CAIRO: Yemen’s Saudi-backed government said on Saturday it agreed to a two-point plan advanced by the UN to ease suffering in the country’s civil war, but the Iran-aligned Houthi movement remained skeptical.
On Thursday, the UN Security Council urged the warring parties to agree on a UN-brokered plan to keep the Houthi-held port of Hodeidah out of the fighting and to resume government salary payments.
The UN has proposed that Hodeidah, a vital aid delivery point on the Red Sea where some 80 percent of Yemen’s food imports arrive, should be turned over to a neutral party.
The Security Council warned the Arab coalition that is fighting the Houthis against any attempt to extend the war to the port.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abdel-Malek Al-Mekhlafi said in a tweet his government renewed its acceptance of the proposals first made by UN envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, in May.
But a spokesperson for the Houthis alleged that the Security Council through its statements was encouraging the Saudi-led alliance to resume its strikes and that they reserved the right to respond to any aggression.
Yemen has been torn apart by more than two years of civil war that pits the Houthi group against the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, which is backed by the Saudi-led alliance.
More than 10,000 people have died in the conflict.
The coalition has accused the Houthis of using Hodeidah to smuggle in weapons and ammunition and has called for UN monitors to be posted there. The Houthi movement denies the allegations.
Thousands of Yemeni state workers are also facing destitution as their salaries have gone largely unpaid for several months after the internationally-recognized government shifted Yemen’s central bank to Aden from Sanaa, which is controlled by the Houthis.
Cheikh Ahmed had told the Security Council on May 30 that he had proposed a deal to avoid military clashes in Hodeidah to be negotiated in parallel with an agreement to resume civil service salary payments nationally.
However, he noted the Houthis and the allied General People’s Congress, the party of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, would not meet with him.
Yemen govt agrees to UN Hodeidah plan, Houthis skeptical
Yemen govt agrees to UN Hodeidah plan, Houthis skeptical
Trump: US carrying out ‘major combat operations’ in Iran
- An Israeli defense official said the operation had been planned for months in coordination with Washington
WASHINGTON/DUBAI/CAIRO: US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States had begun “major combat operations” in Iran, warning that there may be US casualties.
The strikes, which Trump said were aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and annihilating its navy, follow repeated US-Israeli warnings that they would strike Iran again if it pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“I do not make this statement lightly. The Iranian regime seeks to kill,” Trump said in a video shared on Truth Social.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war, but we’re doing this, not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2026
Trump told the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s armed forces, to lay down their weapons, promising that they would be granted immunity.
The other option, according to Trump, is “certain death.”
Washington and Tehran held a series of talks in recent weeks about Iran’s nuclear ambition. The most recent one was held on Thursday with no deal.
“Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades. They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” Trump said.Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Iran on Saturday, and a United States attack is underway, plunging the Middle East into a renewed military confrontation and further dimming hopes for a diplomatic solution to Tehran’s nuclear dispute with the West.
The latest updates:
• Israeli military reports missiles have been launched from Iran toward Israel, authorities call on people to head to shelters
• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is “safe and sound”, state media reported.
• The Jerusalem municipality ordered schools and workplaces to close on Saturday after Israel launched strikes on arch-foe Iran
• US embassies in Qatar, Bahrain issue shelter-in-place orders for personnel
• Tasnim reports Iran is preparing for strong response to Israel
• Israeli media: We are awaiting confirmation of the assassination of a number of prominent Iranian leaders
• Iranian television has declared a state of alert in all hospitals across the country
• Israeli media said that Israel was targeting rocket launch sites to prevent Iran from responding
• The head of Iran’s National Security Committee said that Israel has embarked on a path whose outcome is not in its hands
• Explosions heard in the cities of Qom, Karaj and Kermanshah
• Explosions heard in Isfahan, central Iran
• Israeli Army Radio said air force launches second wave of strikes on Iran
The scope of the air and sea operations was not immediately clear. Iran was preparing a crushing retaliation, an Iranian official said.
An apparent strike in Iran’s capital Saturday happened near the offices of Khamenei. State television acknowledged an explosion in the area of the offices.
Israeli media reported attempts to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the attacks, and have not ruled out Khamenei being targeted.
Several missiles have struck University Street and the Jomhouri area in Tehran, while explosion likely occurred in the northern Seyyed Khandan area of Tehran, state media reported. Thick smoke was also rising from the vicinity of Pasteur Street in downtown Tehran, ISNA said.
The attack, coming after Israel and Iran engaged in a 12-day air war in June, follows repeated US-Israeli warnings that they would strike again if Iran pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“The State of Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Iran to remove threats to the State of Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
An Israeli defense official said the operation had been planned for months in coordination with Washington, and that the launch date was decided weeks ago.
The US military declined to immediately comment on the attack.
Explosions were heard in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, and sirens sounded across Israel around 08:15 local time in what the military said was a proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of an incoming missile strike.
The Israeli military announced the closure of schools and workplaces, with exceptions for essential sectors, and a ban on public airspace.
Israel closed its airspace to civilian flights, and the airports authority asked the public not to go to any of the country’s airports.
The country’s airspace will reopen and flights to and from Israel to resume ‘as soon as the security situation allows,’ the airport authority said.
Iran’s airspace has been closed, Tasnim news agency reported.
The US and Iran renewed negotiations in February in a bid to resolve the decades-long dispute through diplomacy and avert the threat of a military confrontation that could destabilize the region.
Israel, however, insisted that any US deal with Iran must include the dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, not just stopping the enrichment process, and lobbied Washington to include restrictions on Iran’s missile program in the talks.
Iran said it was prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions but ruled out linking the issue to missiles.
Tehran also said it would defend itself against any attack.
It warned neighboring countries hosting US troops that it would retaliate against American bases if Washington struck Iran.
In June, the US joined an Israeli military campaign against Iranian nuclear installations, in the most direct American military action ever against the Islamic Republic.
Tehran retaliated then by launching missiles toward the US Al Udeid air base in Qatar, the largest in the Middle East.
Western powers have warned that Iran’s ballistic missile project threatens regional stability and could deliver nuclear weapons if developed. Tehran denies seeking atomic bombs.
