By lgocl 
TEL AVIV/GAZA — Yemen’s Houthi militia on Monday blamed Washington for around 10 strikes in and about the capital Sanaa after a missile fired by the group struck the area of Israel’s main airport.
The Houthi-run Saba news agency said the strikes included two targeting Arbaeen Street in the capital as well as one on the airport road, blaming them on “American aggression”.
The group’s health ministry said 14 people were wounded in the Sawan neighborhood, according to Saba.
The missile fired from Yemen by the Houthis landed near the main terminal of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, wounding six people.
The military confirmed that the attack, which gouged a large crater in the perimeter of the airport, had struck despite “several attempts …to intercept the missile”.
In a video published on Telegram, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had in the past “acted against” the group and “will act in the future”.
“It will not happen in one bang, but there will be many bangs,” he added, without elaborating.
Later on X, Netanyahu said Israel would also respond to Iran as he saw the attack was Iran-backed, at “a time and place of our choosing”.
Iran on Monday rejected accusations of its involvement in attacks on Israel by the Houthis.
In a statement released early on Monday, the Iranian Foreign Ministry described the repetition of such “baseless” claims as an “affront to the powerful but oppressed” Yemeni nation.
The statement highlighted Iran’s position on the necessity to respect countries’ territorial integrity and national sovereignty, and condemned US military attacks on Yemen as a “flagrant violation” of the UN Charter and international law.
On Sunday, several international airlines suspended flights to Israel following the attack, and hours later the Houthis promised more such strikes and warned airlines to cancel their flights to Israeli airports.
A police video showed officers standing on the edge of a deep hole in the ground with a control tower visible behind them. No damage was reported to airport infrastructure.
An AFP photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport’s largest.
The Houthis, who control swathes of Yemen, have launched missiles and drones targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza conflict.
US strikes on the group began under former president Joe Biden, but have intensified under his successor Donald Trump.
Truce deadlock
Israel resumed major operations across Gaza on March 18 amid a deadlock over how to proceed with a two-month ceasefire that had largely stopped the fighting.
Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to expand military operations in Gaza, including the “conquest” of the Palestinian territory and a push for its residents to leave, an official said on Monday.
The decision, made overnight, came hours after the military announced it was calling up tens of thousands of reservists to expand its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“The plan will include, among other things, the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories, moving the Gaza population south for their protection,” the official said.
An Israeli campaign group said the new plan for expanded military operations in Gaza is “sacrificing “hostages held in the Palestinian territory.
“The plan approved by the cabinet deserves to be called the ‘Smotrich-Netanyahu Plan’ for sacrificing the hostages,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said of the plan adopted by Israel’s security cabinet. Bezalel Smotrich is Israel’s foreign minister.
In the West Bank, the Israeli military has been carrying out an operation in the West Bank over the past several months that displaced, at its height, about 40,000 Palestinians.
It had emptied and largely destroyed several urban refugee camps in the northern West Bank, such as Tulkarem and Nur Shams, that housed the descendants of Palestinians who fled or were driven from their homes in previous wars.
In a latest move, Israeli forces prepared to carry out home demolitions across two northern urban refugee camps, according to the governor of one of the camps and Israeli military documents shared with The Associated Press by the United Nations. The decision triggered widespread criticism in the West Bank.
Agencies – Xinhua