Closing summary
Israeli jets struck Houthi military targets near Yemen’s Hodeidah port on Saturday, a day after a drone launched by the Iranian-backed group hit Tel Aviv. Six people were killed and 80 others were injured in Saturday’s attack, medical sources in Yemen told Reuters. Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said earlier today that the group will continue to attack Israel and will not abide by any rules of engagement. Another Houthi spokesperson said the rebel group’s “response to the Israeli aggression against our country is inevitably coming and will be huge”. Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry subsequently called for all parties to exercise “maximum restraint”, adding that it is following the latest military developments in Yemen with “great concern” amid growing fears of an escalation of violence in the region.
The Israeli military said its Arrow 3 missile defence system had shot down a surface-to-surface missile projectile launched from Yemen on Sunday before it crossed into Israeli territory. Before the interception, air raid sirens sounded in the Red Sea port city of Eilat, sending residents running for shelter.
The Israeli military confirmed today it struck Hezbollah weapons storage facilities overnight. The Israeli air force “struck two Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in southern Lebanon, containing rockets and additional weaponry”, the military said in a statement.
Israel’s military said it will start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the contagious polio virus were found in test samples in areas of the coastal enclave. Soldiers will be vaccinated during routine troop turnover, though it is not mandatory, the military said.
At least 38,983 Palestinian people have been killed and 89,727 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said. The health ministry said that 64 people were killed and 105 others were injured in the past 24 hours.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will fly to the US on Monday morning and meet with the US president, Joe Biden, on Tuesday, according to a statement issued by Netanyahu’s office.
We are closing this blog now, but you can stay up to date on the Guardian’s Middle East coverage here.
Israel’s education minister and the country’s national union of students are backing a draft law to limit academic speech in the country, which the heads of leading universities have attacked as “McCarthyite” and fundamentally undemocratic.
The legislation, currently being debated in the Knesset, would give a government-appointed committee the power to order the firing of academic staff that it decides have expressed “support for terror”. If the universities refuse, their funding would be cut.
Critics say the legislation is fundamentally undemocratic and would undermine Israeli academia, because it restricts free speech and allows politicians to weaponise accusations that should be handled by the legal system.
You can read the full story by Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s senior international affairs correspondent, and Matan Cohen here:
