Israel expands attack on Iran-backed militants with attacks on Houthis

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Israel has launched a wave of airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen, dramatically expanding its offensive against Iran-backed militants, just two days after the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.

The Israeli military said Sunday’s attack on the Houthis involved dozens of warplanes and targeted power plants, ports and other infrastructure.

Israel also launched dozens of new attacks in Lebanon on Sunday and vowed to continue its offensive against Hezbollah after the killing of Nasrallah, Iran’s closest regional ally, in Beirut on Friday.

“The IDF is determined to continue operating at all ranges – near or far – against all threats to the citizens of the State of Israel,” the army said in a statement.

Since the Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, a fellow member of the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance,” the Houthis have launched missiles and drones at Israel, while also attacking merchant ships and U.S. Navy vessels in the Red Sea.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen over central Israel for the third time this month.

The Houthis, who control northern Yemen, said they targeted Tel Aviv international airport as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed after returning from the US. Israel launched attacks on the Houthis earlier in July.

The attacks on Houthi targets in the Red Sea port of Hodeidah, a rebel stronghold, and Ras Issa came a day after Netanyahu said Israel was “changing the balance of power in the Middle East.”

“There is no place in Iran or the Middle East that Israel’s long arm cannot reach,” Netanyahu said.

As it continues the fight against Hamas in Gaza, Israel has dealt a series of devastating blows to Hezbollah over the past two weeks.

The IDF said on Sunday that more than 20 senior members of the Lebanese militant group were killed along with Nasrallah when Israeli aircraft razed at least six residential buildings in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of Health, the Israeli offensive has killed more than a thousand people across Lebanon in the past two weeks. The past week was one of the country’s deadliest since Israel waged a 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006.

Despite calls from Western powers for Israel to de-escalate, Netanyahu insisted that Israel would continue its offensive against Hezbollah until more than 60,000 people driven from Israel’s north by a year of cross-border fire could return home.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN that “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 said.

But Kirby also reiterated US military support for Israel, telling ABC’s This Week that there was “already a very robust military capability to defend ourselves and to help defend Israel if it comes to that.”

Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said the US was “dynamically” adjusting its troop posture in the Middle East and had increased the readiness of more US troops to deploy for various contingencies.

Lebanon said on Sunday it had been hit by 216 airstrikes in the past 24 hours.

The bombardment razed more houses in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley and southern provinces. Six bodies were recovered from the rubble of a single house in the village of al-Ain, Lebanese state news reported.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said Israeli strikes in the past two days have killed 14 paramedics and that attacks hit two civil defense centers in the south and damaged a hospital in the northeastern city of Baalbek so severely that it was temporarily taken out of service.

An Israeli army spokesman said one attack hit 45 Hezbollah targets in the village of Kafra in southern Lebanon.

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens have been displaced, many fleeing to the already densely populated capital, where they sleep in schools, on the beach and on the streets.

Israeli airstrikes have also prompted tens of thousands of civilians to flee to neighboring Syria, which is itself struggling with the consequences of a decade-long civil war. Lebanese state security registered more than 41,300 citizens of the country and 36,000 Syrians entering Syria last week.

The constant drone of Israeli drones has echoed across neighborhoods in Beirut and well beyond the southern suburbs since Nasrallah’s assassination.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared three days of official mourning for Nasrallah from Monday, with all public and private institutions required to stop work on the day of his funeral.

Israel has raised the prospect of a ground offensive in southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah has a network of bases and weapons depots.

Hezbollah continued to fire at Israel on Sunday, but most of the rockets were intercepted or landed in open areas.