Yemen's Houthis claim fresh attack against Israel
Sanaa, May 30 (UNI) Yemen's Houthi group took responsibility Thursday night for launching a fresh "hypersonic ballistic missile" attack against central Israel, saying it was aimed at Ben Gurion Airport.
"We carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion Airport in central Israel, using a hypersonic ballistic missile," Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said in a statement, aired by Houthi-run al-Masirah TV.
Sarea said the group would continue its attacks "until the Israeli aggression on Gaza stops and the blockade is lifted."
"We will continue to ban Israeli air traffic to and from Ben Gurion Airport," the Houthi military spokesperson added.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said in a statement that it intercepted a missile fired by Houthi forces in Yemen towards central Israel.
On Wednesday, the Israeli air forces launched airstrikes on the Sanaa airport in the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, destroying the runway, facilities, and the last passenger plane in the airport.
The Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, has been targeting Israel since November 2023 to show solidarity with Palestinians amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza.
UNI XINHUA ARN
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
India Today
38 minutes ago
- India Today
Power restored to 700,000 residents in Russian-held Ukraine after Ukrainian strikes
MOSCOW, June 3 (Reuters) - Emergency crews restored power on Tuesday to at least 700,000 residents across a swathe of southern Ukraine controlled by Russian forces, officials said, a day after Ukrainian shelling and drone attacks knocked out electricity was no immediate comment from Ukraine, but the attacks, which targeted the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, appeared to be the largest of their kind on Russian-held territory since the war began in February to the coordinated work of power engineers, the power supply to all customers has now been fully restored," Russia's Energy Ministry said on the Telegram messaging app. Crews from other regions helped complete lays claim to Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and already controls most of both regions. It is trying to capture the rest as part of what it casts as its push to ensure its own security and secure the future of ethnic Russians and Russian rejects Russia's portrayal of the conflict, calling it a colonial-style land grab by Moscow and vowing to retake the lost territory through a mixture of force and drone attacks came hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Turkey for peace talks where Moscow said it would only agree to end the war if Kyiv cedes big new chunks of territory and accepts limits on the size of its officials said the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant - Europe's largest nuclear facility seized by Russia in 2022 - was under control but officials running the plant said radiation levels were normal at the facility, which operates in shutdown mode and produces no power at the OUTAGEYevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed governor of Zaporizhzhia, said on Monday that more than 600,000 people in nearly 500 settlements across the region lost electricity after Ukrainian shelling damaged high-voltage the Kherson region further west, Russia-appointed Governor Vladimir Saldo said debris from fallen drones had damaged two electricity substations, knocking out power to more than 100,000 residents of 150 towns and emergency services officials in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy said on Tuesday that a Russian attack had killed three people and injured 28, including three children."The Russians launched a savage strike on Sumy – directly targeting the city and its ordinary streets with rocket artillery," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on social attack damaged an apartment building, three private residences, a warehouse and a hospital building, according to a statement from the emergency was no immediate comment from Russia on these Ukrainian Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians in their attacks. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them many long months during the winter, Ukrainian towns and villages endured repeated electricity cuts as Russian forces focused strikes on generating side has accused the other of launching attacks on the Zaporizhzhia plant and running the risk of a nuclear U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said last week in response to a Ukrainian complaint that it saw no sign of Russia preparing to restart the Zaporizhzhia plant and connect it to the Russian Director General Rafael Grossi told Reuters on Tuesday that conditions for restarting the plant were not present due to a lack of water for cooling and the absence of a stable power IAEA has stationed monitors permanently at Zaporizhzhia and Ukraine's other nuclear power stations.
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
27 heading to aid site killed by Israeli forces, say Gaza officials
Israeli forces fired on people as they headed toward an aid distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 27, Palestinian health officials and witnesses said, in the third such shooting in three days. The army said it fired 'near a few individual suspects' who left the designated route, approached its forces and ignored warning shots. The near-daily shootings have occurred after an Israeli and US-backed foundation established aid distribution points inside Israeli military zones, a system it says is designed to circumvent Hamas. The United Nations has rejected the new system, saying it doesn't address Gaza's mounting hunger crisis and allows Israel to use aid as a weapon. The Israeli military said it 'fired to drive away suspects." In a statement, army spokesperson Effie Defrin said "the numbers of casualties published by Hamas were exaggerated' but that the incident was being investigated. He said the army is not preventing Palestinians in Gaza from reaching aid in the distribution areas, but rather allowing it. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which operates the sites, says there has been no violence in or around them. On Tuesday, it acknowledged that the Israeli military was investigating whether civilians were wounded 'after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone,' in an area that was 'well beyond our secure distribution site.' A spokesperson for the group said it was 'saddened to learn that a number of civilians were injured and killed after moving beyond the designated safe corridor." Gaza's roughly 2 million people are almost completely reliant on international aid because Israel's offensive has destroyed nearly all of Gaza's food production capabilities. Israel imposed a blockade on supplies into Gaza in March, and limited aid began to enter again late last month after pressure from allies and warnings of famine. Witnesses have said the shootings all occurred at the Flag Roundabout, around a kilometer (half-mile) from one of the GHF's distribution sites in the now mostly uninhabited southern city of Rafah. The entire area is an Israeli military zone where journalists have no access outside of army-approved embeds. Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old displaced person from Rafah, said the shooting started around 4 a.m. Tuesday and he saw several people killed or wounded. Neima al-Aaraj, a woman from Khan Younis, said the Israeli fire was 'indiscriminate." She added that when she managed to reach the distribution site, there was no aid left. 