US and Iran-backed Houthis vow escalation after deadly American airstrikes on Yemen
Welcome to our live coverage of the latest developments in the Middle East.
The US and Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are both vowing escalation after the US launched a wave of deadly airstrikes on Saturday with the stated aim of deterring the rebel group from attacking Red Sea shipping.
Updating an earlier death toll, Houthi health ministry spokesperson Anis al-Asbahi said 53 people had been killed including “five children and two women”, and that 98 people had been injured.
The airstrikes hit in the capital of Sanaa and other provinces, including Saada, the Houthi rebels’ stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.
Houthi rebels claimed on Monday to have twice attacked an American aircraft carrier group within 24 hours, calling it retaliation for the deadly US airstrikes.
The Houthis initially said they launched 18 missiles and a drone at the “aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and its accompanying warships” in the Red Sea, before hours later claiming to have fired a second round.
The Houthi rebels say they will continue to target US ships in the Red Sea as long as the US continued its attacks on Yemen.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump vowed to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks on Red Sea shipping, and warned that Tehran would be held “fully accountable” for their actions.
The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, say they have targeted international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
The attacks stopped when a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in January – a day before Trump took office – but last week the Houthis said they would renew attacks against Israeli vessels after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month. There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.
In other key developments:
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The UN humanitarian aid organisation for children, Unicef, has warned that 1 million children in Gaza “are struggling to survive without basic necessities” amid the ongoing Israeli blockade on all aid. At the beginning of the month, Israel cut off humanitarian supplies to Gaza, claiming it was part of an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal. “Hundreds of thousands lack clean water and sanitation. Water is a basic human right that no one should be denied,” Unicef said in a post on X on Monday.
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Iran will respond to a letter by Donald Trump “after full scrutiny,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. Last week, an Emirati official brought a letter from the US president proposing nuclear talks with Tehran, which Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected, saying such a proposal was “deception” from Washington.
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Late on Sunday, Syria’s defence ministry accused Hezbollah of crossing into Syrian territory and kidnapping and killing three members of Syria’s new army formed after the toppling of the Assad regime late last year. Hezbollah denied any involvement. A Lebanese security source told Reuters the three Syrian soldiers had crossed into Lebanese territory first and were killed by armed members of a tribe in northeastern Lebanon who feared their town was under attack. In retaliation for their deaths, Syrian troops shelled Lebanese border towns overnight, according to the Syrian defence ministry and the Lebanese army. Lebanon’s army said on Monday that it had handed over the bodies of the three killed Syrians to Syrian authorities, and that it had responded to fire from Syrian territory and sent reinforcements to the border area.
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The Israeli army has killed at least four people in southern Lebanon in the past day, according to reports, despite a ceasefire agreed with Hezbollah that was meant to end the war.
Key events
Germany is pledging a further €300m ($326m; £252m) in aid for Syrians through the UN and select organisations, the country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said this morning ahead of an EU-led donor conference in Brussels.
More than half of the funds, which will go towards providing food, healthcare and emergency shelters, among other relief, will be allocated without the transitional government in the country, she said.
Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey will also receive the support, Baerbock added.
Much of Syria lie in ruins and the economy has been ravaged by years of international isolation and crippling sanctions imposed after former president Bashar-al Assad’s 2011 crackdown on the opposition sparked a brutal civil war.
The country faces a dire humanitarian situation, with an estimated 16.7 million people in need of assistance.
Syria’s new rulers – headed by former Islamist rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa whose Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group spearheaded the toppling of Assad’s repressive government late last year – have been clamouring for assistance to aid the country’s recovery. The HTS group has its origins in al-Qaida and Islamic State, and was formally founded in 2017 after breaking with both.
The EU has eased sanctions on key sectors of the Syrian economy but insists the new authorities make good on promises for an inclusive transition.
Sharaa has promised an inclusive government – that respects minority rights – that will run Syria until the new constitution is finalised and elections are held. But there is still heavy skepticism about Sharra’s commitment to these declarations. Many analysts view him is an extremist who has adopted a more moderate posture to try to achieve his goals.
