Israel’s Netanyahu vows multi-phase response against Yemen’s Houthis
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised a multi-phased response to Yemen’s Houthis after the Iran-backed rebels struck Israel’s main airport with a hypersonic missile.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday promised a multi-phased response to Yemen’s Houthis after the Iran-backed rebels struck the area of Israel’s main airport with a missile.
“We have acted against them in the past and we will act in the future, but I cannot go into detail (...) it will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video on published on the Telegram messaging platform.
It comes as Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Israel’s main international airport, saying they were acting in support for Palestinians in Gaza.
“The missile force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion Airport” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile”, the Houthis said in a statement, referring to their own ranks.
“The missile successfully hit its target,” the Iran-backed group said, adding that the attack was conducted “in support of the oppressed Palestinian people and their mujahideen”, or fighters.
The rebels, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war that was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack.
Israel has intercepted the vast majority of the Houthis’ attacks, but on Sunday, authorities said a missile hit the area of Ben Gurion airport after a launch from Yemen.
The attack briefly halted air traffic.
Israeli police reported a “missile impact” near the airport after the military said that “several attempts were made to intercept” it.
It was not immediately clear whether the impact was caused by the Yemeni missile or by an interceptor.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces hereby reiterate their warning to all international airlines against continuing their flights to Ben Gurion airport, as it has become unsafe for air traffic,” the Houthis said.
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HAMAS RELEASES DISTURBING HOSTAGE VIDEO
Hamas has released a video of a hostage held in Gaza which Israeli media have identified as Maxim Herkin.
In the undated four-minute video, published on Saturday, the hostage appears with bandages on his head and wrapped around his left arm.
Identifying himself only as “Prisoner 24”, he spoke in Hebrew with a Russian accent and implied he had been wounded in a recent Israeli strike.
The man, shown lying on the ground, also referred to Israel’s Independence Day celebrations on Thursday, April 30 as upcoming, suggesting the video was filmed shortly beforehand.
He gave a similar message to other hostages shown in videos released by the militant group, urging pressure on the Israeli government to free those still held in Gaza.
Militants in the territory still hold 58 hostages seized in Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel. The army said 34 of them are dead.
Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014.
GAZA RESCUERS: THREE BABIES AMONG 11 KILLED IN ISRAEL STRIKE
An overnight Israeli strike on the Khan Yunis refugee camp killed at least 11 people including three babies up to a year old, says Gaza’s civil defence agency.
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal reported 11 killed “after the bombardment of the Al-Bayram family home in the Khan Yunis camp” in southern Gaza.
Bassal said eight of the dead had been identified and were all from the same extended family, including a boy and girl, both one-year-olds, and a month-old baby.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike.
Israel resumed its military offensive in Gaza on March 18 after a two-month truce in its war against Hamas that was triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack.
On Friday the civil defence agency said Israeli strikes killed at least 42 people across the war-ravaged territory, which has been under a total Israeli blockade since March 2.
Israel halted aid deliveries to Gaza, saying Hamas had diverted supplies. Israel says the blockade is meant to pressure the militants into releasing hostages held in the Palestinian territory.
UN agencies have urged Israel to lift restrictions, saying that Gazans were experiencing a humanitarian catastrophe and warning of famine.
US MAN JAILED 53 YEARS FOR MURDER OF PALESTINIAN BOY
An Illinois man was sentenced to 53 years in prison for the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian-American boy in an attack deemed an anti-Muslim hate crime linked to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Joseph Czuba, 73, was convicted in February of fatally stabbing Wadea Al-Fayoumi and attacking the boy’s mother, Hanan Shaheen.
Czuba was the family’s landlord and the attack took place a week after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.
Wadea was stabbed 26 times and a serrated military knife with a 15-cm (six-inch) blade was removed from the child’s abdomen during the autopsy.
Shaheen and Czuba’s now ex-wife, Mary, testified that he targeted the Muslim family after becoming agitated about the conflict in Gaza, media reported.
Prosecutors said Shaheen called police in 2023 after Czuba forced his way into her bedroom and stabbed her repeatedly. She was able to lock herself in a bathroom to call for help, during which time Czuba attacked her child.
