Israeli military hits targets in Lebanon and Yemen

The Israeli military says dozens of its aircraft have struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to a recent attack on Israel. 

The military says it targeted power plants and seaport facilities in the city of Hodeidah.

The Houthi-run TV channel Al Masirah showed firefighters tackling a huge blaze in the city and said at least four people had been killed and 33 others wounded.

Speaking to military personnel in Tel Aviv, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the strikes were “impressive”.

“We have no interest in expanding the war, we have no interest in looking for additional fronts, but if someone attacks Israel, as the Houthis have recently done with missiles and throughout the war with cruise missiles and drones, anyone who carries out such an attack we will settle the account with them and we know how to do it,” he said.

In a statement, the Houthis said they had taken precautionary measures and Israel’s strikes would not stop Houthi attacks on shipping routes and on Israel.

The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was arriving on a flight from the United States.

The group has also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea since November it believes has links to Israel, although many of the vessels targeted and hit have nothing to do with the country.

The Houthi media office said the Israelis strikes also hit the port at Rass Issa as well as two power plants in Hodeidah, which is a stronghold for the Iran-backed rebels.

“Anyone who harms or tries to harm the citizens of the State of Israel, we will reach them. In the simplest way and we will put every measure we need with every ability we have, and we have many more capabilities to deepen and expand the strike,” Major General Tom Bar, the commanding officer of the Israeli Air Force, said.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon at least 24 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes that hit two adjacent buildings near the southern city of Sidon.

The consecutive strikes on Sunday hit the area of Ain el-Delb with the Lebanese Health Ministry saying at least 29 people were injured.

Israeli airstrikes have intensified in Lebanon’s south and the Bekaa region on Sunday, with local media reporting relentless airstrikes in the daytime.

Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that country’s cash-strapped government is struggling to cope with a growing number of displaced people, which he says could be “up to one million people.”

 “There are 772 shelters where 118,000 are sheltering since the day before yesterday. These 118,000 are getting their basic needs met. From shelter, living necessities, and food, and all. But it is estimated that the number of displaced people is much higher than this number,” he said.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged almost daily fire since the war in Gaza started in October, displacing tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border.

And strikes deeper into Lebanon have intensified in the last week, particularly in the wake of the killing on Friday of Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah in a southern suburb of the capital Beirut.

Speaking to reporters on his flight back to Italy from Belgium, Pope Francis suggested that Israel’s attacks in Gaza and Lebanon have been “immoral” and disproportionate, saying its military domination has gone beyond the rules of war.

Francis didn’t mention Israel by name and said he was speaking in general terms but said, “defence always has to be proportionate to the attack.”

“When there is something disproportionate you can see a tendency to dominate that goes beyond morality. A country that with its force does these things – any country I mean – that does these things in such an exaggerated way, they are immoral actions,” he said.