HODEIDA: The death toll from an Israeli strike on Yemen's port of Hodeida climbed to six, health authorities said on Sunday, with firefighting teams battling a blaze at the harbour.
Saturday's strike on the port, a key entry point for fuel and humanitarian aid to war-ravaged Yemen, is the first claimed by Israel in the Arabian peninsula's poorest country, about 2,000 kilometres away. It killed six people and injured 83, many of them with severe burns, the rebel-run health ministry said in a statement carried by Ansar Allah media. It said three others remained missing. Earlier, military spokesman Yahya Saree said the rebels' "response to the Israeli aggression against our country is inevitably coming and will be huge".
Israel said it carried out the strike in response to a drone attack by the Yemenis on Tel Aviv which killed one person on Friday. More operations against the Ansar Allah will follow "if they dare to attack us", Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said.
Yemenis promised a "huge" retaliation against Israel on Sunday following a deadly strike on the port of Hodeida, as violence sparked by the Gaza war gripped the region.
Saudi Arabia urged restraint on Sunday in the wake of an Israeli strike on the Yemen's port. It "called on all parties to exercise maximum restrain and to distance the region and its people from the dangers of war." Sunday's foreign ministry statement affirmed the kingdom's "continuous support for peace efforts in Yemen to spare its people more suffering."
Despite Washington asserting that a deal to end more than nine months of devastating war between Israel and Palestinian groups was near the "goal line", the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen as it pressed on with its offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, dozens have been killed since Saturday across Gaza, the civil defence agency said, including in strikes on homes in the central Nuseirat and Bureij areas and displaced people near southern Khan Yunis. Residents said a major operation was underway in the Saudi district west of Rafah in the south, reporting heavy artillery and clashes.
The war has also unleashed hunger and health crises in Gaza, with Israel and the United Nations trading blame for vital aid supplies failing to reach those in need.
After the detection of poliovirus in Gaza sewage, though no individual cases, the World Health Organization said there were "monumental" constraints to mounting a timely response.
WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said on Friday the agency believes many more diseases are "spreading out of control" inside Gaza. — AFP
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