Region

HODEIDA, Yemen — Israeli warplanes struck the Houthi-controlled Yemeni port of Hodeida on Saturday, a day after a Houthi drone attack killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, the rebels said.

In a statement on social media, top Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam reported a "brutal Israel aggression against Yemen".

He said the attack targeted "fuel storage facilities and a power plant" in Hodeida "to pressure Yemen to stop supporting" Palestinians in the Gaza war.

The Axios news outlet cited US and Israeli officials as saying that Israel carried out the strikes in retaliation for a Houthi drone strike on Tel Aviv.

The Houthi attack on Friday penetrated Israel's vaunted air defences and killed a civilian in a Tel Aviv apartment building, drawing Israeli threats of retaliation.

The Houthi-run health ministry said there were deaths and injuries in the Hodeida strikes but it did not give a toll.

In a statement carried by the Houthi-run Al Masirah television, it said several people suffered "serious burns".

Footage aired by Al Masirah, which AFP could not independently verify, showed a massive blaze on the seafront, with a large plume of black smoke rising into the sky.

An AFP correspondent in Hodeida reported hearing several large explosions and seeing smoke over the port.

Fuel pumps across the city closed following the attack, the correspondent said.

Hodeida has been hard hit by a series of strikes carried out by Britain and the United States since January in response to attacks by Houthi rebels on commercial shipping in the Red Sea

The Houthis have attacked at least 88 commercial vessels since November in a campaign they say targets Israeli-linked shipping in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza war.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Hizbollah and its Palestinian ally Hamas said they launched rocket barrages at Israeli positions on Saturday to avenge a strike that injured civilians in south Lebanon and the Gaza war toll.

Hizbollah has traded near-daily fire with Israeli forces in support of Hamas since the Palestinian fighter group's October 7 surprise attack on southern Israel triggered war in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier on Saturday, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said Syrian nationals, including children, had been injured after an "enemy drone targeted an empty four-wheel drive" near their tent, less than four kilometres from the border.

Doctor Mouenes Kalakesh who heads the Marjayoun government hospital said a woman and her three children, two of them minors, had been admitted for shrapnel injuries after the strike outside Burj Al Muluk.

Among them was an 11-year-old boy in critical condition after he sustained shrapnel injuries and a head wound, Kalakesh told AFP.

Hizbollah said it launched "dozens of Katyusha rockets" on Dafna, an area in Israel's north that the group said it was targeting for the first time, "in response to the attack on civilians".

On Wednesday, Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had warned his Iran-backed group would hit new targets in Israel if more civilians were killed in Israeli strikes.

Later Saturday, Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, said they fired a rocket salvo from south Lebanon towards an Israeli military position in the Upper Galilee "in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip".

The Israeli forces said a total of 45 "projectiles" had been fired from Lebanon Saturday afternoon, towards the occupied Golan Heights and the Galilee, reporting no casualties.

The army said it struck "the launcher... in southern Lebanon from which the projectiles were launched toward the Golan Heights", also targeting "an additional Hizbollah launcher".

On Thursday, Israeli strikes killed at least five people, including the commander of a Hamas-allied group in Lebanon, militant groups and a security source said.

On Tuesday, Lebanese official media said separate Israeli strikes in south Lebanon killed five Syrians, three of them children, with Hizbollah announcing rocket fire at Israel in retaliation.

The violence since October has killed at least 515 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally.

Most of the dead have been fighters, but they have included at least 104 civilians.

On the Israeli side, 18 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

MUSCAT, Oman — Three Omani brothers were behind a shooting near a Shiite mosque, the sultanate's police force said Thursday, after the Daesh terror group claimed the rare attack.

Monday's shooting killed at least six people -- four Pakistanis, an Indian and an Omani police officer -- and wounded 28, authorities have said. 

It was the first known operation claimed by the IS group in the sultanate which is among the most stable countries in the Middle East.

"The three perpetrators involved in the incident were Omani nationals and brothers," Omani police said in a statement on social media platform X.

"They were killed due to their insistence on resisting security personnel," the statement said, adding that the attackers "were influenced by misguided ideas."

