IDF counterstrikes Houthis, Israel sets deadline for Hamas for Gaza deal

“Targeting civilian airports is a blatant act of terrorism,” Summer Ahmed, Foreign Affairs Representative of the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) of South Yemen to the United Nations, exclaimed to the Jerusalem Post. “The attack on Ben Gurion Airport is part of a broader pattern of Houthi aggression, backed by Iran, which has turned Houthi-controlled North Yemen into a launchpad for regional instability.”

Israel's National Security Council (NSC), led by Tzachi Hanegbi, blocked a bill intended to define Qatar as a state sponsor of terrorism on two separate occasions following pressure from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Channel 12 reported on Sunday.

The Houthi terrorist organization said on Sunday night that they are working on imposing a "comprehensive air blockade" on Israel by repeatedly targeting the country's airports.

The IDF on Sunday started sending out call-up orders for tens of thousands of reservists on the road toward widening the Gaza invasion.

Despite the mass call-up, the numbers are still due to come in far below the call-up of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in October 2023.

It is possible that the speed of widening the invasion could be somewhat delayed by the Yemeni Houthis striking near Ben-Gurion Airport on Sunday, distracting the security cabinet’s attention from other issues.

The IDF had said even before the strike on the airport area that the widening of the invasion would be in stages, signaling that it could take days or weeks before there is a clearer picture of the strategy and impact of the IDF’s further invasion.

Already, the IDF has taken control of about 40% of Gaza since it renewed its invasion on March 18, with Hamas offering close to zero resistance, other than occasional guerrilla-style ambushes of soldiers.

Yet, most of Hamas’s forces are projected to be concealing themselves among close to two million Palestinian civilians in humanitarian zones or in portions of central Gaza where there are suspicions of hostages being held.

Meanwhile, two soldiers from the Yahalom Unit, Capt. Noam Ravid and St.-Sgt. Yaly Seror, were killed in combat in a booby-trapped building in Rafah, the IDF announced on Sunday morning.

Ravid, 23, was from Sha’arei Tikva in the West Bank, and Seror, 20, was from Omer in Israel’s South.

Soldiers from the Golani Brigade entered the building where the incident occurred on Saturday night in the Rafah area, where a tunnel shaft was located.

In the afternoon, Yahalom soldiers began scanning the site when suddenly an explosion occurred, killing Ravid and Seror.

It is not yet clear whether the soldiers entered the shaft or were standing at the entrance. In the same incident, an additional soldier from Yahalom was seriously wounded.

A reservist in the 7007th Battalion, part of the 16th Jerusalem Brigade, was severely wounded in combat in a separate incident in northern Gaza.

In addition, the air force struck over 100 terror targets throughout Gaza over the weekend, including terrorist cells, tunnels, underground infrastructure sites, and military structures where terrorists were operating, the military announced Sunday.