Updates: Israel strikes Yemen, Trump says US will stop bombing Houthis

If you’d like to learn more about Israel’s vision for Gaza as it prepares for a new round of expanded military operations, you can take a look at maps showing how Israel’s control of the strip’s territory has shifted in recent months here.

Or, if you’d like to read about US President Donald Trump’s statement about a deal with the Houthi rebel group bringing United States strikes on Yemen to an end, you can read our coverage here.

We will be closing the live page soon. Here’s a brief review of the day’s main events:

• United States President Donald Trump said that he reached an agreement with the Houthi rebel group to end US strikes on Yemen, hours after Israel carried out attacks on the airport in the capital city of Sanaa.
• The Houthis have yet to confirm details of the agreement, and have said they would continue attacks on Israel in solidarity with Gaza.
• A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says that humanitarian operations in Gaza are “on the verge of shutting down” as an Israeli blockade plunges the Strip further into a humanitarian catastrophe and cuts off access to food, water, fuel and aid.
• Palestinians say they will refuse Israeli orders to leave their homes – after Netanyahu said that Gaza’s population would “be moved” as part of a new round of military operations aimed at setting up a permanent Israeli occupation of the Strip – which they see as a prelude to their permanent expulsion.

Trump says that three captives held by Hamas in Gaza have died, leaving only 21 believed to still be living.

“As of today, it’s 21, three have died,” Trump said of the captives, noting that until recently, it had been 24 people believed to be living. He did not elaborate on the identities of those now believed to be dead, nor how he had come to learn of their deaths.

“There’s 21, plus a lot of dead bodies,” he said.

US President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he is not planning on visiting Israel at the tail end of a trip next week to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

While the White House hadn’t confirmed that Israel would be part of his upcoming trip, there have been widespread rumours in diplomatic and national security circles that he would extend his trip to visit the US ally.

As Israel announces plans for expanded military operations in Gaza and Israeli officials say they will seek to expel Palestinians from the Strip en masse, Palestinians say they are exhausted and without options.

“They destroyed us, displaced us and killed us,” Enshirah Bahloul, a woman from the southern city of Khan Younis, told the Associated Press. “We want safety and peace in this world. We do not want to remain homeless, hungry and thirsty.”

Israel has also placed Gaza under a devastating blockade that has pushed the Strip into famine-like conditions and cut off access to life-saving humanitarian assistance.

“What should we do?” asked Sara Younis, a woman from the southernmost city of Rafah, as she waited for a hot meal for her children outside of a charity kitchen. “There’s no food, no flour, nothing.”

Mustapha Noman, Yemen’s former deputy foreign minister, told Al Jazeera that Israeli strikes have targeted civilian infrastructure and that the international community must do more to halt such attacks.

“Are the Israelis happy about doing all of this damage to the Yemeni people, and can that help their cause, or help them weaken the Houthis?” he asked. “I don’t think so, and it’s going to be something that the Yemeni people always remember.”

“The international community has to intervene and to make the Israelis understand that this is not helpful for the stability of the region or for the cause of the Yemenis,” he added.

Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has voiced “considerable concern” about the Gaza conflict and said he would send his foreign minister to Israel this weekend.

The conservative Merz, 69, long a strong supporter of Israel, said that Israel has a right to fight the Palestinian group Hamas but must follow international law.

Merz, who took office on Tuesday, said Germany’s new foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, would travel to Israel at the weekend and that “we are currently preparing this trip together”.

Speaking to public broadcaster ARD, Merz said: “We view the developments of the last few days with considerable concern.”

“Israel has the right to defend itself against the brutal attack by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and everything that followed,” said Merz.

“But Israel must also remain a country that lives up to its humanitarian obligations, especially as this terrible war is raging in the Gaza Strip, where this confrontation with Hamas terrorists is necessarily taking place.”

He added that “it must be clear that the Israeli government must fulfil its obligations under the international law of war and that humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip must be provided”.

If you’re just joining us, here’s a brief recap of the most recent developments.

• The Houthi rebel group in Yemen says strikes on Israel will continue and that there is “no turning back” from its support for Gaza.
• One person has been killed by an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon, according to media reports that cite the country’s Health Ministry.
• A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says that humanitarian operations in Gaza “are on the verge of shutting down” as Israel’s months-long blockade of the Strip continues to choke off access to vital food, water and aid.
• Gaza’s Government Media Office says that at least 22 people have been killed and 52 injured in an Israeli attack on a school sheltering displaced people in the Bureij refugee camp.