In a statement Tuesday, Daesh's Aamaq propaganda arm claimed the attack, saying it targeted "Shiites practising their annual rituals" on the occasion of the holy mourning period of Ashura

It posted a picture purporting to show the three perpetrators raising the group's black flag.

Aamaq did not provide any details on their nationalities.

Monday's attack came ahead of Ashura, an annual day of mourning that commemorates the seventh-century death in battle of Imam Hussein, regarded by Shiites as the rightful successor to the Prophet Mohammed.

Several attacks on Shiite mosques have roiled the Gulf in past years but this was the first in Oman.

A 2015 suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in Kuwait killed more than two dozen worshippers and was claimed by the IS group.

The same year, Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province saw two attacks on Shiite mosques in the space of a week, with at least 25 people killed. Daesh again claimed the attacks.

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — The Israeli parliament voted Thursday to oppose a Palestinian state as an "existential threat", a day after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers the army had Hamas "by the throat".

The vote, which drew swift criticism from the Palestinian leadership and the international community, is largely symbolic but laid down a marker ahead of a planned address by Netanyahu to the US Congress next Wednesday.

The veteran hawk has shown little interest in efforts by the US administration to broker a truce and hostage release deal for Gaza, insisting that "absolute victory" over Hamas is within reach and vowing to ramp up the military pressure.

On the ground in Gaza, the territory's health ministry reported 54 deaths in 24 hours as Israel kept up its heavy bombardment of recent days.

The resolution passed by Israeli lawmakers in the early hours said a Palestinian state on land occupied by the Israeli army would "perpetuate the Israel-Palestinian conflict and destabilise the region".

It said "promoting" a Palestinian state "would only encourage Hamas and its supporters" after its October 7 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.

The resolution passed by 68 votes to nine in the 120-member parliament.

The Palestinian Authority accused Israel's hard-right ruling coalition of "plunging the region into an abyss".

France expressed "consternation" at the vote, noting that it was "in contradiction" with multiple UN Security resolutions.

 'Stake through the heart'

The establishment of a Palestinian state on lands occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 has been the cornerstone of the international community's efforts to resolve the conflict for decades.

The Oslo Accords of the 1990s, which gave the Palestinian Authority limited autonomy in urban areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, were supposed to lead to negotiations for an independent state.

But UN chief Antonio Guterres warned Wednesday that "recent developments are driving a stake through the heart of any prospect for a two-state solution".

Guterres renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza war, saying "the humanitarian situation... is a moral stain on us all".

All health facilities in southern Gaza have been pushed to "breaking point" by the influx of casualties from Israeli bombardments, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday.

AFPTV images showed mourners at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir el-Balah, where several white-shrouded corpses lay on the ground. One man cradled the covered body of a child.

Rescuers confirmed several people had been killed in separate Israeli strikes.

At the hospital, Ahmed Abu Muheisen said one strike had targeted his cousin's family in the Al-Zuwaida area.

"His children and his wife were martyred and so was he," Muheisen said.

 'Not living' 

In an address to the European Parliament on Thursday, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen underlined international concern over the civilian death toll in Gaza.

"The people of Gaza cannot bear any more, and humanity cannot bear any more," she said.

The war has destroyed much of Gaza's housing and other infrastructure, leaving almost all of the population displaced and short of food and drinking water.

Pax, a Dutch activist group, said in a study released Thursday that "continuous bombing and Israel's fuel blockade have decimated" Gaza's outdated waste collection system, threatening water supplies and farm land.

For Umm Nahed Abu Shar, 45, staying in a tent with her family in Deir el-Balah, this means clouds of flies, the stench of sewage and constant illness.

"We are not living," she said.

GAZA, Palestinian Territories — Israel kept up its air strikes on Gaza Wednesday as hopes fade for a US-announced ceasefire plan.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel of deliberately undermining negotiations for a truce and hostage release deal because it did not want to end the war.

The health ministry in Gaza said 52 people, most of them women and children, had been killed in Israeli strikes over the previous 24 hours.

