Houthi strikes set fire to Saudi oil sites and wound 73, plus other key Mideast news

A wave of Houthi attacks ignited fires at several oil facilities and utilities in Saudi Arabia’s southern region, injuring at least 73 people, officials said.

The attacks early Tuesday marked a major escalation in the renewed conflict between an important U.S. ally and the Iranian-backed rebels in Yemen. They follow weeks of intensifying clashes between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen, which shattered a four-year truce in the country’s civil war.

The flare-up brings further instability to a region scarred by nearly three years of wars and threatens to squeeze shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a critical trade route that has helped cushion the blow from Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz.

The attacks hit “civilian and economic facilities” in the Saudi cities of Abha, Jazan, Najran and Khamis Mushait, said Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

UK announces Israeli settlement sanctions

The U.K. announced it is banning trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying an expansion program there is endangering efforts to establish a Palestinian state.

British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said that “settler terrorists” are carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. He said the U.K. will ban imports of all goods from the settlements as well as some services.

Israel will close the British consulate in Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Tuesday. He said Israel will also expel U.K. representatives from a joint military center monitoring the Gaza ceasefire and end U.K. training of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s government has presided over a surge of settlement construction in the West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state.

The international community considers the settlements illegal or illegitimate, and the Palestinians say they are the main barrier to lasting peace. Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.

Iran says it seized a US underwater drone

Iran’s navy captured one of the U.S. military’s underwater drones at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, Iranian state television reported, saying the unmanned vessel had been “seized as a prize.”

Asked about the report, U.S. Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said that an Anduril Dive-LD drone malfunctioned “more than a day ago” while surveying waters in the region and that the U.S. military no longer had possession of it.

Hawkins said the drone was a defective, older model that “neither collected sensitive data nor carried any classified sonar or radar equipment.”

“It was in a commercially available configuration so we aren’t concerned,” Hawkins said.

A child is among 2 people killed by gunfire in Gaza

A child was among at least two people killed on Tuesday by Israeli troops in Gaza, according to hospital officials.

A 10-year-old boy died after forces opened fire near tents sheltering displaced Palestinians east of Khan Younis, according to Nasser Hospital. It said Israeli fire also killed a 69-year-old man south of Khan Younis.

Hospital officials said both victims died on the Palestinian side of the “yellow line” that separates areas of Gaza occupied by the Israeli military. Palestinians near the dividing line have faced heightened danger from Israeli fire.

Separately, an Israeli strike in Nuseirat refugee camp wounded 10 people, Al-Awda Hospital said.

Residents in several areas said they received evacuation warnings, followed by strikes in Khan Younis, Bureij refugee camp and Gaza City.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attacks.

US imposes more sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector

The Trump administration on Tuesday imposed additional sanctions on Iran’s aviation industry, targeting three dozen commercial and private airlines and foreign cargo service providers in its new push to isolate Tehran from trading partners.

The new penalties are part of the White House’s “Operation Economic Outcast” campaign aimed at severing the Iranian government’s financial lifelines. They focus on the remaining facets of Tehran’s aviation industry, which Washington has heavily sanctioned for years.

The U.S. accused 36 entities targeted this week of supporting Iran’s efforts to use its aviation sector to move weapons, personnel, and illicit cargo.

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This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.

The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

Houthi strikes set fire to Saudi oil sites and wound 73, plus other key Mideast news

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