Columbia announced that it would lay off nearly 180 staff members after the Trump administration cut $400m from the US university for not going far enough to meet the government’s demands to crack down on pro-Palestine activism on campus.

“We have had to make deliberate, considered decisions about the allocation of our financial resources,” the university said. “Those decisions also impact our greatest resource, our people. We understand this news will be hard.”

The university has become a flashpoint in disputes over antiwar protests on college campuses across the US. In the name of combatting alleged anti-Semitism on campus, the government and many universities have taken harsh measures against student protesters.

Pro-Palestine groups say that criticism of Israel is being conflated with anti-Semitism to deny protesters civil liberties. The Trump administration has detained and is seeking to deport several pro-Palestine foreign students because of their criticism of Israel.

Adalah, a legal centre defending Palestinian rights in Israel, has petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to seek “an immediate freeze and cancellation” of home demolition orders targeting communities in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli army is targeting more than 100 homes and buildings in the Nur Shams and Tulkarem refugee camps, in the northern West Bank, Adalah said. The area has borne the brunt of an escalating campaign of Israeli military violence in recent months.

“This morning, the military began demolishing buildings in Nur Shams, reportedly destroying 18 structures,” Adalah said in a statement.

“The military ordered the demolition of approximately 104 civilian buildings, home to at least 1,000 people – primarily refugee families who have already been displaced and are currently sheltering in nearby towns. Most residents were never informed of the demolition orders and thus they were denied any opportunity to object, in violation of basic due process.”

Adalah has accused Israel – which has argued the demolitions are a matter of “military necessity” – of violating international humanitarian law, including prohibitions on the destruction of civilian property and collective punishment.

The Supreme Court ordered Israel to respond to Adalah’s petition by Wednesday, the rights group said.

The move means there will no longer be a distinct unit that deals with Palestinian affairs and has direct contact with Washington.

The US had for decades maintained a consulate – first in occupied East Jerusalem, then in West Jerusalem – that handled relations and was distinct from the US embassy in Tel Aviv. The consulate signalled to many the longstanding US support for a two-state solution.

But in 2019 during his first term, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, closed the consulate and created the Palestinian Affairs Unit, which was under the control of the US embassy in Israel.

In 2022, US President Joe Biden’s administration renamed the unit the Palestinian Affairs Office and re-established its direct contact with Washington.

The latest move means contacts between the unit and Washington will again need approval from top officials at the US embassy in Israel, The New York Times reported.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce played down the wider significance of Tuesday’s announcement, saying it reverted to policy back to where it was during Trump’s first term.

Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis’ supreme political council, issued a message of defiance in the face of Israel’s recent attacks, saying the Yemeni group will not abandon Gaza “no matter the cost”.

“What happened proves that our strikes are painful and will continue,” al-Mashat said, as quoted by the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV.

He warned that the Houthis’ response to Israel “will be devastating and painful”.

“No aggression will deter us from our decision to support Gaza until the aggression stops and the siege is lifted,” al-Mashat added.

The National News Agency reports one person has been killed in an Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon.

Three others were wounded in the attack on a car in Kfarreman, the news agency said, citing the country’s Health Ministry.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum says enormous explosions have been reported in eastern Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

He said while on-the-ground confrontations between Palestinian fighters and Israeli troops have declined, Israel has targeted residential areas and shelters with aerial bombings.

“[Palestinians] are realising that nowhere in Gaza is safe,” Abu Azzoum said.

Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, says the latest air strikes carried out on Israel’s and Yemen’s airports mark a “grave escalation in an already fragile and volatile regional context”.

He urged both sides “to show restraint”.

Israel has repeatedly targeted the rebels in Yemen. It struck Hodeidah and its oil infrastructure in July after a Houthi drone attack killed one person and wounded 10 in Tel Aviv.

In September, Israel struck Hodeidah again, killing at least four people after a missile targeted Ben Gurion airport as Netanyahu was returning to Israel.

In December, Israeli strikes killed at least nine people in Hodeidah.

Speaking to reporters, Farhan Haq, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, says humanitarian operations “are on the verge of shutting down” as fewer UN member states pressure Israel to allow aid access.

He noted the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs earlier said Israeli authorities continue to deny access to fuel reserves in some areas, including Rafah.

“For large portions of the population, the sort of things that we’ve been providing for the last year and a half are simply not available any more, either because of lack of food, lack of fuel or lack of facilities that are undamaged.”

Haq warned “more and more of our operations are shutting down.”