JERUSALEM—Israel bombed a Syrian coastal city on Thursday and the United States conducted multiple strikes on targets in Yemen nearly a month into Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Syria, the Huthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza all belong to the so-called axis of resistance led by Iran, which on October 1 conducted a missile strike on Israel.
Israel has vowed to retaliate for the strike, sparking concern around the world that what is already a war on multiple fronts could morph into an all-out regional conflict.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief on Thursday warned Tehran would hit Israel “painfully” if it attacks Iranian targets.
“If you make a mistake and attack our targets, whether in the region or in Iran, we will strike you again painfully,” Hossein Salami said in a speech.
Salami was speaking at the funeral of a Guards general who was killed in an Israeli strike on south Beirut last month that also killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah.
According to Syrian state media, a rare Israeli strike on the city of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar al-Assad, wounded two civilians.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the Israeli raid “targeted a weapons depot in Latakia city”.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the Latakia bombing when contacted by AFP.
Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria in recent years, including multiple attacks along the Lebanese border that seek to cut off Hezbollah’s main weapons and equipment supply route from Iran to Lebanon.
In Huthi-controlled areas of Yemen, Israel’s main ally the United States conducted multiple B-2 bomber strikes on weapon storage facilities, according to the US military and defence department.
“US forces targeted several of the Huthis’ underground facilities housing various weapons components of types that the Huthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement.
The B-2 is a stealth aircraft capable of flying non-stop from the United States, with a payload of 40,000 pounds of bombs, the US Air Force says on its website. That is a far heavier weapons load than on most other modern warplanes.
The United States supports Israel, though it has put its ally under pressure over the civilian toll of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Hamas, which rules Gaza, sparked the war with Israel when it attacked on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
