Middle East strikes live: Houthis target Greek and British cargo ships in Red Sea

Iraq’s government is focused on avoiding a domestic or regional spillover of the Israel-Hamas war but continuing attacks on the country threaten its hard-won stability, the UN envoy for Iraq has warned.

With the war raging in Gaza, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert told the UN Security Council that “the Middle East is at a critical juncture” and “the same is true for Iraq”.

Attacks originating from inside and outside Iraq will not only undo the country’s stability but “other achievements made in the past 18 months,” she said, adding that “messaging by strikes only serves to recklessly heighten tensions, to kill or injure people and to destroy property”.

Antony Blinken has visited Saudi Arabia at the start of a four-day trip to the Middle East, as pressure mounts on Washington to deliver a truce – and bring the region back from the brink – before Israel’s threatened assault on the last refuge for civilians in Gaza.

The US secretary of state is set to travel to the Gulf, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the occupied West Bank, in his fifth attempt at furious shuttle diplomacy in the region since October. The 7 October attack by Hamas that killed around 1,200 people in Israel and saw another 250 taken hostage, and Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in response, has sparked clashes across the region. Gaza’s authorities say Israel’s air and ground assault has killed more than 27,400 Palestinians.

US officials have warned the situation in the Middle East is the most dangerous it has been in decades, as Iran-backed militias in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have entered the fray, attacking US positions and global shipping routes, in retaliation for support of Israel’s offensive.

Hamas in Gaza on Tuesday said it replied to a framework drawn up more than a week ago by US and Israeli spy chiefs at a meeting in Paris with the Egyptians and Qataris.

Hamas said it responded “in a positive spirit, ensuring a comprehensive and complete ceasefire, ending the aggression against our people, ensuring relief, shelter, and reconstruction, lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip, and achieving a prisoner swap”.

American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators prepared a diplomatic push to bridge differences between Israel and Hamas on a ceasefire plan for Gaza after the Palestinian group responded to a proposal for an extended pause in fighting and hostage releases.

Qatar described the Hamas response as “positive” overall while Egyptian security sources told Reuters that Hamas showed flexibility.

“We will discuss all the details of the proposed framework with the concerned parties to reach an agreement on the final formula as soon as possible,” Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s state information service, was quoted as saying.

The truce would last at least 40 days, during which the militants would free civilians among the remaining hostages they hold, Reuters reported, citing sources.

Iran issued a warning to the US over potentially targeting two cargo ships in the Mideast long suspected of serving as forwarding operating base for Iranian commandos, just after America and the United Kingdom launched a massive airstrike campaign against Yemen‘s Houthi rebels.

The statement from Iran on the Behshad and Saviz ships appeared to signal Tehran’s growing unease over the U.S. strikes in recent days in Iraq, Syria and Yemen targeting militias backed by the Islamic Republic.

Those attacks, themselves a retaliatory campaign for the killing of three US soldiers and wounding of dozens of others in Jordan, all stem back to Israel‘s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which has escalated tensions across the wider Middle East and raised fears about a regional conflict breaking out.

The Houthis’ ability to carry out attacks in the Red Sea has been reduced – but not “fully degraded”, Grant Shapps has said.

The defence secretary told the Commons the UK will, if necessary, not hesitate to respond again “in self-defence”.

He was updating MPs after the UK and the US took part in joint airstrikes against Houthi rebel sites in Yemen on Saturday.

Mr Shapps said the attacks were in line with international law and in self-defence, and had targeted “three military facilities” hitting “11 separate targets”, identified following “very careful analysis”.

He said: “We do not believe that there were any civilian casualties on Saturday night.”

Yemen’s internationally recognised presidential council sacked the prime minister in an unexpected move that comes at a time when a US-led coalition has been striking targets of the government’s rivals, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. A decree from the council appointed foreign minister Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak the new prime minister.

Mr Bin Mubarak, who is close to Saudi Arabia, replaced Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, who was Yemen’s premier since 2018. The council didn’t give a reason behind the reshuffle. Yemen has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014, when the Houthis overran the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north.

Saudi Arabia has told the US that that nation will hold no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem.

The Saudi foreign ministry in a statement on Wednesday said the Israeli “aggression” on the Gaza Strip needed to stop and all Israeli occupation forces should withdraw from the Gaza Strip.T

he statement comes a day after US secretary of state Antony Blinken held talks with Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Monday.

It was Mr Blinken’s fifth visit to the Middle East since the onset of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.

Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen fired six ballistic missiles at two ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, with one ship reporting minor damage.

A Greek-owned bulked carrier was struck by three of the projectiles fired by the Houthis on Tuesday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, the militants struck a British-owned cargo ship in the Red Sea.

The USS Laboon operating near the Greek ship “intercepted and shot down a third anti-ship ballistic missile fired” by the Houthis, the US Central Command said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Cairo on Tuesday for a meeting with Egyptian leaders that U.S. officials said would concentrate mainly on the task of negotiating a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in exchange for the release of hostages held by the militants.

Blinken’s visit also comes amid growing concerns in Egypt about Israel‘s stated intentions to expand the combat in Gaza to areas on the Egyptian border that are crammed with displaced Palestinians.

Israel’s defense minister has said Israel’s offensive will eventually reach the town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where more than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have sought refuge and live in increasingly miserable conditions.

UN humanitarian monitors said Tuesday that Israeli evacuation orders now cover two-thirds of Gaza’s territory, driving thousands more people every day toward the border areas.