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US targets Houthi radar site in renewed raid on Yemen
The US has carried out an additional strike against Yemen’s Houthi forces after President Joe Biden’s administration vowed to protect shipping in the Red Sea.
The latest strike, which the US said targeted a radar site early on Saturday local time, came a day after dozens of American and British strikes on the Iran-backed group’s facilities, Reuters reports.
The guided missile destroyer Carney used Tomahawk missiles in the follow-on strike early on Saturday local time “to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack maritime vessels, including commercial vessels”, the US central command said on X (formerly Twitter).
The Houthi movement’s television channel, Al-Masirah, reported that the US and Britain were targeting the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, with raids.
Intensifying concerns about a widening regional conflict, US and British warplanes, ships and submarines launched missiles on Thursday against targets across Yemen controlled by the group, which has cast its maritime campaign as support for Palestinians under siege by Israel in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The Pentagon said Houthis later fired an anti-ship ballistic missile but it did not hit any ships.
While the Houthi leaders swore retaliation, Biden warned on Friday that he could order more strikes if they did not stop their attacks on merchant and military vessels in one of the world’s most economically vital waterways.
Witnesses confirmed explosions early on Friday, Yemen time, at military bases near airports in Sana’a and in Yemen’s third city, Taiz, a naval base at Yemen’s main Red Sea port of Hodeidah and military sites in the coastal Hajjah governorate.
The Houthis said five fighters were killed but they vowed to continue their attacks on regional shipping.
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Ziad, a 35-year-old Palestinian, shares memories of a favourite restaurant, rehomes a cat called Hope and struggles to find strong enough words to describe his ‘city of ghosts’ in the latest edition of the Guardian’s Gaza diary series.
Below is an excerpt but you can read the full piece here.
Tuesday 9 January
8am Am I still alive? Well, I am sure still breathing; the pain all over my body is a sign that it is functioning. What does “alive” mean? Is everything we are going through called life. I wonder about the difference between me and a dead person.
Does the loss of safety and your hopes and dreams qualify you to be dead? Because if so, this means that Gaza has became a city of ghosts.
Turkey bombs 'terrorist targets' in Iraq and Syria
Turkey conducted overnight airstrikes on nearly 30 “terrorist targets” in northern Iraq and Syria after nine of its soldiers were killed in a military base in Iraq, the defence ministry said on Saturday.
“Air operations were carried out on terrorist targets in the regions of Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil,” the ministry said in a statement, reports AFP.
The Turkish soldiers were killed during clashes that followed an attempted intrusion at the base near the northern Iraqi city of Metina, the ministry said, revising upward a previous toll of five.
The ministry said the strikes had targeted 29 locations including “caves, bunkers, shelters and oil installations” belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) and the YPG (people’s protection units), a Syrian Kurdish militia which is a central element of US-allied forces in a coalition against Islamic State.
Ankara has operated several dozen military posts in the area for the past 25 years in its decades-old war against the PKK, a group blacklisted by Turkey and many of its western allies as a terrorist organisation.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was due to hold an emergency security meeting Saturday in Istanbul to discuss the uptick in attacks on troops in the region.
Meanwhile, 113 people were arrested for suspected links with the PKK in nationwide raids on Saturday, interior minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X.
Three armed Palestinians trying to break into settlement killed, says Israeli military
Israeli forces killed three armed Palestinians who were trying to break into a settlement in the occupied West Bank overnight between Friday and Saturday, the Israeli military said.
The three Palestinians were armed with knives, a rifle and axes, reports Reuters, citing information from the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. Two were 16 years old and the third was 19.
The Israeli military said a soldier was wounded in an exchange of fire with the assailants as they breached the outer fence of the settlement Adora, near the Palestinian city Hebron.
Israel bombards southern Gaza, witnesses say
Israel pounded the Gaza Strip on Saturday amid as a dire humanitarian situation as it also grappled with a telecommunications blackout on the 99th day of the war, Agence France-Presse reports.
Witnesses reported Israeli bombardment of Gaza in the early morning, and an AFP journalist said on Friday that strikes and shelling had hit areas between Gaza’s southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, crowded with people who have fled from the north.
All internet and telecommunications services in Gaza were cut on Friday as a result of Israeli bombardment, main operator Paltel said. “Gaza is blacked out again,” it said on X (formerly Twitter).
The Palestinian Red Crescent posted that the disruption was increasing the challenges in “reaching the wounded and injured promptly”.
UN aid agency OCHA’s head for the occupied Palestinian territories said on Friday that Israel was constantly blocking humanitarian aid convoys into northern Gaza.
Andrea De Domenico said:
They have been very systematic in not allowing us to support hospitals, which is something that is reaching a point of a level of inhumanity that for me is beyond comprehension.
In central Gaza, a lack of fuel forced the shutdown of the main generator of al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah, the Hamas-run health ministry said.
“Does anyone care about us? Why is everyone silent?” asked one mourner at a hospital where a group of Palestinians had gathered beside white body bags holding the latest casualties.
US targets Houthi radar site in renewed raid on Yemen
The US has carried out an additional strike against Yemen’s Houthi forces after President Joe Biden’s administration vowed to protect shipping in the Red Sea.
The latest strike, which the US said targeted a radar site early on Saturday local time, came a day after dozens of American and British strikes on the Iran-backed group’s facilities, Reuters reports.
The guided missile destroyer Carney used Tomahawk missiles in the follow-on strike early on Saturday local time “to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack maritime vessels, including commercial vessels”, the US central command said on X (formerly Twitter).
The Houthi movement’s television channel, Al-Masirah, reported that the US and Britain were targeting the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, with raids.
