Middle East latest: Israeli airstrike kills 5 in central Gaza Strip; intense airstrikes hit Yemen
An Israeli airstrike hit a house in the central Gaza Strip, killing five people including a boy and two women and injuring seven others early Thursday morning.
Those killed and injured at the Maghazi refugee camp were transferred to Aqsa Hospital, where officials confirmed the number of fatalities. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.
Some gathered at the strike site to pull out those trapped under the rubble of a partially collapsed building, with one person only using a shovel.
“No place is safe. Neither the tents nor the houses nor any place in the Gaza Strip is safe. It is all targeted. When we go out, we do not expect that we will return,” said Um Abed Darweesh, a Maghazi resident.
The deaths on Thursday added to a reported death toll of more than 45,000 Palestinians who have now been killed in the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas militants since October 2023. The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children.
Early on Thursday Israel launched heavy airstrikes on rebel sites in Yemen, killing at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel and badly damaged a school building.
“I suggest the leaders of the Houthi organization to see, to understand and remember, whoever raises a hand against the state of Israel, his hand will be cut off. Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold,” said Israel Katz, the defense minister.
The Iran-backed Houthis have staged attacks throughout the war on ships in the Red Sea corridor and launched missiles at Israel. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
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Here’s the latest:
6 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on the West Bank
JERUSALEM — Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank killed six Palestinians Thursday, Palestinian health officials said, in the latest violence to strike the territory.
An airstrike in the Tulkarem refugee camp, a bastion of Palestinian militancy in the northern West Bank, killed four people and injured three others, the health officials said. Israel’s military claimed responsibility for the strike but did not say what it was targeting.
Earlier in the day, Israeli fire killed two people in Balata refugee camp, near the city of Nablus. One was an 80 year old woman shot in the chest and leg, said health officials.
Both Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, claimed the second person killed, Qusai Sarouji, as a fighter. Israel’s military did not immediately comment on the deaths.
Over 800 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the Hamas attack Oct. 7, 2023 that kicked off the war in Gaza. Israel has carried out near-daily military raids in the West Bank that it says are aimed at preventing attacks on Israelis, which have also been on the rise.
Israel captured the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want all three territories for an independent state.
Israeli airstrike kills 5, injures 7 in central Gaza Strip
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli airstrike hit a house in the central Gaza Strip, killing five people including a boy and two women and injuring seven others early Thursday.
Those killed and injured at the Maghazi refugee camp were transferred to Aqsa Hospital, where officials confirmed the number of fatalities. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.
AP footage showed medics treating a malnourished girl on a hospital bed who was bleeding from the face and severely shaking. The boy who died was transferred from an ambulance to Aqsa hospital’s morgue, where people gathered to bid farewell to dead family members.
Outside the hospital, dozens gathered to perform funeral rites for those killed, who were wrapped in white shrouds before they were moved for burial.
Some gathered at the strike site to pull out those trapped under the rubble of a partially collapsed building, with one person only using a shovel.
“No place is safe. Neither the tents nor the houses nor any place in the Gaza Strip is safe. It is all targeted. When we go out, we do not expect that we will return,” said Um Abed Darweesh, a Maghazi resident.
Israel’s defense minister warns Yemen’s Houthis it would ‘strike with force’
Israel’s defense minister said Thursday the country would “not allow the continuation” of shooting from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, hours after Israel launched heavy airstrikes on rebel sites.
“I suggest the leaders of the Houthi organization to see, to understand and remember, whoever raises a hand against the state of Israel, his hand will be cut off. Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold,” said Israel Katz, the defense minister.
Israel would “strike with force,” Katz said, and “not allow the continuation of this situation of shooting and threats against the state of Israel.”
The statement followed a series of intense Israeli airstrikes that shook Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel and badly damaged a school building.
The Iran-backed Houthis have staged attacks throughout the war on ships in the Red Sea corridor and launched missiles at Israel. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israel strikes Yemen’s capital after Houthi missile targets central Israel
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel.
Israel said it conducted two waves of strikes in a preplanned operation involving 14 fighter jets and targeting infrastructure at Red Sea ports and in Yemen’s rebel-held capital.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the strikes hit targets the Iranian-backed Houthis “have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military action.”
The strikes risk escalating conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthis, whose attacks on the Red Sea corridor have impacted global shipping. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted the Palestinian Hamas militant group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah said some of the strikes targeted power stations in the capital, as well as the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea. The channel, citing its correspondent in the port city of Hodeida, said at least seven people were killed at the nearby port of Salif, while another two were killed at Ras Isa.