The transitional process was threatened earlier this month after a wave of violence broke out on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, in which security forces killed nearly 1,500 civilians, according to a war monitor, most of them members of the Alawite minority to which the Assad family belongs. Sharaa subsequently vowed to prosecute those behind the bloodshed, and the authorities have announced several arrests.
Israeli military destroying streets and forcing residents to flee as deadly Jenin raid continues – reports
Israeli tanks and armoured vehicles continue to be positioned around the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and its refugee camp, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Wafa correspondents are reporting that Israeli bulldozers are levelling streets and widening others to allow for the entry of more military vehicles.
Israel’s military, police and intelligence services started a deadly raid in Jenin on 21 January, claiming it was targeting terrorists. We are now on the 56th day of the assault which has seen at least 34 Palestinian people reportedly killed by Israeli forces who have left a trail of heavy destruction in the area.
The city’s mayor, Mohammad Jarrar, said the number of displaced people from the camp, made up of descendants of Palestinians dispossessed of their land when the state of Israel was created in 1948, has risen to 21,000, or around one-quarter of the population.
Jenin municipality director Mamdouh Assaf has been quoted by Wafa as saying Israeli forces have “razed” 100% of the Jenin camp and 85% of the city’s streets, with entire neighborhoods in the camp reportedly being forcibly displaced by the Israeli military.
Jenin’s refugee camp, among 19 refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, has long been a centre of armed Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said earlier today that Iran will respond to Trump’s letter “after full scrutiny”.
The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, has been reporting on the significance of Trump sending the letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who as Iran’s supreme leader is the highest authority in the country, and what it signals about the fraught relationship between Washington and Tehran. Here is an extract from his piece:
The letter, the first step Trump has taken towards Iran since he announced the US was seeking to reimpose maximum economic pressure on Iran, comes at a time when the Iranian government is locked in a public dispute on the wisdom of negotiating with the US, and what pre-conditions should be set.
In recent days hardliners opposed to reaching out to the US appeared to have gained a decisive upper hand with MPs impeaching the economy minister, Abdolnaser Hemmati, and the resignation of Javad Zarif, the vice-president for strategy and a long-term advocate of reviving contacts with the west.
The ministry of foreign affairs also issued a strategy paper stressing that Iran was not prepared to lose its political independence.
The paper said: “Governments that set their policies in the hope of security guarantees from great powers in the end at critical junctures were left alone. Iran has learned this historical lesson well. Independence is not just a slogan, but an inevitable necessity.”
The loss of such key ministers reflected both the hardliner parliament’s refusal to reconcile itself to the loss of the presidential election last year, and genuine public anger about the rapidly deteriorating state of the economy largely caused by the accumulation of years of economic sanctions.
Iranian politicians for months have been contradicting one another about the wisdom of talks, whether there could be direct discussions with the US and whether the talks should simply focus narrowly on reimposing a UN regime to oversee the safety of Iran’s civil nuclear program.
As we mentioned in the opening post, Donald Trump last week sent a letter to to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an attempt to jump-start talks over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.
While the text of the letter hasn’t been published, it was sent as Trump levied new sanctions on Iran as part of his so-called “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the country.
The day after sending the letter on 5 March, Trump said: “I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.’”
The US president has suggested that Tehran’s nuclear capabilities – which now reportedly include enough near-bomb-grade fuel to produce about six weapons – were reaching a critical point.
Iran has offered a series of seemingly contradictory responses to Trump’s letter. Khamenei said he wasn’t interested in talks with a “bullying government” but the country’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi earlier suggested that talks over guarantees that Tehran wouldn’t seek a nuclear weapon could be possible.
Amid these growing tensions, it has been confirmed that Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, will meet UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna later today.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said the meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was “part of our ongoing engagement with the agency”.
“As threats against Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities have increased, it is natural for us to intensify consultations with the IAEA,” Baqaei said.
In 2015, Iran signed an agreement with the five permanent members of the UN security council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the US – plus Germany to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for sanction relief.
Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the deal in 2018 and US officials now estimate that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon within weeks if it so chose. Tehran has consistently denied pursuing nuclear weapons.