Intensifying concerns about a widening regional conflict, US and British warplanes, ships and submarines launched missiles on Thursday against targets across Yemen controlled by the group, which has cast its maritime campaign as support for Palestinians under siege by Israel in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
The Pentagon said Houthis later fired an anti-ship ballistic missile but it did not hit any ships.
While the Houthi leaders swore retaliation, Biden warned on Friday that he could order more strikes if they did not stop their attacks on merchant and military vessels in one of the world’s most economically vital waterways.
Witnesses confirmed explosions early on Friday, Yemen time, at military bases near airports in Sana’a and in Yemen’s third city, Taiz, a naval base at Yemen’s main Red Sea port of Hodeidah and military sites in the coastal Hajjah governorate.
The Houthis said five fighters were killed but they vowed to continue their attacks on regional shipping.
Opening summary
Welcome to our live reporting of the Israel-Gaza war and the wider Middle East crisis – this is Adam Fulton.
The US carried out a fresh strike against Yemen’s Houthi rebel forces early on Saturday after Washington vowed to protect shipping in the Red Sea.
The latest attack, which the US military said targeted a radar site, came a day after dozens of American and British strikes on the Iran-backed group’s facilities.
The first raid triggered mass protests in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, while other Middle Eastern countries voiced concern that it could intensify unrest in the region.
The Pentagon said the Houthis later fired an anti-ship ballistic missile but it did not hit any ships.
US central command said the latest American strike was designed “to degrade the Houthis’ ability to attack maritime vessels” in the Red Sea, one of the world’s most economically vital waterways.
More on that story soon. Now, as it turns 9.45am in Sana’a and 8.45am in the Gaza Strip and Tel Aviv, here’s an overview of other key developments:
Five people were reported killed and six injured in the US and UK air and missile strikes in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen late on Thursday. The US president, Joe Biden, described the strikes as a “success” and warned that the US would continue action if the Houthis continued “this outrageous behaviour”. A bipartisan chorus of US lawmakers have assailed Biden for failing to seek congressional approval for the strikes.
At least 23,708 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza since the war there began, according to the latest figures by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry on Friday. More than 151 Palestinians had been killed and 248 injured in Gaza in the previous 24 hours, it said.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Sana’a in protest and Houthis threatened retaliation after Thursday’s bombings. A Houthi military spokesperson accused “the American-British enemy” of launching brutal aggression “as part of its support for the continuation of Israeli crime in Gaza”. The intervention “will not go unanswered and unpunished”, he said. On Thursday, the Houthis’ leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, said they would respond with more attacks on western shipping if Yemen was struck. Yemen’s internationally recognised government said it held the Houthis “responsible for dragging the country into a military confrontation”.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, urged countries to avoid an escalation in the Red Sea and warned that the Houthis must “immediately cease all such attacks” on international shipping. The assaults were “not acceptable as they endanger the safety and security of global supply chains and have a negative impact on the economic and humanitarian situation worldwide”, he said.
Countries across the Middle East expressed fears over the latest regional escalation after the US and UK strikes. The Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah said it “strongly condemn[ed] the blatant American-British aggression” against Yemen, which it said had stood with the Palestinian people. Iran was also quick to condemn the attacks. Hamas said the US and Britain would bear responsibility for the impact of their attack on the region’s security. Turkey has claimed the US and UK are intent on turning the Red Sea into a bloodbath.
Oil prices hit $80 (£63/€73) as fears grew about the economic impact of disruption to international trade through the Red Sea. Joe Biden said he was “very concerned” about the impact of the strikes in Yemen on oil prices, suggesting that impact was a key reason why the conflict should be stopped from widening. Raising concerns about a possible inflation shock for the world economy, Brent crude prices jumped by about 4% to a high of $80.75 a barrel on Friday.
The British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the UK needed to send a “strong signal” that Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea were wrong and could not be carried out with “impunity”. He said he would make a statement to MPs on Monday about “limited and necessary” military strikes in Yemen.
Israel has accused South Africa of presenting a “profoundly distorted” view “barely distinguishable” from Hamas as it presented its defence at the international court of justice in The Hague against accusations of genocide. A day after South Africa argued that it had committed genocidal acts in Gaza with intent from “the highest levels of state”, Israel said on Friday that was a “partial and deeply flawed picture”.
All internet and telecom services in Gaza were cut on Friday as a result of the Israeli bombardment, main operator Paltel said. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it has completely lost communication with its teams operating in the Gaza Strip for at least three hours.
Doctors at al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza said patients would die soon after power was cut off on Friday after it ran out of fuel for its main generator. The facility, which serves as the area’s main hospital, said the UN had said a fuel delivery was expected but it had not arrived by Friday night.
Israel has negotiated a deal with Qatar that will allow the delivery of medicines to hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said. The medications would be given to the hostages “in the next few days”, it said.
Israeli forces killed three Palestinian men who attacked a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said. An IDF statement said its soldiers had come under fire while patrolling the Adora settlement, about 20km (12 miles) west of Hebron in the southern West Bank. In a separate incident in the West Bank, a man was killed after being severely beaten by Israel forces in Zeita, north of the city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, has warned Netanyahu to act in order to prevent an imminent eruption of violence in the occupied West Bank, according to a report. Similar warnings have been issued by the IDF chief of staff and other senior military commanders, according to Israel media.
Israel has criticised the UN human rights office after it released a statement marking Sunday’s 100th day of the conflict with Hamas without calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza. “A call for a ceasefire, without demanding the release of our hostages and the disarming of Hamas, is a call for terrorism to win,” Israel’s envoy to the UN said.
The UN humanitarian office has said Israeli authorities were systematically denying it access to northern Gaza to deliver aid and this had significantly hindered the humanitarian operation there.
