Rocket from Yemen strikes Tel Aviv, injuring 16, and Palestinians mourn a dozen children in Gaza

Destruction caused by an Israeli airstrike in southern Beirut. Pic/AFP

A rocket fired from Yemen hit an area of Tel Aviv overnight, leaving 16 people injured by shattered glass, the Israeli military said on Saturday, days after Israeli airstrikes hit Houthi rebels who have been launching missiles in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Another 14 people had minor injuries as they rushed to shelters when air raid sirens sounded before dawn, the military said. The Houthis in a statement on Telegram said they had aimed a hypersonic ballistic missile at a military target that they did not identify. Israel's military said it was investigating, adding that "we emphasise that aerial defence is not hermetic".

"A flash of light, a blow and we fell to the ground. Big mess, broken glasses all over the place," said Bar Katz, a resident of a damaged building. The Houthis' media office later reported airstrikes on Yemen's Houthi-held capital, Sanaa. US forces conducted airstrikes against a missile-storage facility and a command facility operated by the Houthis, the US Central Command said in a statement on X.

The attack on Tel Aviv came after Israeli airstrikes on Sanaa and the port city of Hodeida killed at least nine people on Thursday. The strikes came hours after a missile from Yemen hit a school building in central Israel. The Houthis also claimed a drone strike targeting an unspecified military target in central Israel that day.

Israel's military says the Iran-backed Houthis have launched more than 200 missiles and drones during the 14-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The Houthis have also attacked shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and say they will not stop until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.

The Israeli strikes on Thursday caused "considerable damage" to the Houthi-controlled Red Sea ports, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The Hodeida port has been key for food shipments into Yemen in its decade-long civil war.

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill a dozen children

Mourners in Gaza held funerals for 19 Palestinians -- 12 of them children -- killed in Israeli strikes on Friday and overnight. One strike hit a residential building in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least seven, including five children and one woman, and injuring 16 others, health officials said.

In Gaza City, a strike on a house killed 12, including seven children and two women, according to Al-Ahli Hospital where the bodies were taken. One man cradled a tiny shroud-wrapped body as mourners gathered. Later on Saturday, al-Awda Hospital said an airstrike hit a house in Nuseirat and killed four people including two children, with 14 other people wounded. Israel's military said it was checking the report. And Saturday night, large explosions could be seen on the Gaza skyline. Five bodies arrived soon afterward at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.

More than 45,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, when a Hamas attack in Israel killed about 1,200 people and triggered the war. Gaza's Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but has said more than half of the fatalities are women and children. Israel faces heavy international criticism over the unprecedented levels of civilian deaths in Gaza. It says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate in residential areas.

Northern Gaza hospital says it is told to evacuate

The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in largely isolated northern Gaza said in an online message late on Saturday that Israel's military had told the facility to evacuate. Dr Husam Abu Safiyeh asserted that the intensive care unit, maternity ward and other departments were being targeted, and said evacuating would mean transferring 66 patients.

Israel's military in response to questions said it was "not aware of any strikes in the area of the hospital at this time". There was no immediate response to questions about the reported evacuation order. Gaza's Health Ministry earlier reported continuous gunfire and Israeli shelling near the hospital, and it issued an urgent appeal for medical and food supplies to be delivered to the facility as Israel's military pressed its latest offensive.

Safiyeh has said the facility faced "severe shortages" including of food and asserted that requests for essential medical supplies and ways to maintain oxygen, water and electricity systems "have largely gone unmet". Aid groups have said Israeli military operations and armed gangs have hindered their ability to distribute aid. The Israeli military organisation dealing with humanitarian affairs for Gaza said on Saturday it had led an operation delivering thousands of food packages, flour and water to the Beit Hanoun area in the north.

A killing in Syria

Iran on Saturday said unknown gunmen killed a local staffer of the Iranian Embassy in Syria in Damascus last Sunday, the official IRNA news agency said. Its report quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei as saying "terrorists" opened fire on Davood Bitaraf's car. It did not say what he did with the embassy. The shooting happened the day that opposition fighters took Damascus and ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad. Baghaei said Iran considers Syria's interim government responsible for finding and prosecuting those behind the killing. Iran had been a key Assad ally.

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