Israel pounds Gaza, Houthis vow more Red Sea attacks

CAIRO/GAZA – Israel kept pounding the shattered Gaza Strip on Dec 19 while Yemen’s pro-Palestinian Houthi movement vowed to defy a United States-led naval mission and keep hitting Israeli targets in the Red Sea.

Israel says its campaign is aimed at eradicating Hamas militants behind an Oct 7 attack.

The Israeli action has left the Gaza enclave in ruins, brought widespread hunger as well as homelessness and killed nearly 20,000 Gazans, according to a Palestinian tally.

The country is under increasing international pressure to avoid killing innocents.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the war will not stop until the remaining 129 hostages are freed and Hamas is obliterated after its gunmen killed 1,200 Israelis.

The conflict has spread beyond Gaza into the Red Sea, where

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group has been attacking vessels with missiles and drones.

That has prompted the creation of a multinational naval operation to protect commerce in the area.

But the Houthis said they would carry on anyway, possibly with a sea operation every 12 hours.

“Our position will not change in the direction of the Palestinian issue, whether a naval alliance is established or not,” Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters.

He said only Israeli ships or those going to Israel would be targeted.

“Our position in support of Palestine and the Gaza Strip will remain until the end of the siege, the entry of food and medicine and our support for the oppressed Palestinian people will remain continuous.”

Announcing the naval operation, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said in Bahrain that joint patrols would be held in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which encompass a major East-West global shipping route.

“This is an international challenge that demands collective action,” he said.

British maritime security firm Ambrey said on Dec 19 that it received information of a potential boarding attempt about 30km west of Yemen’s Aden port city, adding that the attack was unsuccessful and all crew were safe.

Some freight firms are re-routing around Africa.

The International Maritime Organisation said it was “closely monitoring developments” and working with the shipping industry to allow safe passage for seafarers.

Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Dec 19 discussed the need to protect shipping and the global economy from attacks by the Houthi rebels, an Israeli statement said.

The leaders also spoke about moving forward on a proposal to bring labourers from India to Israel, which has seen a flight of Thai and other foreign workers since the war erupted on Oct 7.

Deaths mount

International alarm has mounted over the plight of 2.4 million Gazans enduring daily bombardment,

food and water shortages, as well as mass displacement

.

Human Rights Watch had earlier charged that Israel “is using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”.

“Israeli forces are deliberately blocking the delivery of water, food and fuel, while wilfully impeding humanitarian assistance, apparently razing agricultural areas,” the New York-based organisation said.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said that “Human Rights Watch… has no moral basis to talk about what’s going on in Gaza”, charging that the group had ignored “the suffering and the human rights of Israelis”.

In Gaza, Israel’s latest missiles hit the southern Rafah area, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees have amassed in recent weeks, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens of others, according to local health officials.

Residents said they had to dig in the rubble with their bare hands.

“This is a barbarian act,” said Mr Mohammed Zurub.

Among the dead was a Palestinian journalist and several members of his family, medics said.

That raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed to 97, according to the Hamas-run government media office.

Another strike killed 13 people and wounded about 80 in northern Jabalia, Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra told Reuters.

One Jabalia resident, who asked not to be named, said he thought refugees were being punished for refusing to comply with Israeli orders to leave the area.

“There is no food, no water, no medicine and no hospitals to take the wounded and patients to. People die in their homes and in the streets,” he added.

Israel says it warns of strikes in advance, so civilians can escape, and it accuses Hamas of hiding in residential areas.

In the ground war, where Israel has lost 132 soldiers,

tanks advanced further into the southern city of Khan Younis

and shelled a market area amid heavy resistance, residents said.

Thousands of Hamas fighters, based in tunnel networks, are waging guerilla-style war against Israeli soldiers.

“The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) is continuing to operate against Hamas terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the Gaza Strip,” the Israeli military said in a statement.

The Gaza Health Ministry on Dec 19 said at least 19,600 Palestinians had been killed and around 52,600 wounded since Oct 7.

United Nations officials voiced disbelief about the situation in Gaza’s hospitals, which lack supplies and safety.

“I’m furious that children who are recovering from amputations in hospitals are then killed in those hospitals,” said Mr James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency.

He said Nasser Hospital, the largest operational one left in the enclave, had been shelled twice in the past 48 hours.

Mr Elder said one of the victims was a 13-year-old amputee named Dina, who survived a strike on her home that killed her family.

“So where do children and families go? They’re not safe in hospitals, they’re not safe in shelters, and they’re certainly not safe in so-called safe zones,” he said.

World Health Organisation spokeswoman Margaret Harris described the situation in Gaza hospitals as “unconscionable”.

“The very basics, they do not have them. One of my colleagues described people lying on the floor in severe pain, in agony, but they weren’t asking for pain relief. They were asking for water,” she said.

“It’s beyond belief that the world is allowing this to continue.”

Despite 11 weeks of attacks against it, Hamas said it had still been able to fire a salvo of rockets towards Israel’s commercial capital Tel Aviv, where sirens sounded.

There was no immediate word of casualties or damage. REUTERS