Middle East live updates: Israeli forces strike Houthi targets in Yemen, IDF says

(LONDON)– Rebel forces in Syria are building a transitional government after toppling the regime of President Bashar Assad in a lightning-quick advance across the country.

Meanwhile, the ceasefire in Lebanon is holding despite ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah targets, which Israeli officials say are responses to ceasefire violations by the Iranian-backed militant group. The Israel Defense Forces continues its intense airstrike and ground campaigns in Gaza.

Tensions remain high between Israel and Iran after tit-for-tat long-range strikes in recent months and threats of further military action from both sides. The IDF and the Yemeni Houthis also continue to exchange attacks.

50 killed in strike near northern Gaza hospital: Health ministry

About 50 people were killed, including five medical staff, near Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza after an airstrike on a building “adjacent to the hospital,” the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the hospital’s director said Thursday.

The Israeli military has not publicly commented on the strike. ABC News has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for comment.

Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the city of Beit Lahia, has reported multiple attacks by Israeli forces over the past week.

In Gaza City, 15 people were killed and at least 60 people were injured after various attacks in neighborhoods, the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense said in a statement Thursday.

The Israeli Air Force conducted a “precise strike” on two Hamas operatives in Gaza City “in recent days,” the IDF said Thursday.

“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” the IDF said in a statement.

-ABC News’ Diaa Ostaz and Bruno Nota

WHO leader says his team was at Yemen airport during Israeli attack

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he and his team were about to board a flight in Sana’a, Yemen, when the airport came under “aerial bombardment” on Thursday.

He and his WHO and UN colleagues are safe after the attack but “at least two people were reported killed at the airport,” Ghebreyesus said in a post on X.

The air traffic control tower, departure lounge and runway at the airport were damaged, he added.

Ghebreyesus and his team were on a mission in Yemen to “negotiate the release of UN staff detainees and to assess the health and humanitarian situation in Yemen,” the WHO leader said.

Targeting the Sana’a International Airport and other civilian infrastructure in Yemen is a “crime against all the Yemeni people,” Houthi spokesman Mohammad Abdul Salam said in a statement following Israel’s attacks.

“If the Zionist enemy thinks that its crimes will stop Yemen from supporting Gaza, it is delusional,” Abdul Salam said.

The Israel Defense Forces said following Thursday’s strikes that they were targeting “military infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime for its military activities,” including in the Sana’a International Airport.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in a statement Thursday that Israel will continue attacks against the Houthis to “cut off the terrorist arm of Iran’s axis of evil” until the job is done.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz also said in a statement Thursday that Israel will “hunt down all of the Houthis’ leaders and we will strike them just as we have done in other places.”

-ABC News’ Victoria Beaule, Ahmed Baider and Dana Savir

4 killed, 18 injured after Israeli attacks on Yemen: Health ministry

Four people were killed and at least 18 people were wounded in Yemen after Israeli attacks in Sana’a and Hodeida on Thursday, according to preliminary information from Yemen’s Ministry of Health.

-ABC News’ Nasser Atta

14 Syrian security force members killed in clashes: Syrian official

Fourteen members of the Syrian security forces, part of Syrian de-facto leader Ahmad al-Sharaa’s militia, were killed and 10 were wounded after “being ambushed” by supporters of ousted former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the countryside of Tartus on Syria’s western coast, the Syrian minister of the interior said Thursday.

There were wide-scale clashes Wednesday between al-Sharaa’s forces and supporters of al-Assad in six cities across Syria including Latakia, Tartus, Jableh, Homs and some parts of Damascus. Curfew was imposed on six cities and reinforcements are being sent to the Syrian coastal area.

-ABC News’ Nasser Atta

5 journalists killed by Israeli strike in Gaza: Medical sources

Five journalists were killed in Gaza on Wednesday evening, medical sources and the Gaza government media office said.

Israeli forces bombed a journalists’ vehicle in front of the Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, Gaza medical sources said.

Israeli forces claimed the five killed were Islamic Jihad operatives in a statement about the attack from the Israel Defense Forces.

“Intelligence from multiple sources confirmed that these individuals were Islamic Jihad operatives posing as journalists,” the IDF said.

-ABC News’ Sami Zyara, Diaa Ostaz and Bruno Nota

Israeli forces conduct strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen: IDF

Israeli forces conducted strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The military targets struck were “used by the Houthi terrorist regime to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials. This is a further example of the Houthis’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes,” the IDF said in a release.

Houthi forces have launched drones and missiles towards Israel over the past week.

-ABC News’ Dana Savir

Missile from Yemen sets off attack alerts in Israel

A missile fired by Houthi forces from Yemen in the early hours of Wednesday set off sirens across central Israel, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The IDF said the missile was intercepted before reaching Israel. “Details are being investigated,” the IDF wrote on X.

Wednesday morning’s incident was the fourth time in a week that Houthi fire set off sirens in Israel.

On Saturday, 16 people were injured when a missile hit a playground in Tel Aviv after Israel’s air defense system failed to intercept it.

Negotiation team returning after ‘significant week’: Israeli PM office

The Israeli negotiation team will return to Israel from Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday after a “significant week of conducting negotiations” regarding a ceasefire and hostage deal, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said in a statement.

“The team returned for internal consultations in Israel regarding the continuation of negotiations for the return of our hostages,” the statement continued.

