Summary of the day
Here’s a recap of the latest developments:
At least three people were killed and nearly a dozen injured after Israel airstrikes struck multiple targets controlled by the Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, in Yemen on Thursday, according to Houthi media. Two people were killed in strikes on the international airport in the capital of Sana’a and one person was killed in Ras Issa port, Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said.
Israel’s military said it struck the Sana’a international airport as well as military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations. The Israeli military said its “fighter jets conducted intelligence-based strikes on military targets belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime”.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was at the airport when it came under attack. The WHO chief and his team were in Yemen to seek the release of detained UN staff and assess the war-torn country’s humanitarian situation and were about to board a flight when “the airport came under aerial bombardment”. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said.
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli strikes would continue “until our job is done”. “We are determined to cut this branch of terrorism from the Iranian axis of evil,” the Israeli prime minister said in a video statement after the attacks. His defence minister, Israel Katz, said Israel would “hunt down all the Houthi leaders … No one will be able to escape us.”
The latest strikes came after recent attacks on Israel by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. On Saturday, at least 14 people were wounded by a Houthi attack in Tel Aviv. The UN security council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said on Wednesday. Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the Israeli strikes in Yemen as a “violation” of peace and security.
Five Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their vehicle in central Gaza, their employer, Al-Quds Today, a television channel affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said. The journalists were sleeping in their press-marked truck when it was targeted in a direct strike by the Israeli military, witnesses told Palestinian media. The Israeli army said its air force attacked the vehicle in a “targeted manner” and that members of the Islamic Jihad militant group were inside. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said 195 journalists had been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, and at least 400 have been injured over the past 14 months.
An infant died in Gaza on Thursday due to extreme cold and falling temperatures, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, marking the fourth baby to have reportedly died from the cold in Gaza’s tent camps in recent days. The deaths underscore the squalid conditions there, with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crammed into often ramshackle tents after fleeing Israeli offensives.
Five people were killed and 20 wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood early on Thursday, medics with the Gaza health authorities reported. They warned the death toll could rise as many people remained trapped under the rubble. The strikes came as the latest death toll by the Palestinian health ministry said Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 45,399 Palestinians and wounded 107,940 since 7 October 2023.
A report warning of imminent famine in the northern Gaza Strip under Israel’s “near-total blockade” was withdrawn after the US asked for its retraction, according to the Associated Press, citing US officials. The withdrawn report by the Famine Early Warning System Network said unless Israel changes its policy, it expects to see between two and 15 people dying each day of starvation and related ailments in Gaza sometime between January and March. A declaration of famine would have been a great embarrassment for Israel.
Fourteen security personnel from Syria’s new authorities and three armed men were killed in clashes in Tartus province after forces tried to arrest an officer linked to the notorious Sednaya prison, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The UK-based monitoring group said the clash broke out in Tartus, a stronghold of ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority, on Wednesday, and was sparked by the attempted arrest of the former prison official.
The United Nations’ peacekeeping force in Lebanon expressed concern at the “continuing” damage done by Israeli forces in the country’s south despite a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah. Lebanon’s army on Thursday condemned Israel’s “violation of the ceasefire agreement by attacking Lebanese sovereignty and destroying southern towns and villages”.
Updated
A new report warning of imminent famine in the northern Gaza Strip under Israel’s “near-total blockade” was withdrawn after the US asked for its retraction, according to the Associated Press.
Citing US officials, the news agency says the Famine Early Warning System Network (Fews), a US-funded organisation that monitors food crises around the world, withdrew the report after the US ambassador to Israel, Jacob Lew, publicly criticised the famine warning as inaccurate and “irresponsible”.
A declaration of famine would have been a great embarrassment for Israel, which has insisted that its war in Gaza is aimed at Hamas and not against the Palestinian territory’s civilian population, AP writes.
In its withdrawn report, Fews warned that unless Israel changes its policy, it expects to see between two and 15 people dying each day of starvation and related ailments in Gaza sometime between January and March.
Usaid, the government agency responsible for foreign aid and development assistance, confirmed to the new agency that it had asked the organisation to withdraw its warning.
