Houthis target Saudi Arabia amid escalating Iran conflict

Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday their forces stopped four ships attempting to transit the strategic Strait of Hormuz over the past 24 hours.

"Four vessels that had intended to transit through the southern area of the Strait of Hormuz via an illegal and unsafe route were stopped over the past 24 hours after warning shots were fired by the IRGC Navy," the Guards said in a statement quoted by state television, adding that the ships had "altered course".

Iran has in recent weeks hit tankers using a route hugging the Omani coast to traverse the strait, in a bid to strongarm vessels into using its own waters and pay for safe passage.

Key developments so far:

• Israeli forces detained dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Tal after a deadly clash with armed Israeli settlers left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead.

• Netanyahu vowed a strong response, including demolitions and expanding settlement construction.

• UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Israel to respect Syria’s sovereignty during a visit to Damascus, as tensions continue over Israeli military presence in the Golan buffer zone.

• Israeli strikes in Gaza killed senior police official Abdel-Nasser Al-Maqadma and a Palestinian medic, according to Gaza authorities.

• Houthis claimed attacks on Saudi oil facilities and threatened further escalation, while Iran called for dialogue.

• A tanker incident was reported near the Strait of Hormuz amid rising US-Iran tensions, though Iran reported no new overnight strikes.

• Iraq shot down a drone near the US consulate in Erbil, while a bus crash in Syria killed at least 35 people.

Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, after at least four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in a shootout when armed Israeli settlers approached a Palestinian village.

Palestinian authorities in the West Bank said Friday's shootings were provoked by the settlers who aimed to attack villagers in Tal, southwest of Nablus.

The Israeli military initially described the Israeli civilians involved in the incident as hikers, but later acknowledged some were armed and said both sides had opened fire before troops intervened.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to take "powerful action" in response to the incident, including demolishing the home of the family of one of the Palestinians involved. Netanyahu's office said he would accelerate the approval of construction of more Israeli settlements in the area.

Walid Zidan, the mayor of Tal, said around 70 people from the village had been detained and questioned at a field interrogation centre set up in a house in the village. Around 10 to 12 had been released so far, he told Reuters by telephone.

"House raids are continuing, army patrols are driving through the streets, and there is no movement of people in the streets," he said.

Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers live among millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, which Israel captured in a war in 1967. Nearly all countries and UN bodies consider such settlements illegal under international law. Israel disputes this, citing biblical and historical ties to the land.

Recent months have seen a sharp increase in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday called for an end to Israeli violations in Syria and urged international support for the country's transition on his first visit under the new authorities following years of civil war.

Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where they deployed in 2024 after the ouster of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad.

Guterres is the first UN chief to visit Syria since his predecessor Ban Ki-moon in 2009, two years before the start of Syria's war, which went on to kill more than half a million people before the new Islamist authorities took power.

"We underscore the importance of fully respecting Syria's sovereignty, independence, unity, and territorial integrity," Guterres told a press conference.

"Violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity are unacceptable and must cease. What is happening in the region around the Golan Heights is totally unacceptable," he said, adding: "I'd like to remind the international community that the Golan Heights are Syrian territory."

After Assad's overthrow, Israel sent troops into the UN-patrolled buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan for decades, and has carried out strikes and repeated incursions deeper into Syrian territory.

Israeli officials have said they intend to keep forces in a "security zone" in southern Syria.

Iraqi air defences shot down a drone near the U.S. consulate in the Kurdistan Region capital of Erbil on Saturday, Reuters reports- citing security sources.

The death toll in Saturday's crash between two passenger buses in a central-eastern desert region of Syria has risen to 35, state media said.

News agency SANA, quoting a health ministry official, said 30 more were injured, after earlier reporting a preliminary toll of 19 dead.

The interior ministry said one of the buses was carrying a number of security personnel.

Yemen's Houthi rebels said on Saturday they had targeted Saudi Arabia's oil facilities on the Red Sea coast, as the Tehran-backed group threatened to intensify its response if struck by the Gulf monarchy.

