The conflict between Israel and Hamas extends across the Middle East, including Yemen. The day after a deadly drone attack by the Houthis in Tel Aviv, the Israeli army responded on Saturday, July 20, with airstrikes on the Red Sea city of Hodeida. The Houthi Health Ministry reported three dead and more than 80 injured, while the fire continues to ravage this strategic port in the west of the country. In retaliation, a missile was fired towards Israel from Yemen, but was intercepted by the Jewish state army on Sunday. Deadly Israeli strikes were also carried out on the Gaza Strip and in southern Lebanon over the weekend.
Key information to remember
⇒ Three dead and more than 80 injured in Israeli strikes in Yemen, according to the Houthis
⇒ More than 30 dead in Israeli strikes in Gaza, according to Hamas
⇒ Benjamin Netanyahu expected in Washington on Monday
Three dead, more than 80 injured in Israeli strikes in Yemen, Houthis say
Israeli strikes targeted the port of Hodeida in western Yemen, controlled by the Houthi rebels, on Saturday, July 20. The Health Ministry of this Islamist movement allied with Hamas reported three dead and at least 80 injured, most of them suffering from “serious burns.” The Israeli bombings triggered a huge fire in the port of Hodeida, a strategic entry point for humanitarian aid and fuel, where oil storage facilities were located. The fire has still not been brought under control on Sunday, July 21, and the human toll could rise during the day.
The “rebels’ response to the Israeli aggression against our country is inevitable and will be enormous,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said Sunday. Israel “will pay the price” for its strikes, the rebels also said.
Early Sunday, July 21, the Israeli army announced that it had intercepted a missile coming from Yemen and “which was approaching Israel.” The army specified in a statement that this missile had “not entered Israeli territory. The sirens (…) were triggered due to the possibility of falling shrapnel.” The Israeli strikes were launched the day after a drone attack by the Houthis that killed one person in central Tel Aviv on Friday, July 19.
More than 30 dead in Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas says
The Israeli army also carried out several airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, killing more than 30 people according to the Civil Defense in Gaza, an organization dependent on Hamas. The refugee camps of Bureji and Armida were hit, as well as the one in Nosseirat, where two women and a child were killed, said an official at al-Awda hospital. In the same hospital, a baby was rescued from the womb of its mother, who died in Nosseirat.
The Israeli army acknowledged these strikes and claimed to have “eliminated terrorists”. But for Hamas, this is a “response” from Israel to the opinion given on Saturday, July 20 by the International Court of Justice, which deemed “unlawful” the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in Gaza and the West Bank since 1967. This decision, described as “historic” by Palestinian leaders, was rejected as “mendacious” by the Hebrew state.
For its part, Hezbollah, Hamas’ Lebanese ally, announced that it had fired new rockets at northern Israel “in response” to an Israeli strike. Another Israeli strike followed, targeting an ammunition depot in Adloun, a city in southern Lebanon, injuring three people on Saturday, July 20, the official Lebanese agency reported in the evening.
Hamas announces new death toll of nearly 39,000
The Hamas government’s health ministry for the Gaza Strip on Sunday, July 21, published a new toll of 38,983 deaths in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war with Israel, now in its tenth month.
At least 64 people have been killed in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement, adding that 89,727 people have been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7.
Benjamin Netanyahu expected in Washington on Monday
The Israeli Prime Minister will begin a three-day visit to the United States on Monday, July 22, at the invitation of the Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress. Benjamin Netanyahu will deliver a speech to parliamentarians on Wednesday to defend his strategy in Gaza, while international pressure is only increasing to obtain a ceasefire. He is also expected to meet on Tuesday with President Joe Biden, with whom relations have become increasingly tense, particularly since the rejection of the American head of state’s peace plan in early June. Joe Biden has also been critical of the Israeli leader on the protection of civilians in Gaza and on the blocking of humanitarian aid.
“It is essential to ensure that we have a plan in place, which is what we are working on every day, with Arab partners, with Israel, […] for governance, security, humanitarian assistance, reconstruction” of Gaza, Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained Friday. “I imagine that the discussions with the Prime Minister [israélien] “will focus on that,” he added at a security forum in Aspen, United States.
The Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress, for their part, wrote that they were “with the State of Israel in its fight against terrorism, particularly at this time when Hamas continues to hold American and Israeli citizens captive and its leaders endanger regional stability.”