TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rocket launched from Yemen hit an area of Tel Aviv overnight, leaving 16 people slightly injured by broken glass from nearby windows, according to the Israeli military.
Another 14 people suffered minor injuries as they ran toward shelters when air raid sirens sounded before the projectile hit just before 4 a.m. Saturday, the Army said.
The Houthis later issued a statement on their Telegram channel indicating that they had targeted a military target, which they did not identify, with a hypersonic ballistic missile.
The attack came less than two days after a series of Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebel-controlled capital, Sanaa, and the port city of Hodeida, which killed at least nine people. The Israeli strikes were in response to a Houthi attack in which a long-range missile hit an Israeli school building. The Houthis also claimed responsibility for a drone attack on an unspecified military target in central Israel on Thursday.
The Israeli military says the Iran-backed Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles and drones during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The Houthis have also attacked merchant traffic through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a campaign they say they will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
Thursday’s Israeli strikes caused “considerable damage” to Houthi-controlled Red Sea ports “which will lead to the immediate and significant reduction in port capacity,” said United Nations spokesman Stephane Dujarric. The port in Hodeidah has been key for food shipments to Yemen, which has been in civil war for a decade.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the attacks by both sides pose a risk of further escalation in the region and undermine UN mediation efforts.
Israeli attacks in Gaza claim more lives
Funerals were held in the Gaza Strip on Saturday for 19 people — 12 of them children — who were killed in Israeli strikes on Friday and overnight. An attack on Friday afternoon hit a residential building in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least seven Palestinians, including five children and a woman, and wounding 16 others, according to health officials.
In Gaza City, an Israeli attack on a house overnight killed 12 people, including seven children and two women, according to the Ahli hospital where the bodies were taken. Mourners gathered at the Gaza City hospital on Saturday morning. The women comforted each other as they cried over the bodies before they were taken out of the hospital. A man, his face impassive, held a small body wrapped in a shroud as he carried it in the funeral procession.
At Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah, white bags containing the dead in Nuseirat were taken from the hospital morgue and loaded onto the back of an open truck to be taken to the burial.
Israel faces heavy international criticism over unprecedented levels of civilian casualties in Gaza and questions about whether it has done enough to prevent them. Israel claims it only attacks militants, and blames the militant group Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in residential areas.
More than 45,200 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, when a Hamas attack in Israel killed about 1,200 people and triggered the devastating 14-month war in Gaza. Local health officials do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but have said that more than half of the dead are women and children.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
This article was published by ASSOCIATED PRESS on 2024-12-21 08:11:00
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