Israel threatened retaliation on Friday after a drone claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels penetrated its air defenses and killed a civilian in a Tel Aviv apartment block near the US embassy annex.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack and called for “maximum restraint” to prevent “further escalation in the region”. The pre-dawn strike came just hours before Israel was dealt another blow when the UN’s top court ruled that its occupation of the Palestinian territories was “illegal” and must end as soon as possible.
The advisory opinion of The Hague-based International Court of Justice is not legally binding. Still, it comes amid growing international condemnation of Israel’s handling of its war on Hamas in Gaza.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overseen a significant expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, insisted that “the Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land.” The Houthis are one of several Iran-backed armed groups in the Middle East that have claimed drone and missile attacks on Israel as retaliation for the Gaza conflict.
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