Israel said at least 50 Houthi fighters were reportedly killed in strikes on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa on Thursday.
About 20 fighter jets and dozens of additional aircraft carried out the operation, said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It said there were seven targets including command centres, weapons depots and Houthi military compounds, some 2,200km from Israeli territory.
The Houthi-run health ministry said two people were killed and 48 wounded in the attack, which it said hit civilian and service facilities.
The Houthis, backed by Iran, have launched waves of drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the Gaza war and have said they will continue the attacks until the fighting in Gaza ends.
Thursday’s attack came a day after a Houthi drone strike on Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat, which wounded more than 20 people, two seriously.
The IDF also continued to push deeper into Gaza City. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reported on Thursday that 83 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded from IDF fire in the previous 24 hours.
Palestinians look at the rubble of a neighbouring building hit by an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said Gaza City is last bastion of Hamas, but hundreds of thousands of civilians remain there, fearing there is nowhere safe for them to go.
Visiting the city on Wednesday, IDF chief of staff Eyal Zamir urged Palestinians to rebel against Hamas to bring about an end to the war.
Israel estimates that more than 700,000 residents have fled since the start of the Israeli offensive on Gaza City earlier this month.
Since the beginning of the war on October 7th, 2023, more than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed said Hamas-run Gazan health authorities. The conflict began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel during which 1,200 were killed and 250 kidnapped, said Israel.
Two soldiers, killed in the fighting in Gaza in recent days, were buried on Thursday.
Parents of soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip announced a series of protests, beginning next week, calling for an end to the Gaza war. “The protests will intensify as the war continues,” the parents said at a press conference. “We will not allow a political war to claim the lives of our children.”
A Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal is “close,” US president Donald Trump said on Thursday, speaking to reporters before his meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “We want to get Gaza done. ”
Mr Netanyahu has arrived in the US to address the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday. He will meet Mr Trump at the White House on Monday.
Before his departure, Mr Netanyahu reiterated that Israel will not agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state. He described the decision of many western states to recognise Palestinian statehood as a “shameful capitulation.”
He said his UN speech “will denounce the leaders who, instead of condemning the killers, want to give them a state in the heart of the land of Israel. That will not happen.”
His meeting with Mr Trump is expected to focus on the US outline for ending the Gaza war. The plan was announced when Mr Trump and US envoy Steve Witkoff met this week with leaders of Arab and Muslim countries.
The US has reportedly promised that it will prevent Israel annexing occupied West Bank territory – annexation is a key demand of Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners.
Although it is believed that Israel will accept the American outline for Gaza, differences remain over the postwar governance arrangements. Israel remains opposed to any role for president Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA).
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas gives a remote addresses the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. Photograph: Dave Sanders/New York Times
Addressing the UN General Assembly on Thursday, Mr Abbas said the PA is “ready to bear full responsibility for governance and security” in Gaza, adding that “Hamas will have no role to play in governance”. He said Palestinians are not seeking an armed state and accused Israel of perpetrating “crimes against humanity”.
Mr Abbas addressed the annual gathering of world leaders via video after the United States said it would not give him a visa to travel to New York.