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Live updates: Yemen’s Houthis claim responsibility for missile attack on Israel as war in Middle East intensifies 63%
By Sara Aboubakr0% Verda Subzwari0% Amy Shafer0% Sam Magdy0% Isabel Debre0% Bassem Mroue0% Munir Ahmed0% Kirsten Grieshaber0% Jon Gambrell56% Samy Magdy0%
3/28/2026, 6:12:02 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Unattributed Quote, Availability Heuristic, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 24.4% saturation with 567 hits. Analysis detected 2,874 faulty-reasoning hits from 2,323 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 58.2% and a BS Rank of 63% (6,274 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 62.70% of the article peer group.
Major developments we’re following:
* Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Israel on Saturday, raising concerns about the rebel group entering the fighting in the Middle East.
Israel said it intercepted the missile, the first time it has faced fire from Yemen since the start of the war last month.
* An Iranian attack on a military base in Saudi Arabia wounded at least 15 U.S. service members, including five who were seriously wounded in the attack, according to the person who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
* Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities on Friday, just hours after threatening to “escalate and expand” its campaign against Tehran.
The strikes, targeting a heavy-water plant and a plant producing a concentrated form of uranium called yellowcake, didn’t cause any casualties or risk of contamination, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said.
Iran quickly threatened to retaliate.
* U.S.
President Donald Trump again extended his self-imposed deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump says talks to end the war are “going very well,” but Iran continues to publicly insist it is not negotiating with the White House.
* Iran’s stranglehold on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has caused growing concerns of a global energy crisis and appears part of a strategy to get the U.S. to back down by roiling the world economy.
A Gulf Arab bloc said Thursday that Iran is now exacting tolls from ships to ensure their safe passage through the waterway.
The Houthis have so far refrained from attacking shipping routes in the Red Sea, a move -- which if it happened -- would further disrupt the shipping industry and the global economy.
Any Houthi attacks on shipping routes in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait would disrupt traffic through the Suez Canal, a crucial waterway for vessels bearing oil, gas and sundry goods to the Mediterranean Sea.
About 10 per cent of global maritime trade – including 40 per cent of container ship traffic – chugs through the canal each year.
Any disruption would mean vessels having to reroute around the southern tip of Africa, adding to insurance costs and delays in cargo deliveries.
It would also potentially disrupt Saudi oil export to Asia through the Saudi Yanbu pot on the Red Sea.
Houthi rebels attacked over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two vessels, between November 2023 and January 2025.
One of two journalists killed in a strike on southern Lebanon on Saturday was targeted for being a suspected Hezbollah intelligence operative, the Israeli military said, without providing evidence.
Israel’s statement about Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV correspondent Ali Shoeib mirrored past Israeli military allegations against Palestinian journalists targeted during the war on Hamas.
The Israeli army claimed that Shoeib, a prominent Lebanese war correspondent, was “operating systematically to expose the locations of (Israeli) soldiers operating in southern Lebanon.”
The army also accused him of maintaining contact with Hezbollah militants and inciting against Israeli troops and civilians, without elaborating.
Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV said its reporter Fatima Ftouni was killed in the same airstrike, along with Shoeib.
The Israeli military did not mention her in its statement.
Al-Manar TV did not respond to the Israeli allegations, but reported on his killing in an airstrike and describing him as “distinguished by his professional and credible reporting of events.”
Seven people have been hurt in an Iranian missile attack on a town in central Israel, Israel’s rescue service Magen David Adom said Saturday.
Some people were wounded as a result of the impact of the explosion in Eshtaol, near Jerusalem, while others were hurt running to shelters.
Iran is skeptical about recent diplomatic efforts to stop the war in the Middle East, its Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told his Turkish counterpart in a phone call Saturday.
According to a readout of the call on Iranian state-run media, Araghchi accused the U.S. of making “unreasonable demands” and exhibiting “contradictory actions” that raised doubts about the prospect of an agreement.
Recent U.S. moves, he said, have been “increased pessimism” on the Iranian side, without specifying which actions.
The Iranian readout said Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan assured Araghchi that “Iran’s pessimism toward the other side is understandable because Iran has twice been subjected to attack and military aggression in the midst of negotiations.”
The United Arab Emirates said its air defense systems responded to 20 ballistic missile and 37 drone attacks on Saturday.
The attacks wounded six people in an industrial zone in the capital, Abu Dhabi, where three fires were reported, authorities said.
The UAE’s Defense Ministry has reported 413 missile and 1,872 drone attacks since the start of the war.
The attacks have killed 10 people, including two troops, and wounded 178 others, the ministry said.
Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV said that its correspondent Ali Shoeib was killed Saturday in southern Lebanon, while Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV said its reporter Fatima Ftouni was killed in the same airstrike.
Shoeib was well-known war correspondent in the country where he had covered south Lebanon for Al-Manar for nearly three decades.
Ftouni had made a live report from southern Lebanon just before the strike in Jezzine region.
The strike came days after an Israeli airstrike on an apartment in central Beirut killed Mohammed Sherri, the head of political programs at Al-Manar TV, along with his wife.
A U.S. aircraft carrier has anchored in Croatia on its route to the Middle East amid the U.S. and Israeli monthlong war against Iran.
The U.S. 6th Fleet said the USS Gerald R.
Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, anchored in the Port of Split in Croatia following its Adriatic Sea transit from Souda Bay, in Greece, where it conducted repairs and refueled.
The carrier docked last month at the American naval base at Souda Bay, stirring up protests on Crete ahead of the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that triggered the war.
Kuwait’s ports of Mubarak Al Kabeer and Shuwaikh have been damaged in drone and missile attacks in the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry said Saturday.