“The cruelty of this morally reprehensible killer and the impact of his violent conduct on this innocent child and mother is truly unfathomable,” prosecutor James Glasgow said in a statement.
Jurors deliberated for just over an hour before finding Czuba guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and two counts of a hate crime.
Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak sentenced Czuba to 30 years in prison for Wadea’s murder, 20 years for the attack on his mother and three years for the hate crimes, to be served consecutively, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
During sentencing, the boy’s great-uncle Mahmoud Yousef asked Czuba why he did it but received no response, the newspaper said.
“We want to know what made him do this,” Yousef told the judge. According to the Will County Sheriff’s Office, the victims were targeted “due to them being Muslim and the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.” Joe Biden, then the US president, condemned the attack as a “horrific act of hate” that “has no place in America.”
ISRAEL ACCUSED OF STRIKING GAZA-BOUND AID SHIP
A group of activists organising an aid boat for Gaza said it was attacked on Friday local time by drones in international waters off Malta as it headed towards the Palestinian territory.
The Maltese government and Cypriot rescuers said they had responded to a distress call from the vessel, while Malta said all crew members were safe and made no mention of an alleged attack.
The activists said they suspected Israel could be behind the incident, and Cyprus’s rescue agency said it had been informed by the island’s foreign ministry of an Israeli drone strike.
The Israeli military did not provide an immediate response when contacted by AFP.
“At 00:23 Maltese time, the Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship came under direct attack in international waters,” the activist group said in a statement.
“Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull,” it added.
“Israeli ambassadors must be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.”
Asked whether the group believed Israel was behind the attack, a spokesperson told AFP they “suspected” that was the case.
“While we cannot confirm 100 per cent, we suspect it’s Israel,” Hay Sha Wiya said, calling the country “the primary entity interested in keep us and any aid out of Gaza.”
The incident comes as the Syrian presidency called an Israeli air strike at dawn near the presidential palace in Damascus a “dangerous escalation”.
In a statement, the presidency condemned the strike and described it as “a serious escalation against state institutions and its sovereignty”.
Meanwhile Israel’s army intercepted two missiles fired towards its territory from Yemen within 12 hours on Friday, with the Huthi rebels claiming both attacks.
An explosion was heard over Jerusalem as the Israeli military said it was intercepting the second projectile.
“The (Israeli army) has identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defence systems are operating to intercept the threat,” the military said about the second attack.
Israeli police reported a “rocket siren” was activated in northern and coastal districts and said they were searching for possible projectile or debris impact sites.
The military said the first missile had been shot down before it entered Israeli airspace.
The Huthis, who control large parts of Yemen, claimed responsibility for both the attacks.
ISRAELI AIR STRIKES KILL 29 IN GAZA
Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli bombardment killed at least 29 people overnight in the war-ravaged territory, which has been under Israeli aid blockade for nearly two months.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meanwhile said that while the military’s mission was to bring home all the hostages from Gaza, its “supreme goal” was to achieve victory against Hamas.
Israel resumed its campaign in the Gaza Strip on March 18, after a two-month truce collapsed over disagreements between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas whose 2023 attack triggered the conflict.
Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said Thursday’s toll included eight people killed in an air strike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Yunis refugee camp in southern Gaza.
Four people were killed in an air strike east of Shaaf in Gaza City’s Al-Tuffah neighbourhood, he told AFP.
At least 17 more were killed in other attacks across the Palestinian territory, including one that hit a tent sheltering displaced people near the central city of Deir el-Balah, the agency said.
“We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and children, women and young people all bombed to pieces,” said Ahmed Abu Zarqa after a deadly strike in Khan Yunis.
“This is no way to live. Enough, we’re tired, enough!
“We don’t know what to do with our lives any more. We’d rather die than live this kind of life.”
AFP images showed residents digging through rubble in search of bodies, which were carried away on stretchers under blankets.
At Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, rescuers rushed a screaming wounded child out of an ambulance.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Thursday that at least 2326 people have been killed since Israel resumed strikes, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,418.
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Originally published as Israel’s Netanyahu vows multi-phase response against Yemen’s Houthis
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