Yemen’s Houthis Suspected of Missile Attack Targeting a Ship in Bab al-Mandeb 

Armed Houthis sit in the back of a pick-up vehicle while on patrol in a street in Sanaa, Yemen, 07 February 2024. (EPA)
Armed Houthis sit in the back of a pick-up vehicle while on patrol in a street in Sanaa, Yemen, 07 February 2024. (EPA)
TT

Yemen’s Houthis Suspected of Missile Attack Targeting a Ship in Bab al-Mandeb 

Armed Houthis sit in the back of a pick-up vehicle while on patrol in a street in Sanaa, Yemen, 07 February 2024. (EPA)
Armed Houthis sit in the back of a pick-up vehicle while on patrol in a street in Sanaa, Yemen, 07 February 2024. (EPA)

A ship came under attack by two missiles in the key Bab al-Mandeb Strait on Monday, the latest assault believed to have been carried out by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militias.

No one was wounded in the attack and the ship was continuing on its journey, the British military’s United Kingdom Trade Operations center said in a statement.

It wasn’t clear how much damage was done to the ship.

The Houthis did not immediately claim the attack, but it often takes them several hours to acknowledge their assaults.

The Houthis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. That has disrupted shipments through the waterways and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which connects them.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
TT

Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.