-ABC News’ Anna Burd

IDF ‘besieging’ 3 Gaza hospitals, health ministry says

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said in a statement Tuesday that Israeli forces are “intensifying” their attacks on three hospitals in the devastated and depopulated northern portion of the strip.

Israeli troops, the ministry in the Hamas-run territory said, are “besieging and directly targeting the Indonesian Hospital, Kamal Adwan Hospital and Al-Awda Hospital during the past hours and insisting on putting them out of service.”

The ministry said Israeli troops were “forcing the wounded and patients to evacuate the Indonesian Hospital,” while bombing “all departments of Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surroundings around the clock without stopping.”

“Shrapnel is scattered inside the hospital yards, causing terrifying sounds and serious damage,” the ministry said.

“We appeal to all international and UN institutions and concerned parties to urgently intervene to protect the health system in the Gaza Strip,” the ministry wrote.

On Monday, Palestinian officials said 20 people were injured when Israeli forces detonated a “robot bomb” in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The IDF has not commented on the latest developments around Kamal Adwan or the other north Gaza hospitals.

-ABC News’ Nasser Atta
 

3 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces said Monday that three soldiers were killed in combat in northern Gaza.

Cpt. Ilay Gavriel Atedgi, 22, Staff Sgt. Netanel Pessach, 21, and Sgt. First Class (res.) Hillel Diener, 21, were all killed by an explosion during an operation in the Beit Hanoun area, which has been a focus of Israel’s intense recent offensive in the northern part of the strip.

Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and the border zone is now 391.

Health officials in the Hamas-run territory say more than 45,300 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.

-ABC News’ Dana Savir and Ellie Kaufman

20 injured after bomb detonates near Gaza hospital

Twenty people were injured among the medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza Monday evening after a “robot bomb” was detonated in the hospital’s vicinity, according to medical sources.

ABC News has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces for a comment.

-ABC News’ Samy Zyara

Israeli forces kill Hamas operative in Gaza City, IDF says

Israeli forces killed the head of the national security directorate of Hamas’ security mechanism during an attack on Sunday in Gaza City, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The Hamas operative, Tharwat Muhammad Ahmed Albec, was “operating in a command and control center” that was embedded in a “compound that previously served as the ‘Musa bin Nusayr’ school” in a neighborhood in Gaza City, the IDF said in a statement on Monday.

Hamas has yet to comment on the IDF’s statement.

-ABC News’ Dana Savir

‘Certain progress’ made in hostage negotiations: Netanyahu

“Certain progress” has been made in ongoing hostage and ceasefire negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a speech at the Israeli parliament on Monday.

“I can carefully say there has been a certain progress” made in the ongoing negotiations, Netanyahu said, adding that he “doesn’t know how long it’s going to take.”

“We will continue to operate in any way and without a pause until we bring them all back home from the enemy’s land,” he said.

-ABC News’ Dana Savir

Hamas reports Israeli attack on Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp

Hamas on Monday said the Israel Defense Forces killed or wounded at least 50 people in an air and ground assault on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

An IDF airstrike was followed by an incursion into the camp supported by 17 heavy vehicles, among them tanks and bulldozers, Hamas said.

Israeli forces also attacked Nuseirat camp two weeks ago, killing at least 33 people according to the Gaza Government Media Office.

The IDF is yet to comment on Monday’s operation.

-ABC News’ Diaa Ostaz and Tomek Rolski

Netanyahu says Israel will act against Houthis after missile strike

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his nation would “act forcefully” against the Houthis in Yemen after a weekend missile attack on Tel Aviv injured 16 people, according to Israeli emergency authorities.

“Just as we acted forcefully against the terrorist arms of Iran’s evil axis, so we will act against the Houthis — the result will be the same,” Netanyahu said in a statement posted to X.

Since October 2023, the Houthis have been launching attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea, as well as long-range drone and missile attacks towards Israel.

On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces said it intercepted a Houthi missile but that debris destroyed a school building in Tel Aviv.

The Houthis — which have close ties with Iran and are part of the Tehran-led “Axis of Resistance” — are demanding an end to Israel’s war in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, infiltration attack into southern Israel.

The U.S. and U.K. — supported by other allies — have launched a series of strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen since January. Israel has also launched significant strikes in Yemen in recent months, most recently on Thursday.
 

At least 7 dead after IDF strikes humanitarian area in Gaza

At least seven people were killed after an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis, which is located in the southern Gaza Strip.

The strike hit a collection of tents within what had been designated a humanitarian area, where displaced people were sheltering.

The Israel Defense Forces acknowledged the strike on Sunday, saying in a statement it was “an intelligence-based strike on a Hamas terrorist.”

“Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence,” the IDF said.

– ABC News’ William Gretsky

21 killed in Gaza, IDF northern offensive continues

The Gaza Ministry of Health said Saturday that 21 people were killed and 61 injured in three separate Israeli attacks over the last 24 hours in the Hamas-run territory.

A total of 45,227 people have been killed since the start of the war, health officials said.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces continued intense operations in northern Gaza, particularly around the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia.

The director of the hospital said there is shooting “around the clock” nearby, adding that on Friday the third floor and the hospital entrance were shelled.

The director said the IDF is blocking the entry of all requested medical supplies. Nine people need urgent evacuation for surgery in Gaza City and the hospital is currently treating over 70 people, he said.

-ABC News’ Samy Zyara and Victoria Beaule

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