Houthi: US airstrikes ‘will not pass without punishment

The Iran-backed Houthi vowed Sunday that a wave of joint U.S.-British airstrikes “will not pass without response and punishment” as the Israeli-Hamas war teetered on the brink of a far broader and more deadly regional conflict.

“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” Houthis spokesman Ameen Hayyan said in a statement.

U.S. and British forces struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday, one day after targeting 85 sites linked to other Iran-backed militant groups in Syria and Iraq. The airstrikes Friday were in response to months of attacks on U.S. bases, including a drone strike on a U.S. base in Jordan near the Syrian border that killed three Americans.

The Houthis were targeted in response to scores of strikes on commercial ships in the Red Sea area since November. It was the third time that British and American forces have jointly targeted the Houthis, who say their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in war-battered Gaza, who have been bombarded since the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israeli border communities.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the latest U.S.-British response was “intended to degrade Houthi capabilities used to continue their attacks.” US strikes on Iran-backed groups continue into second day: New sites in Yemen targeted Developments:

∎ Iran warned the U.S. not to target two cargo ships suspected of serving as an operating base for Iranian commandos. The Behshad and Saviz are registered as commercial ships with a Tehran-based company the U.S. Treasury has sanctioned for aiding Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard

∎ Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that at least two children were killed in an Israeli attack on kindergarten in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

IRAN CONDEMNS U.S.-BRITISH AIRSTRIKES

Iran also condemned the U.S.-British airstrikes −which took place with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand − as breach of Yemen’s territorial integrity and of international law. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani urged the global community to hold the nations involved accountable.

“The United States and Britain’s military adventurism marked by their military strikes on the regional countries is a follow-up to these two countries’ wrong approach and policy of resorting to militarism to advance their illegitimate objectives in the region,” Kanaani said, adding that the strikes were “in stark contrast to Washington and London repeatedly claiming that they wouldn’t like to see war and conflict spread in the region.”