'After the martyrs and wounded, I won't return,' she said. 'Either way we will die.' Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, said that 'there was gunfire from all directions.' She said she counted more than a dozen dead and several wounded along the road. When she reached the distribution site, she found there was no aid left, she said. She gathered pasta from the ground and salvaged rice from a bag that had been dropped and trampled upon. 'We'd rather die than deal with this," she said. "Death is more dignified than what's happening to us.' At least 27 people were killed early Tuesday, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirmed the toll, saying its field hospital in Rafah received 184 wounded people, 19 of them declared dead on arrival, with eight others later dying of their wounds. The dead were transferred to Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis. Three children and two women were among the dead, according to Mohammed Saqr, head of nursing at the hospital. Hospital director Atef al-Hout said most of the patients had gunshot wounds. An Associated Press reporter who arrived at the Red Cross field hospital at around 6 a.m. saw wounded people being transferred to other hospitals by ambulance. Outside, people were returning from the aid hub, mostly empty-handed, while empty flour bags stained with blood lay on the ground. Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the UN human rights office, told reporters it also had information indicating that 27 people were killed. 'Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meager food that is being made available through Israel's militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,' Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said it distributed 21 truckloads of food at the Rafah site on Tuesday, while its other two operational sites were closed. During a ceasefire earlier this year, around 600 aid trucks entered Gaza daily. The Israeli military, meanwhile, said three of its soldiers were killed in northern Gaza, in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on Israel's forces since it ended a ceasefire with Hamas in March. The military said the soldiers, all in their early 20s, died during combat on Monday, without providing details. Israeli media reported they were killed in an explosion in the Jabaliya area. Israel ended the latest ceasefire after Hamas refused to change the agreement to release more hostages sooner. Israeli strikes have killed thousands of Palestinians since then, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Israel says the new aid distribution system is designed to prevent Hamas from stealing aid. The UN says its own ability to deliver aid across Gaza has been hindered by Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order and widespread looting, but that there's no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by Hamas. Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people hostage in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack into southern Israel that ignited the war. They are still holding 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel's military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government. Its toll is seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence. Around 860 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the Oct. 7 attack, including more than 400 during the fighting inside Gaza. Sirens sounded across Israel late Tuesday night. Israel's army said that two rockets were fired from Syria into open areas in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, marking the first time a strike's been launched toward Israel from Syrian territory since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad. A group calling itself the Mohammed Deif Brigades claimed the attack in a post on Telegram. Little is known about the group, which first surfaced on social media last month. Israel has been suspicious of the Islamist former insurgents who formed the new Syrian government and has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syria and seized a UN-patrolled buffer zone on Syrian territory since Assad's fall. Syrian state TV reported Israeli shelling hit the western countryside of Syria's Daraa province after the rocket launch. Israel's defense minister said it holds Syria's president responsible for every threat and firing towards Israel, and that a 'full response' will come as soon as possible.
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
Israel military says 2 projectiles crossed from Syria, fell in open spaces
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he held Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa responsible after the military said two projectiles launched from Syria on Tuesday. "We consider the president of Syria directly responsible for any threat and fire toward the State of Israel, and a full response will come soon," Katz said. Syria and Israel have recently engaged in direct talks to ease tensions, a significant development in relations between states that have been on opposite sides of conflict in the Middle East for decades. The Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement that reports of the launches towards the Israeli side "have not been verified yet," reiterating that Syria has not and will not pose a threat to any party in the region, the state news agency SANA reported. However, it was not immediately clear who was responsible for the projectiles. "We believe that there are many parties that may seek to destabilize the region to achieve their own interests," the ministry added. The Israeli military earlier said that two projectiles crossed from Syria towards Israel and fell in open areas. Several Arab and Palestinian media outlets circulated a claim of responsibility from a little-known group named "Martyr Muhammad Deif Brigades," an apparent reference to Hamas' military leader who was killed in an Israeli strike in 2024. Reuters could not independently verify the statement. The Israeli army shortly after said it attacked southern Syria with artillery fire following the projectiles that were launched on Israel. Syrian state media said Israel struck an area in the southern Daraa province, an attack the Syrian foreign ministry later said resulted in "significant human and material losses." Local residents said Israeli mortars were striking the Wadi Yarmouk area, west of Daraa province, near the border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The area has witnessed increased tensions in recent weeks, including reported Israeli military incursions into nearby villages, where residents have reportedly been barred from sowing their crops. Israel has waged a campaign of aerial bombardment that destroyed much of the country's military infrastructure that intensified under the new leadership. It also has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and taken more territory in the aftermath of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's ouster in December, citing lingering concerns over the extremist past of the country's new rulers. Around the same time that Israel reported the projectiles from Syria, the military said it intercepted a missile from Yemen. Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said they targeted Israel's Jaffa with a ballistic missile. The group has been launching attacks against Israel in what they say is in support of Palestinians during the Israeli war in Gaza.