IN a video statement, military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had targeted sites operated by the Saudi oil giant Aramco in Jizan and Yanbu using drones and missiles and threatened "to expand our movements and escalate... during the coming hours and days".

 An Israeli airstrike on Saturday killed the head of the police force in the northern Gaza Strip, Brigadier-General Abdel-Nasser Al-Maqadma, the group-run interior ministry and medics said.

Medics and the interior ministry said Maqadma, known also as the governor of northern Gaza Strip, was killed by an Israeli airstrike in the Sheikh Radwan area north of Gaza City.

In a separate incident, another Israeli strike killed a Palestinian medic in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, medics said. They added that a police officer, wounded by an Israeli airstrike last week, died on Saturday.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on any of the incidents.

Israel has killed dozens of members of the police force, including senior officials, in the past months, accusing many of them of being members of the Hamas armed wing who posed imminent threats to Israel and its forces inside Gaza.

Hamas says Israeli attacks on the police force and its headquarters are intended to sow chaos and anarchy in the enclave and violate the U.S.-brokered October ceasefire.

The latest deaths add to a toll of more than 1,180 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza health officials.

An incident involving a tanker and unspecified military forces was reported on Saturday near the Strait of Hormuz waterway, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations monitor.

"UKMTO have received a report of an incident involving a tanker and military forces in the Gulf of Oman," the agency said in a statement, as the United States and Iran battle over the Gulf chokepoint, which is crucial for international oil and gas shipping.

Iran reported no strikes overnight into Saturday, an apparent break from nearly two weeks of consecutive nights of U.S. attacks, but tensions remain high following a recent escalation over control of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Health Ministry spokesperson Hossein Kermanpour posted on X, saying that “Iran had a peaceful night,” without any attacks reported. The U.S. Central Command didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

However, unlike the previous 13 nights, it did not announce new strikes.

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Saturday there was no military solution to the escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen after both sides traded attacks.

"We believe that there is no military solution to the issue of Yemen, Bab al-Mandab, and other regional issues," said Araghchi in an interview published on Saturday by the state-run Iran Daily newspaper, calling for "dialogue".

He said the situation in Yemen "cannot be attributed to Iran" and that the incidents occurring in the area of the Bab al-Mandab Strait were "rooted in old disputes and issues between Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the countries of the region".

Renewed conflict between the Houthis in Yemen and Saudi Arabia -- which had largely been frozen since a UN-negotiated truce in 2022 -- flared up this month with the Tehran-backed rebels declaring a blockade of Saudi ports and claiming attacks on tankers.

The blockade has threatened Saudi Arabia's ability to get its supplies to the world following Iran's parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the kingdom's only other maritime route.

On Friday, a Houthi spokesman said the rebels were not blocking traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and that the maritime blockade "only affects the Saudi side".

Syrian state media said at least 19 people were killed on Saturday when two buses collided in the central-eastern region of the country.

State television reported "the death of 19 people and the injury of 27 others in a preliminary toll from a collision of two passenger buses on the Damascus-Deir Ezzor road between the Sukhna and Palmyra areas," while the interior ministry said the crash was between "a bus carrying a number of internal security forces personnel and a civilian bus".

The Palestinian Authority's presidency on Friday condemned violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank after a clash that left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' office said it "condemns Israeli colonists' terrorism across (the) West Bank", according to a statement published by the official news agency Wafa.

"The Presidency denounced in particular the killing of four Palestinians by colonists... and subsequent attacks by colonists on civilians and their property in the towns and villages of Urif, Surra, Imatin, Far'ata, Umriha, and Masafer Yatta" later on Friday, the statement added.

The Houthi movement announced on Saturday that its recent naval blockade against Saudi Arabia is reportedly the first step towards a "blockade-for-blockade" campaign, according to the group's spokesperson.

According to al-Masirah TV, citing Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdelsalam, Riyadh launched economic pressure and military action due to what the official described as the failure of the eight-year war in Yemen.

Abdelsalam further alleged that the Gulf kingdom is aiming to recover its losses via an economic blockade.

He also claimed that Saudi Arabia was a perpetuator of the devastating conflict by targeting Hodeidah, Kamaran Island and Sanaa airport.

