Dozens killed, injured as Israel bombs Gaza, Yemen, and Lebanon

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The Israeli army announced that eight soldiers were injured in the past 24 hours, with six of them hurt in fighting in the Gaza Strip, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.

Armed factions in Iraq say that early on Sunday they attacked a vital target in Israel's Eilat using drones, The New Arab's Arabic edition Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered a delegation charged with negotiating a hostage deal with Hamas to be dispatched on Thursday, Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Sunday.

The statement said Netanyahu held a meeting on Sunday with the delegation and senior members of Israel's defence establishment.

The statement did not specify the delegation's destination. Until now a ceasefire effort led by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States has failed to produce any deal, with both sides in the more than nine-month-old Gaza war blaming each other for the impasse. 

(Reuters)

A person was killed in an Israeli strike on a house north of Beit Lahia in north Gaza, with further Israeli strikes north of Gaza's southern city of Rafah killed two people, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Several Hezbollah drones struck around Hanita in northern Israel, starting a fire which firefighters are currently battling. 

The Israeli military said it was striking targets in south Lebanon following the drone attack.

The Israeli military expects Yemen to be a major front in the event of a regional war, according to reports from Israeli publication Haaretz.

According to the report, the Israeli military has determined that in the aftermath of major airstrikes in Hodeidah, it may carry out further airstrikes against targets in Yemen and is expanding its air defence umbrella across Israel and particularly around the city of Eilat, which has previously been targeted by the Houthis.

Israel's military said on Sunday it will start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the contagious polio virus were found in test samples in areas of the coastal enclave.

The military also said that with the cooperation of international groups enough vaccines had been brought in to cover more than a million of Gaza's 2.3 million population.

Soldiers will be vaccinated during routine troop turnover, though it is not mandatory, the military said.

Much of Gaza's health infrastructure has been destroyed by Israel's in its nine-month old military offensive.

Public health officials and aid groups have warned that without proper health services the population is particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks. 

(Reuters)

Yemen's Houthis will continue to attack Israel and will not abide by any rules of engagement, the group's spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam told Qatar's Al Jazeera TV on Sunday, a day after Israel struck Houthi military targets near Yemen's Hodeidah port killing at least six people.

Abdulsalam said there would be "no red lines" in the Houthis' response to Israel. "All sensitive institutions with all its levels will be a target for us", he said.

(Reuters)

The Israeli military issued call-up notices to 1,000 members of the ultra-Orthodox community on Sunday in a move meant to bolster the army's ranks but which could further inflame tensions between religious and secular Israelis.

The Supreme Court ruled last month that the defence ministry could no longer grant blanket exemptions to Jewish seminary students from the conscript military. That arrangement had been in place since around the time of Israel's establishment in 1948 when the number of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, was tiny.

The new policy shift has been opposed by the two religious parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, placing severe strains on the right-wing coalition as the war in Gaza continues.

(Reuters)

Saudi Arabia, a major foreign player in Yemen's nearly decade-long civil war, urged restraint on Sunday in the wake of an Israeli strike that the Houthi rebels said killed 6 people.

The Israeli attack which hit the Houthi-controlled city of Hodeida, "aggravates the current tension in the region and halts the ongoing efforts to end the war in Gaza," the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement.

It "called on all parties to exercise maximum restrain and to distance the region and its people from the dangers of war."

Hezbollah announced the death of a commander, Mustafa Hassan Fawaz, today as tit-for-tat clashes between the group and Israel continue on the Israel-Lebanon border.

Israeli fighter jets on Saturday struck multiple targets in and around the port city of Hodeidah in Yemen, which is run by the Houthi rebel group.

The Israeli attack killed at least six people, wounding 87 more, and was retaliation for a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv on Friday.

It marks the first time Israel has directly launched an attack on Yemen and yet another indication that Israel’s war on Gaza could lead to a wider regional war.

Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said: "The blood of Israeli citizens has a price," adding more operations against the Houthis would follow "if they dare to attack us".

Saudi Arabia on Sunday denied it had anything to do with the Israeli air strikes on Yemen’s city of Hodeidah and that it will not allow anyone to use the Kingdom’s airspace for offensive purposes.

You can read more of the reaction to Israel's attacks on Yemen from the MENA here.

A barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah into northern Israel struck Kibbutz Dafna, damaging a school and other buildings. 

The Israeli army also announced that it has carried out an airstrike against a Hezbollah cell in Hula, south Lebanon, with Lebanon's NNA reporting that two missiles struck a house and caused injuries.

Israeli settlers in the Israeli occupied West Bank attacked a group of Israeli and Palestinian activists with rocks, clubs and iron rods, injuring several people including two Americans. 

According to Haaretz, the Israeli fired shots in the air to disperse the attackers, but have made no arrests.

The health ministry in Gaza said Sunday at least 38,983 people have been killed in Israel's war on Gaza.

The toll includes 64 deaths in 24 hours, according to ministry figures, which also list 89,727 people as having been wounded in the Gaza Strip.

(Reuters)

Six people were killed and 80 others injured in Israel's strikes on Yemen's Hodeidah on Saturday, medical sources in Yemen told Reuters on Sunday.

(Reuters)

Israel has killed Palestinian journalist Moatasem Ghorab in a strike on central Gaza, according to Anadolu, citing medical sources.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with US President Joe Biden on Tuesday, according to a statement issued by Netanyahu's office on Sunday.

The Israeli leader will fly to the United States on Monday morning, it said.

(Reuters)

Israeli air defences intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired from Yemen on Sunday, the military said, and Yemen's Houthi movement said it had targeted the Israeli Red Sea city of Eilat with multiple missiles.

The Israeli military said its Arrow 3 missile defence system had shot down the projectile before it crossed into Israeli territory.

Before the interception, air raid sirens had sounded in Eilat, sending residents running for shelter.

(Reuters)