MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT LIVE UPDATES
U.S. forces launch new wave of strikes, hitting Iran-linked targets in Yemen
Updated February 3, 2024 at 6:36 p.m. EST|PublishedFebruary 3, 2024 at 2:05 a.m. EST
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President Biden has said that the U.S. response will continue “at times and places of our choosing.” The Friday strikes involved B-1 bombers flown from the United States, hitting more than 85 targets. Saturday’s attack targeted 13 sites “associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried” storage sites and weaponry, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
House Republicans are preparing to vote on a $17.6 billion bill next week that would bolster the Israeli military and U.S. defense forces in the region, potentially the second one sent to the Senate in three months.
Iraq said it would summon the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to protest the strikes on its territory. The Iraqi prime minister’s office said the attack killed 16 people and put “the region on the edge of the abyss,” adding that the United States had not coordinated with Iraq. Syria said the attack killed “a number” of military personnel and civilians, describing it as a “blatant air aggression.”
In an unusual showing of coordinated dissent, officials working in the United States, the European Union and 11 other countries signed a letter condemning their governments’ support for Israel’s war, which they said has “resulted in tens of thousands of preventable civilian deaths.”
In the letter, the civil servants called on their governments to hold Israel to “international humanitarian and human rights standards” and work to secure a cease-fire. Organizers said more than 800 had signed the letter, whose authenticity they confirmed on the condition of anonymity to avoid disciplinary action.
At least 27,238 people have been killed and 66,452 injured in the Gaza Strip since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
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