Israel launches first strikes on Yemen in weeks, Houthis retaliate with aerial attack
Yomna Ehab
and
Mohammed Ghobari
, Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Photo:
AFP
Israel struck Houthi targets at three Yemeni ports and a power plant, the military said on Monday, in its first attack on Yemen in nearly a month.
The strikes hit the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and Salif, as well as the Ras Qantib power plant on the coast, in response to repeated Houthi attacks on Israel, the military said.
Hours later, Israel said two missiles were launched from Yemen. Attempts were made to intercept them, though the results were still under review. The Iran-aligned Houthi forces said they had fired missiles and drones at multiple targets in Israel in retaliation for the strikes on Yemen.
The Israeli ambulance service said it had not received any calls regarding missile impacts or casualties following the launches from Yemen.
Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis have fired at Israel and at shipping in the Red Sea, disrupting global trade, in what the group says are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Most of the dozens of missiles and drones fired toward Israel have been intercepted or fallen short. Israel has carried out a series of retaliatory strikes.
Israel said its attacks on Monday also targeted a ship, the Galaxy Leader, which was seized by the Houthis in late 2023 and held in Ras Isa port.
"The Houthi terrorist regime's forces installed a radar system on the ship, and are using it to track vessels in international maritime space in order to promote the Houthi terrorist regime's activities," the military said.
The Houthi military spokesperson said the group's air defences had responded to the Israeli attack with "a large number of domestically produced surface-to-air missiles".
Israel's military told residents to evacuate the three ports before it launched its attacks. Residents of Hodeidah told Reuters that the strikes on the power station had knocked out electricity. There was no immediate information on casualties.
The Israeli assault comes hours after a ship was attacked off of Hodeidah and the ship's crew abandoned it as it took on water. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but security firm Ambrey said the vessel fit the typical profile of a Houthi target.
The Houthis, who control northern Yemen including the capital Sanaa, are one of the last pro-Iran armed groups still standing in the Middle East after Israel severely hurt other allies of Tehran: Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran itself in a 12-day air war last month.
Under the direction of leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the group has grown into an army of tens of thousands of fighters and acquired armed drones and ballistic missiles. Saudi Arabia and the West say the arms come from Iran, though Tehran denies this.
- Reuters
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
State Department begins firing of 1350 workers in Trump's shake-up of diplomatic corps
Supporters of fired US State Department workers hold signs outside the building in Washington as the workers leave for the last time. Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP By Humeyra Pamuk, Reuters The State Department has begun firing more than 1350 US-based employees as the administration of President Donald Trump presses ahead with an unprecedented overhaul of its diplomatic corps, a move critics say will undermine US ability to defend and promote US interests abroad. Friday's layoffs, which affect 1107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers based in the United States, come at a time when Washington is grappling with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia's war in Ukraine, the almost two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran. "The Department is streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities," an internal State Department notice that was sent to the workforce said. "Headcount reductions have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions, duplicative or redundant offices, and offices where considerable efficiencies may be found," it added. The total reduction in the workforce would be almost 3000 including the voluntary departures, according to the notice and a senior State Department official, out of the 18,000 employees based in the United States. The move was the first step of a restructuring that Trump had sought to ensure US foreign policy was aligned with his "America First" agenda. Former diplomats and critics said the firing of foreign service officers risked America's ability to counter the growing assertiveness from adversaries such as China and Russia. "President Trump and Secretary of State [Marco] Rubio are once again making America less safe and less secure," Democratic senator Tim Kaine from Virginia said in a statement. "This is one of the most ridiculous decisions that could possibly be made at a time when China is increasing its diplomatic footprint around the world and establishing an overseas network of military and transportation bases, Russia is continuing its years-long brutal assault of a sovereign country, and the Middle East is careening from crisis to crisis," Kaine said. Dozens of State Department employees crowded the lobby of the agency's headquarters in Washington holding an impromptu "clap-out" for their colleagues who were fired. Dozens of people were crying, as they carried their belongings in boxes and hugged and bid farewell to friends and fellow workers. Outside, dozens of others were lined up continuing to clap and cheer for them with some holding banners that read, "Thank you America's diplomats". Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen attended the demonstration. Several offices were set up inside the building for employees who were being laid off to turn in their badges, laptops, telephones and other property owned by the agency. The offices were marked by posters that read "Transition Day Out Processing". One counter was labelled an "Outprocessing service center" with small bottles of water placed next to a box of tissue. Inside one office, cardboard boxes were visible. A five-page "separation checklist" that was sent to workers who were fired on Friday and seen by Reuters tells the employees that they would lose access to the building and their emails at 5pm local time (9am Saturday New Zealand time). Many members of a State Department office overseeing the US resettlement of Afghans who worked for the US government during the 20-year war have also been terminated as part of the overhaul. Trump in February ordered Secretary of State Marco Rubio to revamp the foreign service to ensure that the Republican president's foreign policy is "faithfully" implemented. He had also repeatedly pledged to "clean out the deep state" by firing bureaucrats that he deems disloyal. The shake-up was part of an unprecedented push by Trump to shrink the federal bureaucracy and cut what he said was wasteful spending of taxpayer money. His administration dismantled the US Agency for International Aid, Washington's premier aid arm that distributed billions of dollars of assistance worldwide, and folded it under the State Department. Rubio announced the plans for the State Department shake-up in April, saying the Department in its current form was "bloated, bureaucratic" and was not able to perform its mission "in this new era of great power competition". He envisioned a structure that he said would give back the power to regional bureaux and embassies and get rid of programmes and offices that did not align with America's core interests. That vision would see the elimination of the role of top official for civilian security, democracy, and human rights and the closure of some offices that monitored war crimes and conflicts around the world. The reorganisation had been expected to be largely concluded by 1 July but did not proceed as planned amid ongoing litigation, as the State Department waited for the US Supreme Court to weigh in on the Trump administration's bid to halt a judicial order blocking mass job cuts. On Tuesday, the court cleared the way for the Trump administration to pursue the job cuts and the sweeping downsizing of numerous agencies. Since then, The White House Counsel's Office and the Office of Personnel Management had been co-ordinating with federal agencies to ensure their plans comply with the law. - Reuters
RNZ News
a day ago
- RNZ News
UN reports 798 deaths near Gaza aid hubs in six weeks
By Olivia Le Poidevin , Reuters A Palestinian mourner breaks in tears during the funeral procession of people reportedly killed while waiting for aid delivery, in Gaza City, on 3 July, 2025. Photo: Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP The United Nations rights office said it had recorded at least 798 killings within the past six weeks at aid points in Gaza run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and near convoys run by other relief groups. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel alleges has let Hamas-led militants loot aid shipments intended for civilians. Hamas denies the allegation. After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians trying to reach the GHF's aid hubs in zones where Israeli forces operate, the United Nations has called its aid model "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards. "(From 27 May) up until the seventh of July, we've recorded 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," UN rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told a media briefing in Geneva. The GHF, which began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May after Israel lifted an 11-week aid blockade, told Reuters the UN figures were "false and misleading". It denies that deadly incidents have occurred at its sites. "The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid site have been linked to UN convoys," a GHF spokesperson said. "Ultimately, the solution is more aid. If the UN (and) other humanitarian groups would collaborate with us, we could end or significantly reduce these violent incidents." The Israeli army told Reuters in a statement that it was reviewing recent mass casualties and that it had sought to minimise friction between Palestinians and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) by installing fences and signs and opening additional routes. The OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) said it based its figures on sources such as information from hospitals in Gaza, cemeteries, families, Palestinian health authorities, NGOs and its partners on the ground. Most of the injuries to Palestinians in the vicinity of aid distribution hubs recorded by the OHCHR since 27 May were gunshot wounds, Shamdasani said. "We've raised concerns about atrocity crimes having been committed and the risk of further atrocity crimes being committed where people are lining up for essential supplies such as food," she said. After the GHF assertion that the OHCHR figures are false and misleading, Shamdasani said: "It is not helpful to issue blanket dismissals of our concerns - what is needed is investigations into why people are being killed while trying to access aid." Israel has said its forces operate near the relief aid sites to prevent supplies falling into the hands of militants it has been fighting in the Gaza war triggered by the Hamas-led cross-border attack on 7 October, 2023. The GHF said on Friday it had delivered more than 70 million meals to Gaza Palestinians in five weeks, and that other humanitarian groups had "nearly all of their aid looted" by Hamas or criminal gangs. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has previously cited instances of violent pillaging of aid, and the UN World Food Programme said last week that most trucks carrying food assistance into Gaza had been intercepted by "hungry civilian communities". There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies 21 months into Israel's military campaign in Gaza, during which much of the enclave has been reduced to rubble and most of its 2.3 million inhabitants displaced. - Reuters
NZ Herald
2 days ago
- NZ Herald
US President's confidence appears unfounded after militants sink two vessels on critical Red Sea shipping route
A little over two months ago, Donald Trump was emphatic in claiming to have halted Houthi militants' attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The United States President said the militants had agreed to a ceasefire after a campaign of airstrikes which he said had bombed the Iranian-backed group into