The UN humanitarian office OCHA said multiple strikes across Gaza on Tuesday killed and wounded dozens.

The territory's civil defence agency said 30 people had been killed in three strikes in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, one on a UN-run school, another on a house and a third on a mosque.

Talks deadlock 

In southern Gaza, two people were killed in Israeli bombardment of the Shakush area, northwest of Rafah, a medical source at Nasser Hospital said.

At least 90 per cent of Gazans have been forced from their homes, many of them seeking refuge in UN-run schools. Seven of them have been hit by Israeli strikes since July 6.

Nearly 70 per cent of UN-run schools across Gaza have been hit during more than nine months of fighting, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.

"Why do they target us when we are innocent people?" asked Umm Mohammed Al Hasanat, sheltering with her family at a UN-run school in Nuseirat, which was among those hit.

"We do not carry weapons but are just sitting and trying to find safety for ourselves and our children."

Washington has been pushing for a truce deal between Israel and Hamas since President Joe Biden released details of what he said was an Israeli ceasefire roadmap on May 31.

But despite the efforts of Egyptian and Qatari mediators, indirect negotiations between the foes have made no headway.

In a telephone call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan late Tuesday, the Hamas leader blamed Israel for the deadlock.

“We dealt positively with the proposals put to us by the mediators but the occupation is avoiding the required outcome and does not want to reach an agreement under which it ends its war,” Haniyeh said.

His comments came after a senior Hamas official said Sunday that the group was withdrawing from the current talks following Israel’s deadly strikes but was ready to return if its attitude changes.

Hostage families demand deal 

The war began with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,713 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry.

Critics in Israel, including tens of thousands of demonstrators who have taken to the streets to demand a deal to bring home the hostages, have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war.

The families of five Israeli women soldiers among the hostages said Tuesday they were “begging” the prime minister to “make the deal happen”.

“We are waiting for a face-to-face meeting with you [Netanyahu] to ensure that the negotiations are moving towards a signed deal,” said Ayelet Levy, whose daughter was abducted on October 7.

Meanwhile ultra-Orthodox Jewish protesters fought police near Tel Aviv, hours after the Israeli military said it would begin issuing draft notices for men in the community from Sunday.

Historically exempt from compulsory military service, ultra-Orthodox seminary students are being called up as the Gaza war and a potential conflict with Hizbollah strain the armed forces’ manpower and fuel resentment against those who do not have to serve.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanese official media said separate Israeli strikes on Tuesday in south Lebanon killed five people including three Syrian children, with Hizbollah announcing rocket fire at Israel in retaliation.

"Three Syrian children" were killed "in an enemy raid that targeted farmland in the village of Umm Toot", the National News Agency (NNA) said.

It also said an "enemy" drone strike had targeted a motorcycle on the Kfar Tebnit road elsewhere in south Lebanon, killing two Syrians.

A Lebanese security source, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP that the two Syrians were "civilians" who worked nearby and had been swimming in the area.

The NNA said that "eyewitnesses reported that the motorbike was carrying two people and that when a number of citizens tried to approach the bike... it was subjected to a second strike".

Hizbollah said it launched rounds of “Katyusha rockets” at northern Israel in response to the Israeli strikes.

The group in separate statements mentioned both “the death of two civilians” in Kfar Tebnit and “the horrible massacre in Umm Toot village” as reasons for the retaliatory fire.

The United Nations children’s agency said that “more children are at risk as long as the violence continues.”

“The killing of three more children by an airstrike today as they were reportedly playing in front of their home in south Lebanon is horrific,” UNICEF said on social media platform X.

Hizbollah has traded almost daily fire with Israeli forces in support of ally Hamas since the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on Israel triggered war in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said that “approximately 40 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory, some of which were intercepted. No injuries were reported”.

The statement also said the air force “struck a launcher in the area of Blat that was identified firing projectiles towards the Kiryat Shmona area” as well as “a Hizbollah terrorist cell” in the Yarin area, which is close to Umm Toot.

A further 10 projectiles were identified late Tuesday, the military said, while the air force launched strikes against parts of south Lebanon where it said there were Hizbollah sites.

