The US military has said it destroyed two Houthi patrol boats, one uncrewed surface vessel and one drone over the Red Sea in its latest effort to degrade the capabilities of the Iran-backed group.
The Houthis, who control the most populous areas of Yemen, targeted the Verbena in the Arabian Sea as well as the Seaguardian and Athina in the Red Sea, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised speech yesterday.
The attack on the Palau-flagged Verbena cargo ship sparked a fire and severely injured one of her crew, US Central Command said.
The rebels launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles from a Houthi controlled area of Yemen into the Red Sea, the US Central Command said, adding there was no damage or injuries from those missiles.
The Houthi militia has staged attacks on ships in the waters off the country since November in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli assault in Gaza where nearly the entire 2.3 million population of the narrow coastal enclave is displaced and there is widespread hunger and destruction.
The US Central Command said it “will continue to act with partners to hold the Houthis accountable and degrade their military capabilities.”
The Houthi campaign has disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around southern Africa.
It has also stoked fears that the Gaza war – in which the local health ministry says over 37,000 have been killed – could spread and destabilize the wider Middle East.
The US and Britain have carried out strikes against Houthi targets in response to the attacks on shipping.
Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has also led to genocide allegations that Israel denies, followed an attack on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants on 7 October that killed 1,200, according to Israeli tallies.
Hezbollah says it attacked 9 Israeli military sites with rockets, drones
Hezbollah said it had launched rockets and weaponised drones at nine Israeli military sites in a coordinated attack yesterday, ramping up hostilities on Lebanon’s southern border for the second consecutive day.
The attacks were carried out in retaliation for an Israeli strike on Tuesday that killed a senior Hezbollah field commander.
A security source told Lebanon it was the largest attack waged by Hezbollah since October, when the group started exchanging fire with Israel in parallel with the Gaza war.
In the early hours of today, a strike on a building east of the port city of Tyr left one civilian woman dead and more than a dozen wounded, many of them children, according to two Lebanese security sources.
Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it was looking into it.
Hezbollah said in a statement earlier that it had fired volleys of Katyusha and Falaq rockets at six Israeli military locations.
Its Al-Manar television reported more than 100 rockets fired at once.
Hezbollah’s statement said it had also launched attack drones at the headquarters of Israel’s northern command, an intelligence headquarters and a military barracks.
A security source told Reuters that involved firing at least 30 attack drones at once, making it the group’s largest drone attack to date in the eight-month-old war.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have been trading near-daily fire since the eruption of the Gaza war in October, but the last two days have seen a sharp rise following the Israeli strike that killed the Hezbollah commander.
On Wednesday, Hezbollah said it carried out at least eight attacks that day in retaliation.
Air raid sirens sounded across cities in northern Israel yesterday and Israeli officials said about 40 rockets had been fired from Lebanon in the afternoon.
State broadcaster Kan aired footage of numerous mid-air interceptions of rockets above Israeli towns, including in Safed, some 12 km from the border.
Two people were wounded by shrapnel, Israel’s national ambulance service said.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 300 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon – more than it lost in 2006, when the sides last fought a major war, according to a Reuters tally.
The number of civilians killed is around 80, the tally says.
Attacks from Lebanon have killed 18 Israeli soldiers and 10 civilians, Israel says.
The exchanges of fire have also displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.
“Diplomatically or militarily, peace will be returned to our north. Israel will defend itself. There should not be any doubt about this whatsoever. This (situation) cannot be a sustained reality,” Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said.
Group of Seven leaders meeting in Italy said in a draft communique that they were very concerned by the situation on the Israel-Lebanon border.
