3 killed in Saudi airport attacks, olive harvesters shot in West Bank and other Mideast developments
Three people were killed at two Saudi airports in attacks claimed by Houthi rebels in neighboring Yemen as the war between the kingdom and the Iran-backed rebels escalated.
Israeli settlers opened fire
on olive harvesters in the occupied West Bank. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated that the goal of the Iran war is to prevent Iran from ever developing a nuclear weapon.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Wednesday. Read our full coverage here.
Houthis claim more attacks in Saudi Arabia
Attacks on Abha and Riyadh’s King Khalid international airports in Saudia Arabia threatened to pull the kingdom deeper into the latest front in the Iran war.
The attack on Abha airport killed Moroccan and Algerian residents and wounded 28 other people, while the attack on King Khalid airport killed a Sudanese national and wounded eight other people, the Saudi General Authority for Civil Aviation said.
The Saudis did not blame any party for the attacks but Houthi rebels took credit earlier for the airport strikes.
The spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, said forces intercepted a ballistic missile north of Riyadh and destroyed a platform in Yemen’s capital that had been used to launch attacks on the Saudi capital. The AP could not independently verify these claims.
The Houthis also said they launched a missile strike early Wednesday against Yemen’s port city of Aden, the seat of the internationally recognized government.
1 dead and 16 wounded as Israeli settlers fire on olive harvesters
Israeli settlers opened fire on olive harvesters in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, killing a Palestinian officer who responded to the attack and wounding 16, Palestinian officials said, the latest in a series of violent attacks since the harvest began this month.
Ali Hassan Yasser al-Bazzari, 44, was a member of the Palestinian National Security Forces who went to the Palestinian village of Burqa when news of the attack surfaced, said his cousin Abdul Latif al-Bazzari, who was also injured on site.
Sami Daghlas, a member of the Burqa village council, said that after the attack the Israeli military prevented emergency medical responders from reaching the injured for more than an hour.
The military went to the area after getting reports of an Israeli civilian injured by a rock. Several Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks were apprehended for questioning, the military said in a statement.
The Israeli military and police did not respond to questions about whether the person who shot and killed al-Bazzari had been arrested. Arrests following settler violence in the West Bank are rare, and convictions are rarer still.
In a second attack Wednesday, dozens of settlers chased olive harvesters from groves, forcing them to take shelter in a house near the village of Marda in the northern occupied West Bank, said Bassam Abdah, a former head of the village council.
Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at residents near the house and detained three people, Abdah said.
Five Palestinians have been killed and more than 100 injured this week in such attacks, according to Palestinian officials. They say Israelis have damaged thousands of trees, costing farmers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
‘Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,’ says Rubio
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there should be no confusion over the Trump administration’s ultimate goal in the Iran war: to prevent the Islamic Republic from ever developing a nuclear weapon.
Rubio made the comments Wednesday after Vice President JD Vance told Reuters that the administration might be able to accept an agreement calling for Iran to make a “meaningful” decrease in its capacity for nuclear enrichment.
“I don’t understand where the confusion is about the nuclear program,” Rubio said. “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Simple, period, end of story.”
Strikes in Gaza kill 3 people
Israeli strikes in northern and southern Gaza killed three Palestinians and wounded at least a dozen others, according to health officials at Gaza hospitals.
An Israeli strike in the vicinity of Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza overnight killed one civil defense worker, according to health officials at the territory’s Health Ministry and the civil defense. The Israeli military said Wednesday of the strike that a “Hamas military-wing terrorist, who was presented to the world as a ‘civil defense worker,' was eliminated in the strike."
Two other strikes each killed one person and wounded at least a dozen others in southern Gaza, according to officials at Nasser hospital. The Israeli military said one strike targeted a military operative, without elaborating, and said it was not aware of the second strike.
Israeli strikes have killed at least 1,467 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire was reached with Hamas nearly a year ago, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Its figures are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It doesn’t give a breakdown of civilians and militants.
This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.