JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: The Zionist entity said it bombed Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday, expanding its confrontation with Iran’s allies in the region after killing Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday in an escalating conflict in Lebanon. The airstrikes on Yemen’s port of Hodeidah were in response to Houthi missile attacks on the Zionist entity in recent days, the Zionist entity said, amid fears that Middle East fighting could spin out of control and draw in Iran and the Zionist entity’s main ally the United States.

The strikes took place as the Zionist entity attacked more targets in Lebanon, where its intensifying bombardment over two weeks has killed a string of top Hezbollah leaders and driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said Zionist strikes on Sunday had killed 24 people in Ain Deleb in the south and 21 people in Baalbek-Hermel in the east and that 14 medics had been killed in airstrikes over the past two days.

Zionist drones hovered over Beirut overnight and for much of Sunday, with the loud blasts of new airstrikes echoing around the Lebanese capital. The Zionist entity rapidly ramped up its attacks on Hezbollah two weeks ago with the declared goal of making northern areas safe for residents to return to their homes, killing much of the group’s leadership. The Zionist defense minister is now discussing widening the offensive.

Nasrallah’s death dealt a particularly significant blow to the group which he led for 32 years, and it was followed by new Hezbollah rocket fire on the Zionist entity, while Iran said his death would be avenged. The United States has urged a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Lebanon, but has also authorized its military to reinforce in the region in a sign of the growing unease.

In an interview with NBC, the chair of the US Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee, senator Mark Kelly, said the bomb that the Zionist entity used to kill Nasrallah was an American-made 2,000-lb (900-kg) guided weapon. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said all-out war with Hezbollah or Iran would not help residents of the Zionist entity return to their homes. “We believe that a diplomatic path is the right course,” he said.

Zionist military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 11 Palestinians, health officials in the enclave said on Sunday, as Zionist planes bombarded several northern, central and southern areas. The Um Al-Fahm School sheltering displaced Palestinians in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip was among buildings hit, killing four people and wounded several others, Gaza medics said.

In another strike, three people were killed in a house in Gaza City, medics said. Four others were killed in three separate airstrikes in Nuseirat and Khan Younis in central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip. Zionist forces pursued their operations in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, and in Gaza City’s suburb of Zeitoun, where forces blew up several houses, according to residents and Hamas media.

In Iran, which helped create Hezbollah in the early 1980s, senior figures mourned the death of a senior Revolutionary Guards member killed alongside Nasrallah, and Tehran called for a UN Security Council meeting on the Zionist entity’s actions. Nasrallah’s body was recovered intact from the site of Friday’s strike, a medical source and a security source told Reuters on Sunday. Hezbollah has not yet said when his funeral will be held. Nasrallah had not only made Hezbollah into a powerful domestic force in Lebanon during his 32 years as leader, but helped turn it into the linchpin of Iran’s network of allied groups in the Arab world.

Supporters of the group and other Lebanese who hailed its role fighting the Zionist entity, which occupied south Lebanon for years, mourned him on Sunday. “We lost the leader who gave us all the strength and faith that we, this small country that we love, could turn it into a paradise,” said Lebanese Christian woman Sophia Blanche Rouillard, carrying a black flag to work in Beirut. Lebanon’s top Christian cleric, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, said Nasrallah’s killing had “opened a wound in the heart of the Lebanese”. Rai has previously voiced criticism of the Hezbollah, accusing it of dragging Lebanon into regional conflicts.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 1,000 Lebanese were killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks. The government said a million people - a fifth of the population - had fled their homes. In Beirut, some displaced families spent the night on the benches at Zaitunay Bay, a string of restaurants and cafes on Beirut’s waterfront. On Sunday morning, families with nothing more than a duffle bag of clothes had rolled out mats to sleep on and made tea for themselves.

“You won’t be able to destroy us, whatever you do, however much you bomb, however much you displace people - we will stay here. We won’t leave. This is our country and we’re staying,” said Francoise Azori, a Beirut resident jogging through the area. The UN World Food Program began an emergency operation to provide food for those affected by the conflict.

On Sunday, the Zionist entity’s military said the air force had struck dozens of targets in Lebanon including launchers and weapons stores while its navy said it had intercepted eight projectiles coming from the direction of Lebanon and one from the Red Sea. It said dozens of Zionist aircraft including fighter jets had attacked power plants and a seaport at Rass Issa and Hodeida ports, accusing the Houthis of operating “under the direction and funding of Iran” and in cooperation with Iraqi militias. Zionist Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Our message is clear - for us, no place is too far”. - Reuters