residents said the Israeli attacks caused power outages in most parts of Hodeidah.

The attacks in Yemen and the new wave of attacks in Lebanon came 48 hours after the Israeli operation that killed Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s veteran leader, in Beirut.

Since Nasrallah’s death, Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran, has said it will continue the fight against Israel and has continued to fire rockets into the country, including a salvo on Sunday morning.

Nasrallah’s killing was a major blow to Hezbollah and Iran, removing an influential ally who helped build the militant Shiite Muslim organization into the linchpin of Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance,” the loose network of anti-Israeli, pro-Iranian armed groups. across the Middle East, which includes both the Houthis and Hamas.

According to figures from the Ministry of Health, more than a thousand people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel stepped up its bombing of Hezbollah strongholds last Monday. An Israeli attack on the town of Ain Deleb in southern Lebanon on Sunday killed 24 people and injured 29 others, the Lebanese Health Ministry said in a statement.

The Israeli army said its air force had hit dozens of targets, including launchers and weapons caches, while the navy said it had intercepted eight projectiles coming from the direction of Lebanon.

The attacks were concentrated in southern Lebanon, where exchanges between Israel and Hezbollah have been taking place for almost a year.

Drones could be heard flying over all parts of the Lebanese capital overnight and all day on Sunday.

In Beirut, displaced families spent the night on benches at Zaitunay Bay, a string of restaurants and cafes on Beirut’s waterfront, where private security usually chases away any people loitering.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said that “more than 200,000 people have been displaced within Lebanon” and more than 50,000 people have fled to neighboring Syria.

Israeli media reports suggested that within weeks the IDF leadership continued to push for a limited ground offensive, seeing a last chance.

Netanyahu said on Saturday that Nasrallah’s assassination was a necessary step toward “changing the balance of power in the region for years to come.” He added: “Nasrallah was not a terrorist, he was the terrorist,” warning of challenging days ahead.

An international diplomatic effort to broker a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel has made little progress, although Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday that efforts were still ongoing.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Sunday that Israel would not be able to get people safely back into their homes in the north of the country by waging an all-out war with Hezbollah or Iran.

The Israeli goal of its campaign in Lebanon is to protect northern areas from Hezbollah rocket fire and allow more than 60,000 displaced people to return.

“An all-out war with Hezbollah, and certainly with Iran, is not the way to do that. “If you want to get those people back home safely and sustainably, we believe a diplomatic path is the way to go,” Kirby told CNN.

European foreign ministers have stepped up their calls for a ceasefire as they fear Nasrallah’s assassination threatens to seriously destabilize Lebanon and the region.

Israel must “immediately stop its attacks in Lebanon,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said, adding that his country was opposed to any form of ground operation by the Israelis.

David Lammy, the British Foreign Secretary, said on X that he had spoken to Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati. “We agreed on the need for an immediate ceasefire to end the bloodshed. A diplomatic solution is the only way to restore security and stability for the Lebanese and Israeli people,” Lammy wrote.

When Pope Francis was asked on Sunday about Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, he criticized military attacks that he said “transcend morality.” “Even in war there is a morality that must be protected,” the pope said. ‘War is immoral. But the rules of war give it some morality.”

Nasrallah’s body was found intact at the site of Friday’s strike, a medical and security source told Reuters on Sunday. Hezbollah has not yet said when his funeral will take place.

Supporters of the group and other Lebanese people who applauded its role in the fight against Israel, which for years occupied southern Lebanon, mourned him on Sunday.

“We have lost the leader who gave us all the strength and confidence that we, this small country we love, could make it a paradise,” said a Lebanese Christian woman, Sophia Blanche Rouillard, carrying a black flag to her work in Beirut.

The fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, their latest round of war in four decades of on-off conflict, has been waged in parallel with Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, which began after the Iran-backed Palestinian group’s attack on Israel on October 7 2023.

Nasrallah’s death capped a devastating fortnight for Hezbollah, starting with the explosion of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by its members. The attack, which was blamed on the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, killed 42 people and injured several thousand, mostly Hezbollah members.

Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley near the Syrian border and in the southern suburbs of Beirut have meanwhile killed a string of the group’s other top commanders.

The Israeli army said on Sunday that it had killed Nabil Kaouk, the vice chairman of Hezbollah’s executive council, in an attack on Saturday. Hezbollah confirmed his death, bringing to seven the total number of senior Hezbollah leaders killed in Israeli attacks in the past ten days. They include at least three founding members who avoided death or detention for decades.

Hezbollah on Sunday denied Israel’s claims of killing Abu Ali Rida, a key commander in southern Lebanon and the last remaining senior military leader alive in an airstrike. The group has said it will not cease fire until the Israeli offensive in Gaza ends.