Israeli forces killed top militant commander Hamas group in one night air strike on southern GazaIsrael said on Sunday.
In Jordan, three men were sentenced to death for a deadly shooting last month at a Greek Orthodox church in a village north of the town of Karak. In Yemen, the Houthis said they had freed around 600 detainees captured in the latest escalation of fighting.
And Iran’s Revolutionary Guards claimed to have hit a radar system at a US helicopter base in Bahrain. The US military command did not immediately comment on this assertion.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Sunday. Read our full coverage here.
Israel claims to have killed top Hamas commander in Gaza
Israel said it killed a senior Hamas commander in an airstrike on southern Gaza shortly after midnight on Saturday. A Hamas statement confirmed the killing of Samir Mahmoud Hassan Abu Younis and said his funeral would take place later on Sunday.
The Israeli military said Abu Younis had directed plans “to advance and carry out terrorist attacks.” Two months earlier, his predecessor had also been killed in an Israeli strike.
The army said it targeted other Hamas militants in Sunday’s attack, but provided no details.
Jordan sentences three men to death for deadly attack on church
Jordan’s State Security Court on Sunday sentenced three men to death for a deadly crime. shooting in a Greek Orthodox church in a village north of the town of Karak last month, state broadcaster Al Mamlaka reported. The men were accused of “perpetrating terrorist acts”.
The October 23 attack was one of the deadliest against Jordan’s Christian minority in decades, with nine dead and dozens injured. The attackers targeted mourners attending a funeral at St. George Church in Hamoud, a village about 100 kilometers (71 miles) south of the capital, Amman.
The three accused – two brothers and their brother-in-law – were arrested three days after the attack, following a shootout with security forces. All three were injured. Jordanian authorities described the men as followers of extremist ideology, but said they were not affiliated with an organized group. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
A few days later, Jordan launches airstrikes in southern Syriasaying they were targeting militant groups linked to the attack. Syrian authorities disputed the Jordanian version and reported civilian deaths.
Yemen’s Houthis release hundreds of detainees
THE The Houthis supported by Iran Some 600 detainees captured in the latest escalation of fighting were freed on Sunday, the largest unilateral release of detainees in the country’s 12-year civil war, said Abdul-Qader al-Murtaza, a Houthi official in charge of prisoner affairs.
Also on Sunday, a group allied with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government fighting the Houthis said its fighters had withdrawn from areas along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait amid the rebel group’s continued attacks.
The group, known as the Southern Armed Forces, said it would now focus on securing the city of Aden in southern Yemen, held by the internationally recognized government, as well as trying to break the Houthi siege on the crucial city of Taiz.
Earlier in the day, Houthi health officials said an airstrike on Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, injured two women and two children. The strike hit a residential neighborhood in Houthi-held Sanaa, according to the rebel health ministry. He said the injured were taken to Muayyad Hospital for treatment, but provided no further details about the attack.
A Houthi spokesman, Anees al-Asbahi, blamed Saudi Arabia for the strike. There was no immediate comment from the kingdom.
Meanwhile, Saudi military spokesman General Turki al-Malki said air defense systems intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis early Sunday towards Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Two drones were also shot down over Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern region, the spokesperson said.
Iran says it hit US radar system in Bahrain
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Sunday morning they had hit a radar system at a US helicopter base in Bahrain, the official IRNA news agency reported.
U.S. Army Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, had no immediate comment. On Friday, CENTCOM said it had intercepted two Iranian drones heading towards Bahrain and denied Iranian allegations that they had struck a US early warning radar system in that country.
The Bahraini military said on Sunday that its air defense systems had intercepted a number of Iranian projectiles before they reached their targets. Earlier, Bahrain’s Interior Ministry issued two nationwide alerts warning of a threat, the first such alerts since September.
He gave no further details but said “Iran continues its systematic hostile approach through its culpable attacks targeting the Kingdom of Bahrain.”
Iran rejects German demand to stop uranium enrichment
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei on Sunday rejected Germany’s demand that Tehran stop uranium enrichment, saying the country has the right to enrich uranium as a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“Iran’s right to enrichment is not something that Germany, France or others have granted to us,” Baghaei added.
Baghaei also criticized the UN nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency – for what he described as “non-technical speculation” about a possible new uranium enrichment facility in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.
He said the agency lost access to Iran’s nuclear facilities during the war with the United States and Israel, but asserted that Iran had not suspended its safeguards obligations.
Asked about a possible response to any further US attacks, Baghaei said Iran would “leave no blow unanswered.”
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This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
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This story was earlier corrected to reflect that the shooting in Jordan took place in the village of Hamoud, in Karak governorate, and not in the town of Karak.
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