Gaza live: Dozens killed and wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza and Yemen

Here are some of Abdel-Malik al-Houthi’s translated comments:

• The Israeli enemy found itself in a problem and faced with a new equation and failed miserably
• The enemy is no longer safe, even in what is called Tel Aviv, and the threat will continue
• Penetrating the enemy’s capital with a drone upset him and is considered a new stage in our armed operations
• The longer the aggression on the Gaza Strip continues, we will move toward a new phase, and the Battle of Jaffa came within this framework
• The enemy was unable to stop or weaken our operations, which escalated and developed
• The enemy’s direct entry into the aggression against our country will not restore deterrence, but rather will contribute to escalation and challenge

The Houthis will continue attacking Israel without adhering to any rules of engagement, the group’s spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam told Al Jazeera.

Abdulsalam stated that there would be “no red lines” in their response to Israel.

“All sensitive institutions at all levels will be targets for us,” he said.

Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi forces in Yemen, declared that the drone attack in Tel Aviv marked “the fifth stage” in their “escalation against Israel.”

He stated that the operation aimed “to exert pressure to stop the aggression in Gaza as the war enters its tenth month.”

He also emphasised that “attacks on civilian facilities will not deter us."

The Houthi-launched drone that struck Tel Aviv early on Friday morning travelled more than 2,600km, according to an Israeli Air Force investigation reported by The Times of Israel.

The modified Samad-3 drone took an indirect flight path, likely causing air defence troops to miss it as a threat. As a result, it was not intercepted and struck a residential building in Tel Aviv.

It is past 6pm in Gaza, and here is your afternoon update on the latest developments in the region.

• Palestinian health officials said Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed at least 64 people in the last 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 38,983 Palestinians since 7 October.
• Yemen continues to reel from Saturday night's Israeli strikes on the port city of Hodeidah. The local health ministry confirmed that the strikes killed at least six civilians.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drafted a response to this week's ICJ advisory opinion without consulting Israel's attorney general.
• Israel is set to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men after the Supreme Court ruled that the draft should include the Haredim, ending a 76-year exemption.
• Palestinian NGOs reported that Israeli forces have imprisoned dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Lebanese photojournalist Christina Assi, who was severely injured during an Israeli strike on the border with Lebanon, carried the Olympic torch on Sunday to honour all journalists wounded and killed in the field.

Last October, Israeli forces shelled the Lebanese border, injuring Assi while she was reporting on the escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. The attack left Assi wheelchair-bound after part of her left leg was amputated. 

The same Israeli attack that injured Assi also killed Reuters photojournalist Issam Abdallah. 

Nearly a hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews have blocked a highway to protest against the Israeli government’s push to draft them into the army.

According to Israeli Army radio, the group of ultra-Orthodox Jews blocked an intersection near a recruitment office in Tel HaShomer, a neighbourhood in northern Israel.

Earlier, the Times of Israel reported that the government was scheduled to send out 1,000 draft orders to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu filed a draft statement rejecting the ICJ's advisory opinion without consulting Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, according to Haaretz. 

Haaretz reported that the draft was written without the input of the attorney general and the attached legal opinion was written by Talia Einhorn, a professor of law at Ariel University.

“The people of Israel are not occupiers in their own land and in their eternal capital, Jerusalem," the document reads. 

The draft decision said: "Israel rejects the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, that blatantly ignored the natural and historic right of the Jewish people over the state of Israel, that was recognised in International law."

The statement further asserts that the ICJ opinion ignores the right of Israeli citizens to settle in any part of the land, citing "accepted international legal principles regarding territories that did not have a foreign sovereign" and "Israel's duty and right for self-defence and safe boundaries".

Yemen’s health ministry confirmed that Israel's strike on Saturday killed six people in the port city of Hodeidah.

Health ministry spokesperson Anis al-Asbahi told the Saba news agency that all the victims were civilians and that three people remain missing.

Asbahi added that 83 people faced severe injuries from the Israeli strike

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry said it was following events in Yemen with “great concern” after Israel struck the Houthi-controlled city of Hodeidah on Saturday. 

In a statement posted on X, Riyadh said: “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is following with great concern the developments of the military escalation in Yemen after the Israeli attacks that took place in Hodeidah governorate on Saturday, July 20, 2024, which double the current tension in the region and harm the ongoing efforts to end the war on Gaza.”

The Times of Israel reports that Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, described potential U.S. plans to sanction him as politically motivated.

“This is an unfortunate decision that stems from the internal political needs of those who claim to lead the largest democracy in the world and operate with distinctly anti-democratic tools against a brave partner who is the only democracy in the Middle East,” said Smotrich. 

“[Imposing sanctions] constitutes a fatal injury to Israeli sovereignty and relations between the countries, and this will have serious consequences in many areas.” 

Commenting on his role in the Israeli settler movement in the occupied West Bank, Smotrich said he was proud of his efforts to “prevent the establishment of a terrorist state that would endanger the existence of the state of Israel", adding, "I am ready to pay the price for that".

The Palestinian Prisoners Club reported that Israeli forces arrested at least 26 Palestinians over the past two days across the occupied West Bank.

Among those arrested are Ibtihal Amar, a student and the daughter of imprisoned journalist Nawaf al-Amar, and journalist Hamza Jaber.

Since the beginning of the war, Israeli forces have arrested at least 9,750 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the NGO. 

The Israeli army will begin drafting members of the ultra-Orthodox community, or Haredim, on Sunday, ending a 76-year exemption from military service.

Local media outlets report that the army will issue 3,000 draft orders to ultra-Orthodox men aged 18 to 26  on Sunday, with enlistment set to begin in 2025. 

The call-up follows a unanimous ruling by Israel's Supreme Court stating that ultra-Orthodox men can no longer be exempt from enlisting in the army. 

Israeli settlers injured one Palestinian and a foreign activist in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency.

Eyewitnesses told Wafa that Palestinians had gathered to clear weeds and plough land close to the village when Israeli settlers began assaulting them with batons and shoes

Wafa said there was a rise in settler attacks over the last year throughout the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israeli strikes killed at least 64 people and injured 105 others in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

The ministry also reported that the death toll since October 7 has risen to 38,983, with 89,727 injured in Gaza.

Our live coverage from Gaza will shortly be closing until tomorrow morning.

Here are some of the day's key developments:

• At least 12 reportedly killed by Israelis strikes on Gaza

• The official spokesperson for the Houthis, Nasruddin Amer, described the Israeli airstrike on the oil tanks and power facility at Hodeidah port as "a brutal act of aggression against Yemen aimed at worsening the suffering of its people and pressuring Yemen to halt its support for Gaza"

• At least 80 peopl wounded in Israeli strikes in Yemen, there have not been any reported deaths

• The Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz claimed that the attack on the Houthi port of Hodeidah “delivered a severe blow to the Iranian-backed terror organisation in Yemen”

• Israeli strikes on Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah will be met with “escalation,” an official of the Houthi movement said, warning Israel will “pay the price.”

• The United States alleged that the ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) makes it difficult to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

• The United Nation's top court ruled that Israel's 57-year occupation of Palestinian land is illegal, a decision that aligns closely with European Union (EU) positions, said the EU's bloc’s Foreign Policy chief, Josep Borrell

• Israel's army radio reported that the country's military struck the southern Lebanese town of Aadloun, located between Tyre and Sidon, more than 30 km from the Israeli border

• Pakistan announced the formation of a committee to identify companies to boycott for supporting Israel