JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned Yemen’s Houthis of retaliation after the militia claimed a missile attack on central Israel.
“This morning, the Houthis launched a surface-to-surface missile from Yemen into our territory. They should have known by now that we charge a heavy price for any attempt to harm us,” Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting, according to a statement from his office.
“Those who need a reminder in this matter are invited to visit the port of Hodeida,” he added, referring to Yemen’s Red Sea city that Israeli warplanes bombed in July after the Houthis claimed a drone strike that killed a civilian in Tel Aviv.
The Houthis are among the Iran-backed groups in the Middle East that have been drawn into the conflict triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
On Israel’s northern flank, Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement has traded regular cross-border fire with Israeli forces in exchanges that threaten to spiral into all-out war.
On Sunday morning about 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon toward Israel’s Upper Galilee region and the annexed Golan Heights, Israel’s military said.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, and Netanyahu said on Sunday that the current situation was not sustainable.
“The existing situation will not continue. We will do everything necessary to return our residents safely to their homes,” he said.
“We are in a multi-arena campaign against Iran’s evil axis that strives to destroy us.”
He described speaking with residents and authorities in the north, saying, “I hear the distress, I hear the cries.
“The status quo will not continue. This requires a change in the balance of power on our northern border.”

DUBAI: The UAE is not prepared to support a postwar plan for Gaza that does not include a Palestinian state, Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on X on Saturday. 

“The UAE is not ready to support the day after the war in Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state,” his post on X said.

الامارات غير مستعدة لدعم اليوم التالي من الحرب في غزة دون قيام دولة فلسطينية

— عبدالله بن زايد (@ABZayed) September 14, 2024

Anwar Gargash, an Emirati diplomatic adviser and a former minister of state, said Sheikh Abdullah’s statement made clear that the UAE rejects anything but a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel.

“The statement by His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed that the UAE is not prepared to support the day after the war in Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state reflects our firm and steadfast position in supporting our Palestinian brothers and our conviction that there is no stability in the region except through a two-state solution,’’ Gargash wrote on X.

“The UAE will stand by the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” he added.

Earlier, the UAE called for a temporary international mission to lay the foundation for a new form of governance in Gaza after the war ends.

In a statement, Reem bint Ebrahim Al-Hashimy, the country’s minister of state for international cooperation, reaffirmed the UAE’s support for international efforts to achieve the two-state solution and for the mission that would help establish law and order and respond to the humanitarian crisis in postwar Gaza.