Sirens warning of incoming fire blared overnight in northern Israel, the military said, with no reports of casualties.

In Lebanon, the cross-border violence since October has killed 511 people, mostly fighters but also including at least 104 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

On the Israeli side, 17 soldiers and 13 civilians have been killed, according to authorities.

The violence, largely restricted to the border area, has raised fears of all-out conflict between the foes, who last went to war in the summer of 2006.

BATTIR, Palestinian Territories — On a hillside near Palestinian landowner Olayan Olayan’s olive groves, young Israeli settlers are hammering out a new, illegal outpost in a UNESCO-protected zone. 

Olayan and his neighbours have long battled attempts to settle the land in Battir, a heritage site in the Israeli-occupied West Bank famed for its ancient stone terraces. 

Israeli construction in the West Bank has boomed since the war began in the Gaza Strip, even though all settlements in the territory are considered illegal under international law.

The new outpost on a Battir hilltop, also not approved by Israel, was served an eviction notice that Olayan’s cousin Ghassan Olayan said has not been enforced because of the Gaza war.

The outpost already has a flagpole, living quarters and a barn for sheep that roam a rocky hill covered by olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers.

“I ploughed the land and planted it until it bore fruit trees,” said Olayan, who at 83 is older than the state of Israel itself. 

“Some trees were 50 years old, or even more, and suddenly the settlers came and wanted to devour the land and take it from us,” he added, his voice shaky.

Heletz settlement 

Even more concerning to the Olayans than the encroaching outpost is the adjacent, future settlement of Heletz.

Yonatan Mizrahi of settlement watchdog Peace Now said Heletz was among five settlements “deep in Palestinian territory” approved by the Israeli government on June 27.

“It is a settlement that is going to block Battir and in many ways create tension between the neighbours,” he said.

Heletz and the outpost sit inside the UNESCO protection zone for Battir, one of four listed heritage sites in the West Bank.

The UNESCO classification means the village can get technical, legal, and monetary assistance to preserve sites deemed in danger.

In Battir, children splash in the Roman-era fountain that waters the terraces where tomatoes, corn, aubergines and olive trees grow.

The 2,000-year-old dry stone walls supporting the landscape earned the village its cultural inscription in 2014. But the classification has done little to prevent seizures of the surrounding farmland.

Battir’s inhabitants have beaten in court at least three previous Israeli settlement outpost attempts.

But Ghassan Olayan fears the war since the Hamas attacks of October 7 on Israel will make the new, government-approved Heletz more likely to become reality.

Preventing statehood 

According to Olayan, Heletz is intended to link Jerusalem to Gush Etzion, a cluster of settlements deeper in the West Bank.

If that is achieved, Battir and the nearby Palestinian villages would be cut off from Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank, a process they fear will fragment a future Palestinian state.

“There will be no [territorial] continuity,” said Olayan, leaving only what some observers describe as an archipelago of Palestinian sovereignty.

Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, openly states that preventing Palestinian statehood is the objective.

“We will continue to develop the settlements in order to maintain Israel’s security and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state,” he wrote on the X social media platform after the five latest settlements were approved in June.

In recent months, Israeli forces have blocked a road to Battir, nearly doubling the time it takes to reach Jerusalem just 10 kilometres north.

When asked about the new outpost in Battir, an Israeli security official acknowledged that “an Israeli farm had been established without proper authorisation”.

The official told AFP “the possibility of authorising the farm will be weighed” as the development of Heletz gets under way.

Battir residents “raised several claims that the land belongs to them” but have “not presented documentation to support their position”, according to the official.

Olayan said documents from Ottoman times prove Battir inhabitants’ ownership of the land.

A UNESCO spokesperson said the UN cultural agency’s world heritage committee had been told about “reports of illegal constructions” and that Battir would be discussed at a session in late July.

Olayan fears that sleepy Battir, with its collective life centred around the Roman fountain’s irrigation system allotting each family a specific time slot to irrigate their crops, faces a difficult future.

“Battir is a peaceful village and the settlement will only bring trouble,” he said.