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Washington Says Not Seeking War with Houthis as US Forces Conduct 5th Strike

Houthi supporters ride a vehicle carrying the coffin of a Houthi fighter, who was killed in recent fighting, during a funeral in Sanaa, Yemen, 16 January 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Houthi supporters ride a vehicle carrying the coffin of a Houthi fighter, who was killed in recent fighting, during a funeral in Sanaa, Yemen, 16 January 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
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Washington Says Not Seeking War with Houthis as US Forces Conduct 5th Strike

Houthi supporters ride a vehicle carrying the coffin of a Houthi fighter, who was killed in recent fighting, during a funeral in Sanaa, Yemen, 16 January 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Houthi supporters ride a vehicle carrying the coffin of a Houthi fighter, who was killed in recent fighting, during a funeral in Sanaa, Yemen, 16 January 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB

The Pentagon's deputy press secretary, Sabrina Singh, has said that the United States does not seek war with the Houthis after US forces conducted a fifth strike against the Iran-backed militias in Yemen.

“We don't seek war. We don't think that we are at war,” said Singh on Thursday in response to a question.

The latest strikes destroyed two Houthi anti-ship missiles that “were aimed into the southern Red Sea and prepared to launch,” US Central Command said in a statement posted to X. They were conducted by Navy F/A-18 fighter aircraft, the Pentagon said.

On Wednesday the US military fired another wave of ship- and submarine-launch missile strikes against 14 Houthi-controlled sites. That same day, the administration put the Houthis back on its list of specially designated global terrorists.

“These strikes will continue for as long as they need to continue,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday, adding, “I’m not going to telegraph punches one way or another.”

Despite sanctions and military strikes, including a large-scale operation carried out Friday by US and British warships and warplanes that hit more than 60 targets across Yemen, the Houthis keep harassing commercial and military ships. The US has strongly warned Iran to cease providing weapons to the Houthis.

“We never said the Houthis would immediately stop,” Singh said at a briefing when asked why the strikes have not seemed to stop the Houthis.

Since the joint US and British operation got underway last Friday, hitting 28 locations and struck more than 60 targets in that initial round, the Houthis' attacks have been “lower scale,” Singh added.

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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)

An Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists and wounded others in Lebanon last month was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime, an international human rights group said Monday.
The Oct. 25 airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon in one of the deadliest attacks on the media since the Israel-Hezbollah war began 13 months ago.
Eleven other journalists have been killed and eight wounded since then, Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad said.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and women and children accounted for more than 900 of the dead, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1 million people have been displaced since Israeli ground troops invaded while Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles into Israel - and drawing fierce Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli forces carried out the Oct. 25 attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a US produced Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, guidance kit.
The group said the US government should suspend weapons transfers to Israel because of the military´s repeated "unlawful attacks on civilians, for which US officials may be complicit in war crimes."
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the report.
The Biden administration said in May that Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but that wartime conditions prevented US officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.
The journalists killed in the airstrike in the southeastern town of Hasbaya were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV.
Human Rights Watch said a munition struck the single-story building and detonated upon hitting the floor.
"Israel’s use of US arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel," said Richard Weir, the senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Weir added that "the Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media."
Human Rights Watch said that it found remnants at the site and reviewed photographs of pieces collected by the resort owner and determined that they were consistent with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.

The JDAM is affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters, the group said.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike at their reporting spot. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from France´s international news agency Agence France-Presse and Qatar´s Al-Jazeera TV on a hilltop not far from the Israeli border.