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Yemen's Houthi rebels say Saudi-backed forces launched airstrikes, and other key Mideast news
Yemen's Houthi rebels say Saudi-backed forces launched airstrikes, and other key Mideast news
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Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said Wednesday that Saudi-backed forces had launched dozens of airstrikes overnight across four Yemeni provinces, after rebel attacks on Saudi Arabia ignited fires at several oil facilities and wounded dozens of people.
Separately, Iranian state media said that Iranian forces struck several tankers and two U.S. ships in retaliation for U.S. strikes on Iranian ships on Tuesday. The U.S. military denied that American warships were hit.
Here’s a look at the latest news in the Middle East. Full coverage can be found here.
According to Iranian state media, the country's forces had struck eight oil tankers and two U.S. vessels in retaliation for U.S. strikes on five Iranian tankers on Tuesday, and that it had also targeted another 10 ships attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
In a social media post, the U.S. Central Command said the claim that Iran's Revolutionary Guard had struck two U.S. Navy warships was false and that all “attempted attacks failed.”
The government of Iraq said that a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker was struck early Wednesday by an unidentified source off its coast in the northern Persian Gulf. Iraq’s Transport Ministry said that there were no casualties.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center, which reports maritime incidents, said that there were strikes “involving several merchant vessels” in the northern Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The UKMTO said it couldn't confirm whether there were casualties.
The U.S. Central Command said in a social media post Tuesday that it destroyed five Iranian crude oil tankers after Tehran fired missiles at a U.S. warship twice over two days.
The ongoing conflict pushed the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil past $100 on Wednesday.
Houthi spokesman Nasruddin Amer said on X on Wednesday that Saudi-backed forces had launched 32 airstrikes overnight across Yemen’s provinces of Taiz, Hodeida, Jawf and Marib. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
Saudi authorities didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The strikes come a day after Houthi attacks on several oil facilities and utilities in Saudi Arabia wounded 73 people, in a major escalation in the renewed conflict between an important U.S. ally and the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen. They follow weeks of intensifying clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces.
Four bodies were recovered Wednesday from a Houthi-run prison hit by an airstrike earlier this week in northern Yemen, the Houthis said, raising the death toll from that strike to 23 people.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry called on the Houthis “to put an end to their aggressive actions immediately.” Last month, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a defense agreement that would treat an attack on one as an attack on all three.
The U.N. atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council for the first time in 20 years, saying Tehran failed to cooperate in an investigation into uranium traces detected at various undeclared sites.
Twenty-three countries on the IAEA’s board of governors supported the resolution put forward by France, Germany, the U.K. and U.S. It was opposed by China, Niger and Russia.
Since Israel and the U.S. struck Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025, Iran hasn’t given IAEA inspectors access to the affected sites. Western officials suspect that the uranium traces could provide further evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program until 2003.
Iran says that it’s not pursuing nuclear weapons, and its program is entirely peaceful.
Reza Najafi, Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. in Vienna, rejected the resolution and described it as a “political tool, not a technical document.”
Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday wounded at least nine people and reduced buildings to rubble in various areas.
Awda Hospital said that it received the wounded after strikes hit a house in Nuseirat in the central part of the territory.
The Israeli military confirmed it carried out strikes in Nuseirat, the Daraj Tuffah area and on Shati refugee camp. Associated Press video showed the moment an Israeli rocket struck the refugee camp, triggering a huge blast.
Asked by reporters whether the U.S. knows which countries are aiding Iran in the ongoing war, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declined to name any. But he said he doesn’t believe that foreign assistance is helping Tehran in any meaningful way.
“We don’t believe anybody is giving Iran anything that’s changing the dynamics or the parameters of what we’re seeing,” Rubio said while traveling in Ecuador. “At the end of the day, they continue to fire on naval ships and when they fire at our naval ships, they pay a price in tankers."
He added, “In the meantime, we’re going to continue to strangle them economically.”
Israel plans to shutter the British Consulate in Jerusalem within a month, an Israeli official told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss information from closed-door meetings.
The 30-day clock started Tuesday when Israel announced a series of measures — from closing the consulate to banning certain British officials from the country — in response to the U.K.’s decision to ban trade with settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The British Consulate didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
