Houthi sites hit again in Yemen
Netanyahu rejects calls to scale back offensive in Gaza
WASHINGTON — U.S. forces on Thursday conducted a fifth strike against Iranianbacked Houthi rebel military sites in Yemen as President Joe Biden acknowledged that the American and British bombardment had yet to stop the militia’s attacks on vessels in the Red Sea that have disrupted global shipping.
“We never said the Houthis would immediately stop,” the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Sabrina Singh, said at a briefing, when asked why the strikes have not seemed to stop the Houthis. But, Singh said, since the joint U.S. and British operation got underway, the Houthis’ attacks have been “lower scale.”
The Houthis say their attacks aim to end the Israeli air-andground offensive in the Gaza Strip that was triggered by the Palestinian militant group Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel.
But efforts to bring an end to the Gaza conflict in the near term took a blow as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rejected U.S. calls to scale back Israel’s military offensive or take steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state after the war, drawing an immediate scolding from the White House.
The tense back and forth reflected what has become a wide rift between the two allies over the scope of Israel’s war and its plans for the future of the beleaguered territory.
“We obviously see it differently,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Netanyahu spoke just a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Israel would never have “genuine security” without a pathway
toward Palestinian independence.
Earlier this week, the White House also announced that it was the “right time” for Israel to lower the intensity of its devastating military offensive in Gaza.
In a nationally televised news conference, Netanyahu struck a defiant tone, repeatedly saying that Israel would not halt its offensive until it realizes its goals of destroying Gaza’s Hamas militant group and bringing home all remaining hostages held by Hamas.
He rejected claims by a growing chorus of Israeli critics that those goals are not achievable, vowing to press ahead for many months. “We will not settle for anything short of an absolute victory,” Netanyahu said.
The United States has said the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which governs semi-autonomous zones in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, should be “revitalized” and return to Gaza. Hamas ousted the authority from Gaza in 2007.
Israel’s assault, one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, has killed nearly 25,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, caused widespread destruction and uprooted over 80% of the territory’s 2.3 million people from their homes.
In Yemen, the latest strikes by the United States and Britain destroyed two Houthi anti-ship missiles that “were aimed into the southern Red Sea and prepared to launch,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement posted to X, formerly Twitter. They were conducted by Navy F/A-18 fighter aircraft, the Pentagon said.
Biden said the U.S. would continue the strikes, even though so far they have not stopped the Houthis from continuing to harass commercial and military vessels.
“When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis, no. Are they going to continue, yes,” Biden said in an exchange with reporters before departing the White House for a domestic policy speech in North Carolina. Biden’s comments followed another significant round of strikes Wednesday night, when the U.S. military fired another wave of shipand submarine-launch missile strikes against 14 Houthi-controlled sites. The strikes were launched from the Red Sea and hit 14 missiles that the command also had deemed an imminent threat.
His administration also has put the Houthis back on its list of specially designated global terrorists. The sanctions that come with the formal designation are meant to sever violent extremist groups from their sources of financing, while also allowing vital humanitarian aid to continue flowing to impoverished Yemenis.
Despite sanctions and military strikes, including a large-scale operation carried out by U.S. and British warships and warplanes that hit more than 60 targets across Yemen, the Houthis keep harassing commercial and military ships. The U.S. has strongly warned Iran to cease providing weapons to the Houthis.
For months, the Houthis have claimed attacks on ships in the Red Sea that they say are either linked to Israel or heading to Israeli ports. But the links to the ships targeted in the rebel assaults have grown more tenuous as the attacks continue.
The attacks have also raised questions as to whether the conflict between Israel and Hamas has already expanded into a wider regional war.
Tensions in the region on Thursday were increased as Pakistan launched airstrikes against alleged militant hideouts inside neighboring Iran, killing at least nine people as Islamabad retaliated for a similar attack days earlier by Iran.
The unprecedented attacks by both Pakistan and Iran on either side of their border appeared to target Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals. The countries accuse each other of providing a haven to the groups in their respective territories.