Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a missile at Israel early Friday, hours after a wave of Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s main airport as the World Health Organization’s director-general was about to board a flight there.
Three people were killed and dozens were wounded in the Israeli airstrikes, including a member of the U.N. plane’s crew, the U.N. said. The crew member underwent surgery and was in stable condition, it said Friday.
The Israeli military said the Houthi missile was intercepted by its air defenses on Friday before it entered Israeli territory. For several days this past week, Houthi launches have set off air raid sirens in Israel. The Houthis have also been targeting shipping in the Red Sea corridor in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its count.
Hamas ignited the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage by Palestinian militants. Around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, although only two-thirds are believed to still be alive.
Here’s the latest:
Israel carries out more airstrikes deep inside Lebanon, state media say
BEIRUT — Israeli warplanes carried three airstrikes deep into eastern Lebanon on Friday for the second time since a ceasefire ended the war between Hezbollah and Israel a month ago, Lebanon’s state-run news agency said.
No casualties were reported in the strikes on the Bekaa Valley town of Qousaya and the target remained unclear. The Israeli military said its air force struck “infrastructure used to smuggle weapons via Syria” to Hezbollah near the Janta crossing on the Syrian-Lebanese border, about 9 kilometers (5 miles) north of Qousaya. Israel accused Hezbollah’s Unit 4400 of overseeing smuggling operations from Iran through Syria, adding that it had killed the unit’s commander in early October.
Since the ceasefire took effect on Nov. 27, the Israeli army has conducted near-daily operations in southern Lebanon, including shootings, house demolitions, excavations, tank shelling and airstrikes. These actions have killed at least 27 people, wounded more than 30 and destroyed residential buildings, including a mosque.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission, UNIFIL, said it has observed “concerning actions” by Israeli forces, including the destruction of homes and road closures.
On Thursday, the Lebanese army accused Israeli troops of breaching the ceasefire by encroaching into southern Lebanon. Israeli bulldozers erected dirt barricades to block roads in Wadi Al-Hujayr.
The Lebanese army later on Thursday said that following intervention by the ceasefire supervision committee, Israeli forces withdrew, and Lebanese soldiers removed the barriers to reopen the road in the area.
The U.S.-brokered ceasefire, which ended the 14-month war, demands that Hezbollah and Israeli forces withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days, allowing Lebanese troops to gradually deploy south of the Litani River.
Houthi rebels fire a missile at Israel following airstrikes on Yemen’s main airport
JERUSALEM — Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired a missile toward Israel early Friday, hours after Israel carried out a wave of airstrikes on Yemen’s main airport.
The Israeli military said the Houthi missile was intercepted by air defenses before it entered Israeli territory. Air raid sirens were set off in several areas in central Israel.
A day earlier, a wave of Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s main airport outside the capital, Sanaa, killing three people and wounding dozens of others, according to the U.N.
The strikes hit just as the World Health Organization’s director-general was about to board a flight at the airport. Israel said it attacked infrastructure used bv the Houthis.
For several days this past week, Houthi launches have set off air raid sirens in Israel. The Houthis have also been targeting shipping in the Red Sea corridor, saying their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Last week, Israeli jets bombed Sanaa and Hodeida, killing nine people. The U.S. military also has targeted the Houthis in Yemen in recent days.
83-year-old woman stabbed to death in Israel
TEL AVIV — A Palestinian from the West Bank stabbed to death an 83-year-old woman in Israel on Friday, police said.
The attack took place in the town of Herzliya on the Mediterranean coast outside Tel Aviv. Police said the attacker was arrested.
A medic with Israel’s emergency services, Kobi Avriel, said first responders found the woman unconscious on the sidewalk outside a nursing home with stabbing wounds. The Tel Aviv Ichilov Medical Center said she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Israel has experienced an increase in attacks amid a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the military’s nearly 15-month-old campaign of bombardment and offensives in Gaza triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on southern Israel.
Displaced Syrians face dire winter conditions in tent camps, UN says
UNITED NATIONS – An estimated 730,000 people living in tents in camps for the displaced in northwest Syria are experiencing dire conditions this winter including from flooding, the U.N. humanitarian office said.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said Thursday that more than 200 family tents in camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo were damaged by flooding from heavy rainfall on Dec. 23.
“Since the start of 2024, flooding and strong winds have damaged more than 8,800 family tents – including nearly 2,000 that were fully destroyed – across 260 camps,” OCHA said.
On another issue, OCHA quoted a report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor based in Britain, that since Dec. 8 -– when Syrian President Bashar Assad was ousted — episodes involving explosive ordnance have killed more than 70 civilians including a dozen children and five women, with scores more injured.
OCHA said mine experts have identified 109 new minefields across Idlib, Aleppo, Hama and Latakia since Nov. 26. So far, it said experts have destroyed more than 850 individual items of explosive ordnance.
Elsewhere, OCHA said Israeli forces on Wednesday reportedly wounded six civilians when they opened fire in Al-Suweisah town in Quneitra province, which includes the Golan Heights. It said residents were ordered to evacuate and Israeli forces imposed a curfew.
