Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Israeli airstrikes on Thursday targeted the Houthi-controlled capital, Sanaa, and the coastal city of Hodeidah, several days after the Houthis sounded sirens in Israel.
The Israeli army said that it attacked the infrastructure used by the Houthis at the international airport in Sanaa and the ports of Hodeidah, Saleef and Ras Qutib, in addition to electricity stations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on Wednesday that “the Houthis will also learn what Hamas, Hezbollah, the Assad regime and others have learned.”
Media outlets affiliated with the Iran-backed Houthis reported the raids in a post on the Telegram app, but did not provide immediate details. The US military has also targeted the Houthis in Yemen in recent days. The United Nations indicated that the ports are important entry points for humanitarian aid.
At the weekend, 16 people were injured when a Houthi missile hit a stadium in Tel Aviv. Last week, Israeli aircraft bombed Sanaa and Hodeidah, killing nine people, describing it as a response to previous Houthi attacks. The Houthis also targeted shipping in the Red Sea corridor, describing it as showing solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said that an Israeli raid killed five Palestinian journalists outside a hospital in the Gaza Strip overnight. The Israeli army said that all of them were gunmen posing as reporters.
The strike hit a car outside Al Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. The journalists worked for the local Al-Quds Al-Youm news channel, a television channel affiliated with the Islamic Jihad movement.
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Islamic Jihad is a smaller, more extreme ally of Hamas and participated in the October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel, which sparked the conflict. The Israeli military identified four of the men as militant propaganda promoters, and said intelligence, including a list of Islamic Jihad activists found by soldiers in Gaza, confirmed that all five belonged to the group.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian armed groups operate political, media, and charitable operations in addition to their armed wings.
Associated Press footage showed the burned-out shell of the truck, with press marks visible on the back doors. Sobbing young men attended the funeral outside the hospital. The bodies were wrapped in shrouds, with blue compression vests draped over them.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says that more than 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the beginning of the conflict. Israel did not allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza except within a military presence.
Israel banned the Al Jazeera Arabic network and accused six of its correspondents in Gaza of being armed. The Qatar-based channel denies these accusations and accuses Israel of trying to silence its coverage of the conflict, which has largely focused on civilian casualties due to Israeli military operations.
Separately, the Israeli military said a 35-year-old reservist was killed during fighting in central Gaza early Thursday. 389 soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the ground operation more than a year ago.
The conflict began when Hamas-led militants stormed the border in an attack on military bases and nearby agricultural communities. They killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapped about 250. About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, and at least a third of them are believed to be dead.
The Israeli air and ground attack led to the deaths of more than 45,000 Palestinians, according to the Ministry of Health. It says that more than half of the dead were women and children, but it does not mention the number of fighters among the dead. Israel says it killed more than 17,000 militants without providing evidence.
The attack caused widespread destruction and forced about 90% of the population of 2.3 million people to leave their homes. Hundreds of thousands are crammed into squalid camps along the coast, with little protection from the cold, wet winter.
Today, Thursday, citizens mourned eight Palestinians who were martyred as a result of Israeli military operations in the city of Tulkarm and its surroundings in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The Israeli army said it opened fire after gunmen attacked soldiers, and that it was aware of uninvolved civilians who were injured in the raid.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