The spokesperson of the Iran-backed group added that Riyadh's actions will be met with a response which will have grave reprecussions for Saudi Arabia's economy and security.

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Tell on Saturday buried four men killed during a clash with Israeli settlers in the village the previous day, local officials said.

"Families of the four martyrs held a common funeral early this morning, around 1:00 am (2200 GMT), but the army restricted who could attend and only about 30 people were able to be there," Walid Zidan, head of the Tell village council, told AFP news agency.

On Friday, about 20 Israelis from a nearby settlement entered the village and clashed with residents of Tell defending their property, Zidan told AFP.

A Palestinian villager seized an Israeli's weapon and shot dead one settler, leading an emergency response team from a nearby settlement to rush to the scene and more gunfire that left four Palestinians and a second Israeli dead, the Israeli military said.

Israeli forces closed gates and checkpoints throughout the West Bank, severely obstructing movement, AFP reported.

By the time of the funeral, movement was still restricted, and Zidan told AFP that the military was still present in the village Saturday morning, having detained 51 residents for questioning, and released just six.

Ghassan Daghlas, the governor of the Nablus region, which includes Tell, was able to attend the funeral.

"Daghlas participated in the funeral procession of the martyrs from the village of Tell, amid a large public turnout of residents from the village and across Nablus Governorate," his office said in a statement.

In the statement posted on Facebook, a photo of the funeral showed the four deceased Palestinians' bodies still on stretchers and wrapped in Palestinian flags.

A Mozambique-flagged LPG tanker carrying 28 Indian crew members was attacked in Iranian territorial waters, the Indian embassy in Tehran said.

All Indian crew members are safe and the embassy is in contact with the authorities, it said in a statement posted on X.

The vessel, named Disha, was attacked by an unknown missile near the Strait of Hormuz while en route to the Persian Gulf, the Forward Seamen's Union of India, a trade union representing Indian maritime workers, said on X.

The Strait of Hormuz, between Iran and Oman, was the main transit route for around a fifth of global energy supplies before the conflict erupted in Iran.

Tensions have escalated since a fragile truce between Washington and Tehran collapsed in early July, ​reviving heavy exchanges of​strikes and further ⁠disrupting shipping through the waterway

An air defence system operated by Greek military personnel in Saudi Arabia intercepted two ballistic missiles launched from Yemen on Saturday towards oil refineries in Yanbu, Greek security sources told Reuters news agency.

Saudi Civil Defence had issued an emergency alert in Yanbu to warn residents of danger.

"The attack was launched with two ballistic missiles and targeted the refineries in Yanbu," one of the sources said, adding that the missiles had been launched from Yemen.

A second source confirmed the interception of the missiles.

Greece has deployed a US-made Patriot air defence battery, operated by Greek personnel, in Saudi Arabia since 2021 under an agreement to help protect the kingdom's energy infrastructure.

Saturday's interception was the second time that Greek personnel had operated the system.

The US military said Friday it had fired on and disabled a tanker ship that was attempting to evade the American blockade on Iranian ports.

"We disabled the tanker after the crew attempted to run the blockade at least four times prior," Navy Captain Tim Hawkins, spokesman for US Central Command, told news agency AFP.

"The crew was repeatedly warned, didn't comply, and US forces on scene disabled the ship after firing into its engine room," he said. "The ship is no longer transiting to Iran."

Follow The New Arab's live coverage for the latest developments from Iran, Israel, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and across the wider Middle East.

The Middle East conflict continues to escalate as Iran-backed Houthi rebels claim they launched a missile strike on the Saudi city of Jizan, opening a new front in a war that has already spread across the Gulf.

The attack comes after Saudi-led forces struck Houthi military targets in Yemen in response to the group's attacks on Red Sea shipping and its declared maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia.

Across the region, air raid sirens have sounded in Bahrain following reported Iranian attacks, while Tehran says it has targeted US military assets in several Gulf states.

Diplomatic efforts are also continuing, with China urging renewed negotiations between Washington and Tehran as fears grow that the conflict could widen further.