The Israeli Defense Minister admitted for the first time that Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
Israel Katz made these statements in a speech in which he pledged to target the leaders of the Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen, which is launching missiles and drones at Israel.
Haniyeh was killed in a building where he was staying in the Iranian capital in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said some progress had been made toward agreeing a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas, but he was unable to set a timeline for when an agreement would be reached.
This comes after a senior Palestinian official told the BBC that Talks between Hamas and Israel are 90% complete.But major issues remained.
In his speech, Katz said that Israel would “strongly strike” the Houthis and “decapitate” their leadership.
“Just as we did with Haniyeh, (Yahya) Sinwar, and (Hassan) Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon, we will do so in Hodeidah and Sanaa,” he said, referring to the Hezbollah and Hamas leaders who were all killed. this year.
Haniyeh (62 years old) was widely considered the overall leader of the Hamas movement and played a major role in the negotiations aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
After his assassination, Hamas appointed Yahya Sinwar, its leader in Gaza and one of the main planners of the October 7 attacks, as commander-in-chief of the group.
It was Sinwar He was killed by the Israeli army in an accidental confrontation in Gaza in October The group is still in the process of selecting a new leader.
Meanwhile, Hassan Nasrallah was the leader of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group He was assassinated in Beirut last September With Israel significantly escalating its military campaign against Hezbollah, with which it has been exchanging daily fire across the border since the day after the October 7 attacks.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed rebel group that controls northwestern Yemen, began attacking Israeli and international ships in the Red Sea shortly after Israel began targeting Hamas in Gaza last October.
The group pledged to continue the war until the war in Gaza ends.
The Israeli army said on Saturday that it had tried to shoot down the plane A missile launched from Yemen It didn't work, and the missile hit a park in Tel Aviv. A Houthi spokesman said that the group struck a military target using a hypersonic ballistic missile.
Last week, Israel launched strikes against what it said were Houthi military targets. Hitting ports as well as energy infrastructure In the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. The US and UK also attacked Houthi targets as part of an operation to protect international shipping.
Hamas attacked Israel in October last year, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage.
In response, Israel launched a military campaign to destroy Hamas in Gaza, which lasted for more than a year and resulted in the deaths of 45,317 people according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Strip.
Hamas officials said that this number includes 58 people killed in Israeli attacks during the past 24 hours. Local medical officials said that at least 11 people were killed in three separate raids on the Al-Mawasi area, which the Israeli army described as a “safe zone.” Israel said it targeted a Hamas fighter.
Israel announced on Monday that three of its soldiers were killed in the northern Gaza Strip.
Humanitarian and human rights groups warned of a catastrophic situation for civilians in Gaza.
Oxfam said on Sunday that only 12 trucks had distributed food and water in northern Gaza over the past two and a half months and blamed the Israeli army for “deliberate delay and systematic obstruction.”
“For three of these schools, once food and water were delivered to the school where people were sheltering, it was cleared and bombed within hours,” Oxfam added.
Israeli authorities said the report “deliberately and inaccurately” ignores “the extensive humanitarian efforts made by Israel in the northern Gaza Strip.”
Israel has insisted on sending specific shipments “including food, water and medical supplies” to the northern areas of Gaza, including Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia and Jabalia, where the IDF has for several months been carrying out a military operation it says is targeting Hamas fighters who have regrouped there.
The Oxfam report comes after human rights groups Amnesty International accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and Human Rights Watch accused Israel of committing “acts of genocide.” By deliberately denying Palestinian civilians in Gaza access to adequate water.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Amnesty International report as “completely false and based on lies,” while an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Human Rights Watch “is once again spreading its bloody lies… The truth is the exact opposite of Human Rights Watch’s lies.”