Netanyahu says he will seek to dismiss head of Israel’s internal security service
Jason Burke
Jason Burke is the International security correspondent of the Guardian
Benjamin Netanyahu has announced he will seek to dismiss the director of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, through a cabinet vote later this week, in a move that will prompt further accusations of authoritarianism.
The Israeli prime minister said in a video statement on Sunday that “ongoing distrust” made it impossible for him to continue to work with Ronen Bar, who has led Shin Bet since 2021.
Netanyahu said: “We are in the midst of a war for our very survival … At any time, but especially during such an existential war, the prime minister must have complete confidence in the director of the [Shin Bet]. Unfortunately, however, the situation is the opposite.”
It comes after an increasingly acrimonious dispute between the men over responsibility for the failures that allowed the surprise Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 that sparked the war in Gaza.
Shin Bet is responsible for monitoring Palestinian militant groups. It recently issued a report accepting responsibility for its failures around the attack but also criticised Netanyahu, saying government policies were among its causes.
Netanyahu has not accepted any responsibility for the attack, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and led to 251 being abducted, though he was prime minister at the time and has been in power for a total of 17 years.
You can read the full story here:
US and Iran-backed Houthis vow escalation after deadly American airstrikes on Yemen
Welcome to our live coverage of the latest developments in the Middle East.
The US and Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are both vowing escalation after the US launched a wave of deadly airstrikes on Saturday with the stated aim of deterring the rebel group from attacking Red Sea shipping.
Updating an earlier death toll, Houthi health ministry spokesperson Anis al-Asbahi said 53 people had been killed including “five children and two women”, and that 98 people had been injured.
The airstrikes hit in the capital of Sanaa and other provinces, including Saada, the Houthi rebels’ stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.
Houthi rebels claimed on Monday to have twice attacked an American aircraft carrier group within 24 hours, calling it retaliation for the deadly US airstrikes.
The Houthis initially said they launched 18 missiles and a drone at the “aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman and its accompanying warships” in the Red Sea, before hours later claiming to have fired a second round.
The Houthi rebels say they will continue to target US ships in the Red Sea as long as the US continued its attacks on Yemen.
On Saturday, US President Donald Trump vowed to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks on Red Sea shipping, and warned that Tehran would be held “fully accountable” for their actions.
The Houthis, an armed movement who have taken control of most of Yemen over the past decade, say they have targeted international shipping in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza.
The attacks stopped when a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in January – a day before Trump took office – but last week the Houthis said they would renew attacks against Israeli vessels after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month. There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.
In other key developments:
-
The UN humanitarian aid organisation for children, Unicef, has warned that 1 million children in Gaza “are struggling to survive without basic necessities” amid the ongoing Israeli blockade on all aid. At the beginning of the month, Israel cut off humanitarian supplies to Gaza, claiming it was part of an effort to pressure Hamas into accepting a change in the ceasefire agreement to allow for the release of hostages without an Israeli troop withdrawal. “Hundreds of thousands lack clean water and sanitation. Water is a basic human right that no one should be denied,” Unicef said in a post on X on Monday.
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Iran will respond to a letter by Donald Trump “after full scrutiny,” foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. Last week, an Emirati official brought a letter from the US president proposing nuclear talks with Tehran, which Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected, saying such a proposal was “deception” from Washington.
-
Late on Sunday, Syria’s defence ministry accused Hezbollah of crossing into Syrian territory and kidnapping and killing three members of Syria’s new army formed after the toppling of the Assad regime late last year. Hezbollah denied any involvement. A Lebanese security source told Reuters the three Syrian soldiers had crossed into Lebanese territory first and were killed by armed members of a tribe in northeastern Lebanon who feared their town was under attack. In retaliation for their deaths, Syrian troops shelled Lebanese border towns overnight, according to the Syrian defence ministry and the Lebanese army. Lebanon’s army said on Monday that it had handed over the bodies of the three killed Syrians to Syrian authorities, and that it had responded to fire from Syrian territory and sent reinforcements to the border area.
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The Israeli army has killed at least four people in southern Lebanon in the past day, according to reports, despite a ceasefire agreed with Hezbollah that was meant to end the war.