The ministry said forces responded to four ballistic missiles, one cruise missile, and seven drones attacked the oil-rich county in the past 24 hours.
No casualties were reported, it said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited the UAE and met with his Emirati counterpart, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to discuss regional security in the Middle East.
“For Ukraine, this is also a matter of principle: terror must not prevail anywhere in the world.
Protection must be sufficient everywhere,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X following his meeting with the Emirati leader.
He said they had discussed “the security situation in the Emirates, Iranian strikes, and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which directly affects the global oil market.”
The Emirates News Agency said the two leaders discussed “security developments in the region amid ongoing military escalation and their implications for regional and international peace and security, as well as their impact on international navigation and the global economy.”
Zelenskyy said last week that Kyiv is helping five countries in the Middle East and Gulf region — the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan — to counter drone attacks on their territory.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Saturday he has held “extensive discussions” with Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on the ongoing regional hostilities and efforts aimed at end war.
Pezeshkian was briefed on Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts made by Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir to engage the United States as well as Gulf and other Islamic countries to help create conditions conducive to peace talks, Sharif’s office said in a statement.
Sharif expressed hope that “a viable path toward ending hostilities could be found collectively” during the conversation that lasted more than an hour.
Pezeshkian praised Pakistan’s peace efforts, stressing the need to build trust to facilitate dialogue and mediation., according to the statement.
Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will attend talks in Islamabad on Sunday aimed at ending the war, Dar has said.
Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. 5th Fleet, said its air defense systems have responded to 20 missile and 23 drone attacks in the past 24 hours.
That brings the total number of projectiles fired at the Shiite majority country to 174 missiles and 385 drones since the start of the war in the Middle East on Feb.
28.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has sharply criticized U.S.
President Donald Trump for his course of action in the Iran conflict, the dpa news agency has reported.
“What Trump is doing right now is not de-escalation and an attempt to reach a peaceful solution, but a massive escalation with an uncertain outcome,” Merz said late Friday at an event in Frankfurt.
“These are escalations that are threatening,” he added.
“Not only for those directly affected, but for all of us.”
Merz also expressed doubt that the current leadership in Iran can be overthrown by the war.
“Is regime change really the goal?”
he asked.
“If that is the goal, I don’t think they will achieve it.
That has usually gone wrong.”
An airstrike hit Iran’s University of Science and Technology in Tehran on Saturday, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The strike damaged research and educational buildings, IRNA reported, citing the university’s public relations office.
An airstrike hit the grounds of Iran’s Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant just before midnight, the country’s atomic energy agency reported.
The strike, which was the third in 10 days, did not cause any material damage and there were no casualties, according to the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.
It said no technical disruption was reported at the site.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said it was notified of the strike by Iran.
Foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt will attend talks in Islamabad aimed at ending the war between the United States and Iran and easing regional tensions, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and officials said Saturday.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Egypt’s Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty will arrive Sunday for a two-day visit to “hold in-depth discussions on a range of issues, including efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region,” according to a statement.
The visiting ministers will meet Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif who said in a televised speech that Pakistan is pursuing “sincere and robust diplomatic efforts” to help stop the conflict through mediation.
The casualty toll from a missile attack early Saturday in Abu Dhabi has risen to six.
The Abu Dhabi Media Office said an additional Pakistani national was injured by falling debris in the vicinity of Khalifa Economic Zones Abu Dhabi when air defense systems intercepted a ballistic missile.
The attack caused three fires in the area which have been brought under control, it said.
Kuwait’s international airport has been hit by drone attacks, the Civil Aviation Authority said on Saturday.
It said the attacks severely damaged the airport’s radar systems.
No casualties were reported.
An Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinian brothers Saturday morning in the Gaza Strip, hospital authorities said.
The strike hit the men close to the Showa roundabout in Gaza City’s Shijaiyah neighborhood, according to the Al-Ahly hospital.
The area is close to the so-called Yellow Line which separates Israeli-controlled areas across the Gaza Strip from the rest of the enclave.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Israel, their first since the war in the Middle East started.
Brig.
Gen.
Yahya Saree, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued the claim in a statement aired Saturday morning by the rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite television.
He said the rebels fired a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting what he described as “sensitive Israeli military sites” in southern Israel.
The Israeli military said it intercepted the missile.
The attack came hours after Saree signaled in a vague statement Friday that the rebels would join the war that shocked the region and rattled the global economy.
More than two dozen U.S. troops have been wounded in Iranian attacks on a Saudi air base in the past week, according to two people who have been briefed on the matter.
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan air base in a Friday attack that wounded at least 15 troops, including five seriously, according to the sources who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
U.S. officials initially reported that at least 10 U.S. troops were injured, including two seriously wounded.
The base had come under attack twice earlier this week, including an incident that injured 14 U.S. troops, according to the people who had been briefed on the matter.
Located about 96 kilometers (60 miles) from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the base is run by the Royal Saudi Air Force, but is also used by U.S. troops.
Oman said the strike hit Salalah port Saturday morning, wounding a foreign worker.
The government media office said the two-drone attack also damaged a crane.
Sirens sounded in Bahrain Saturday morning, ahead of a potential attack, authorities said.
The Interior Ministry urged people to head to the nearest safe location.
Iran fired six ballistic missiles and 29 drones at Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan air base in a Friday attack, according to a person briefed on the assault.
The Iranian assault wounded at least 15 U.S. service members, including five who were seriously hurt in the attack, according to the person who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
U.S. officials initially reported that at least 10 U.S. troops were injured, including two who were seriously wounded.
Analysis
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