Disaster in the Middle East live: US military attacks Houthi targets in Yemen – Pentagon

The US Central Command has issued its own statement regarding attacks on weapons storage facilities within Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

He said the actions were taken “to degrade the Houthis' ability to continue their reckless and illegal attacks against international commercial shipping,” and reiterated that they targeted underground facilities that housed “missiles, weapons components and other munitions used against military and civil vessels throughout the country.” the region.”

It added that its battle damage assessments were ongoing and did not indicate civilian casualties.

The US military has attacked Houthi weapons storage facilities inside Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen, the Pentagon says.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US military, including Air Force B-2 bombers, carried out precision strikes against five hardened underground weapons storage sites in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

“This was a unique demonstration of the United States' ability to attack facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, reinforced or fortified they are,” Austin said in a statement.

The Houthis are an Iranian-backed group that came to power in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, a decade ago, pushing Saudi-backed forces south toward Aden, where they set up their normal headquarters. They began drone and missile airstrikes in the Red Sea in November in what they said was solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

It is the first time the United States has used the B-2 strategic stealth bomber to attack the Houthis in Yemen since the beginning of the US campaign, CNN reported. The B-2 is a much larger platform than the fighter jets that have been used so far to attack Houthi installations and weapons, capable of carrying a much heavier bomb load.

The attack is the latest in a saga of back-and-forth attacks by the Houthis and the United States, as the Houthis have been carrying out sustained attacks on commercial shipping and Navy assets in the region for months. .

It also comes as US service members have begun arriving in Israel after the US announced the deployment of an advanced anti-missile system to help protect Israel following Iran's missile bombardment.

U.S. forces last carried out strikes in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on Oct. 4, targeting weapons systems, bases and other equipment belonging to the Iran-backed group.

More from Austin's statement, released by the Pentagon:

Today, U.S. military forces, including U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers, conducted precision strikes against five hardened underground weapons storage sites in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

U.S. forces attacked several of the Houthis' underground facilities that house various weapons components of the type the Houthis have used to attack civilian and military vessels throughout the region.

This was a unique demonstration of the United States' ability to attack facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, reinforced or fortified they are.

The employment of the US Air Force B-2 Spirit long-range stealth bombers demonstrates the US global strike capability to take action against these targets when necessary, at any time and in anywhere.

According to the Pentagon, the US military has attacked Houthi weapons storage facilities within Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US military, including Air Force B-2 bombers, carried out precision strikes against five hardened underground weapons storage sites in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.

“This was a unique demonstration of the United States' ability to attack facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, reinforced or fortified they are,” Austin said in a statement.

In Lebanon, the mayor of one of the largest cities in the south of the country was killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit the city's municipal headquarters during a meeting to coordinate the delivery of aid to residents and those displaced by the war.

The attack, one of a series of attacks on Wednesday morning in Nabatieh, killed 16 people and injured 52, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Lebanon's interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, accused Israel of “intentionally attacking” the meeting.

Israel said it had struck dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area and that its navy had also struck Hezbollah “launchers, military positions and weapons caches” in southwestern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon said an Israeli army tank fired on a Unifil watchtower in Kafer Kela, a village in southern Lebanon, in what it described as a “direct and “apparently deliberate.” The IDF denied that it was attacking Unifil forces.

The incident is the latest in a series of violations that Unifil has attributed to the IDF, prompting international condemnation. Several peacekeepers have been injured since Friday as Israeli ground troops began advancing further north into Lebanon after weeks of intense fighting and airstrikes.

• The United States has demanded proof on the ground that Israel does not have a famine policy in northern Gaza, while increasing pressure on Netanyahu's government to allow more aid into the territory. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council on Wednesday at a meeting convened by France, the United Kingdom and Algeria that such a policy “would not only be horrible and unacceptable,” but would also have “ implications for international and American relations.” law”.

• The risk of cholera spreading in Lebanon is “very high”, the World Health Organization has warned, after a case of acute and life-threatening infection was detected in the conflict-affected country. The WHO highlighted the risk of cholera spreading among hundreds of thousands of people displaced since Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah.

• Israeli forces stormed the Jazalone refugee camp in the West Bank and fired tear gas, Al Jazeera reports. A young woman was reportedly treated for respiratory problems.

• Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said there have been no talks with either side about a ceasefire in Gaza for the past three or four weeks. “On the prospects of the negotiation… basically in the last three or four weeks, there has been no conversation or commitment, and we are simply moving in the same circle with silence from all parties,” he said.

• Shaban al-Dalou, the 19-year-old Palestinian who was burned alive in his makeshift tent when Israel bombed the Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital complex in Deir el-Balah on Monday, would have turned 20 today. “Losing him is an incredibly huge loss,” said al-Dalou's uncle, Mohammed al-Dalou, adding: “He left a mountain of pain and memories.”

• Hezbollah said it attacked “at 6:50 p.m. (3:50 p.m. GMT)… the occupied city of Safed with a salvo of rockets” in “defense of Lebanon and its people.””. The reported attack marks the third attack in 24 hours that Hezbollah says was a response to Israeli raids across Lebanon that have killed more than 2,300 people in recent weeks.

• US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Wednesday, the Pentagon says, after Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken jointly wrote a letter earlier this week urging Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.