Live updates | Palestinians flee heavy fighting in southern Gaza as US and UK bomb Yemen again

Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip pounded the southern city of Khan Younis, pushing thousands of Palestinians to flee even further south on Monday.

Families made their way on foot down the coastal highway, smoke billowing from the city behind them. Others loaded blankets and belongings into vehicles or donkey carts.

The war has displaced some 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, and one in four of them are starving, the U.N. says.

Late Monday, U.S. officials said the American and British militaries bombed multiple sites in Yemen used by the Iranian-backed Houthis to attack shipping in the Red Sea, as fears grow that Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza will spark a regional conflict.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which erupted on Oct. 7 when militants from Gaza attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the offensive until “complete victory” over Hamas, and to return around 100 hostages who are still held in Gaza.

But he’s facing mounting pressure from the hostages’ relatives to make a deal with Hamas and win their loved ones’ release. On Monday, family members disrupted a committee meeting in Israel’s parliament, yelling, “You won’t sit here while they are dying there!”

Currently:

— Iran is ‘ directly involved ’ in ship attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, US Navy commander tells AP.

— European Union pushes for Palestinian statehood, rejecting Israeli leader’s insistence that it’s off the table

— US military ends rescue search for Navy SEALs lost in raid on ship with Iranian weapons.

— US sanctions Iraqi airline, its CEO and Hamas cryptocurrency financiers.

— Strike kills Hezbollah fighter and civilian in Lebanon, amid seeming Israeli shift to targeted killings.

— Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

Here’s the latest:

US AND UK BOMB YEMEN'S HOUTHI REBELS AGAIN, OFFICIALS SAY

WASHINGTON — The U.S. and British militaries bombed multiple sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen on Monday night, several U.S. officials said. It's the second time the two allies have conducted coordinated retaliatory strikes on the rebels’ missile-launching capabilities.

According to officials, the U.S. and U.K. used warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets to take out Houthi missile storage sites and launchers. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing mission.

The joint operation comes about 10 days after U.S. and British warships and fighter jets struck more than 60 targets in 28 locations. That what was the first U.S. military response to what has been a persistent campaign of Houthi drone and missile attacks on commercial ships since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October. The Houthis link their attacks to the conflict.

The Houthi media office said in an online statement that several American and British raids targeted Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. And Jamal Hassan, a resident from south Sanaa, told The Associated Press that two strikes landed near his home, setting off car alarms in the street. An Associated Press journalist in Sanaa also heard aircraft flying above the skies of Sanaa overnight Monday.

The latest barrage of allied attacks follows an almost-daily assault on Houthi missile launchers by U.S. fighter jets and ship-based Tomahawks over the past week.

The chaotic wave of attacks and reprisals involving the United States, its allies and foes suggests that the retaliatory strikes haven’t deterred the Houthis from their campaign against Red Sea shipping, and that the broader regional war that the U.S. has spent months trying to avoid is becoming closer to reality.