Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis said on Friday they had targeted Israel's cities of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon with a ballistic missile and a drone in support of Gaza and Lebanon.
The Israeli army said it had intercepted a missile that was fired from Yemen after sirens and explosions were heard early in the day.
The Houthi's military spokesperson said their operations won't halt in the coming days until Israel's offensives in Gaza and Lebanon stop.
"We will carry out more military operations against the Israeli enemy in victory for the blood of our brothers in Palestine and Lebanon," Yahya Sarea said in a televised speech.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 600 people in Lebanon since Monday, with the conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah at its most intense in more than 18 years. (Reuters)
Lebanese health minister Firass Abiad said 25 people have been killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon since the early hours of Friday, reports Reuters.
Well over 30,000 people, mainly Syrians, have crossed into Syria from Lebanon in the past 72 hours, the UN refugee agency said on Friday, amid an escalating conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah that has killed hundreds of people in Lebanon.
About 80% of those crossings are Syrians and about 20% are Lebanese, said the UNHCR representative in Syria, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, adding that about half are children and adolescents, and that men are making the crossing in smaller numbers than women.
"They are crossing from a country at war to one that has faced a crisis conflict for 13 years," an extremely difficult choice, he told a news conference.
"We will have to see over the next few days how many more do so," added the representative. (Reuters)
Chains of volunteers spoon rice and vegetables into meal containers while others stir huge pots of boiling rice, as a soup kitchen in Beirut struggles to keep up with demand from displaced people escaping Israeli strikes.
Josephine Abu Abdo, a chef and one of the founders of Nation Station, said the kitchen is serving 700 meals a day and is at maximum capacity, but she then hears 1,000 meals are needed.
"The challenge is that we can't keep up. We feel like we are just a drop in the ocean," Abu Abdo said, while a team of volunteers of different ages from all over Lebanon hurriedly packaged up food.
Nation Station was founded to help victims of the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion, growing from a team of five to a hundred over time. It serves some traditional Lebanese dishes, such as zucchini stuffed with rice and meat, bulgur and tomato, vegetable soup and cabbage salad.
When the Israeli strikes across Lebanon intensified on Monday, forcing around 40,000 into shelters within days, the volunteers cooked more food without any funding, distributing it as an emergency response to the centres housing the displaced. (Reuters)
Israel rejected proposals on Thursday for a ceasefire with Hezbollah, defying allies including the United States which had called for an immediate three-week halt in fighting to allow for diplomacy to avert a wider war.
"There will be no ceasefire in the north," Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X. "We will continue to fight against the Hezbollah terrorist organization with all our strength until victory and the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes."
The comments dashed hopes for a swift settlement, after Prime Minister Najib Mikati had expressed hope that a ceasefire could be reached soon in Lebanon, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes seeking safety.
World leaders voiced concern that the conflict - running in parallel to Israel's war in Gaza - was escalating rapidly.
The heaviest fighting in nearly two decades between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group has raised fears of a new Israeli ground offensive across the Lebanese-Israeli frontier. (Reuters)