The Latest: EU leader calls for sanctions against Israel as new airstrikes hit Yemen’s capital

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday she will seek sanctions and a partial trade suspension against Israel over the war in Gaza.

The 27-nation EU is deeply divided in its approach to Israel and the Palestinians, and it’s unclear whether a majority will be found to endorse the sanctions and trade measures.

Meanwhile, Israel conducted heavy airstrikes targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen’s capital Wednesday. The Houthis said the strikes hit a fuel station in Sanaa and a government facility outside the city. They said at least nine people were killed. Israel confirmed the airstrikes and said it was targeting the Houthis.

In Qatar, emergency personnel dug through the rubble left by an Israeli attack on Hamas’ political leaders who had gathered in the energy-rich Mideast nation to consider a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

The strike Tuesday on the territory of a U.S. ally drew widespread condemnation. Hamas said all of its leaders survived the attack but that five lower-ranked members were killed. Qatar said a member of its Internal Security Force died and others were wounded.

Here’s the latest:

The comments Wednesday by Naim Kassem, leader of the Lebanese militant group, come a day after Israel targeted Hamas’ political leadership with an attack in the Qatari capital, Doha. The airstrikes did not kill Hamas leaders, but five lower-ranking members and a Qatari security officer died.

Kassem says the attack Tuesday underscores Israel’s desire to create a “Greater Israel” across the Middle East.

Days earlier, the Lebanese government approved a military proposal to disarm the Iran-backed Hezbollah, which suffered significant damage in its own 14-month war with Israel last year.

Kassem said Israel has been unable to achieve its expansionist goals because of militant groups in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere in the region, and that oil-rich Gulf countries should back militant groups in the region financially, politically and socially.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said later Wednesday: “to Qatar and all nations who harbor terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will.”

Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the Houthi-run Health Ministry, said seven were killed in the capital, Sanaa, and two others were killed in nearby Hazm city.

The ministry said 118 people were also wounded in the attack Wednesday. It says rescuers are still searching for people, suggesting the casualty toll could increase.

Israel’s military said the airstrikes targeted Houthi rebels at a fuel storage facility in Sanaa and Houthi military camps.

It says the strikes came in response to earlier attacks by the Houthis, including the launch of surface-to-surface missiles toward Israel. The Iran-backed Houthis say they are supporting Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Residents in Yemen reported heading violent explosions across Sanaa, with fire and smoke seen in the skies.

The decision announced Wednesday came a day after Israel launched airstrikes targeting Hamas’ leadership in Doha, Qatar’s capital city.

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., said in a statement that Israel’s “action was not intended to target the State of Qatar.”

“The goal was, and will remain, clear: to strike Hamas terrorists and those responsible for the massacres of October 7,” he said. Israel has no tolerance, and will have no tolerance for Hamas terrorist leaders wherever they are hiding.”

The Gaza health ministry said Wednesday hospitals received 41 bodies of people killed by Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours. Hospitals also received 184 wounded.

An additional 12 people were killed in that time period while seeking humanitarian aid, the ministry said in its daily report.

The Israeli military claimed Hamas was using the building to surveil Israeli troops. The Associated Press was unable to independently verify the claim.

The strike came hours after the military’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, told Palestinians in certain areas of western Gaza City to evacuate.

Israel on Tuesday ordered all Palestinians to leave Gaza City ahead of a planned military attack, saying staying there would be dangerous. But hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remained, many exhausted after multiple displacements and unsure if anywhere in the strip will be safe.

The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation has condemned Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar.

The Saudi-based organization on Wednesday said the attack “constitutes a dangerous escalation threatening the security and stability of the region and undermining international security and peace.”

A top Qatari official has escalated his criticism of Israel on Wednesday while condoling the family of a Qatari security official killed in Israel’s strike on Hamas’ leadership in the country.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the country’s prime minister and foreign minister, specifically called out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the attack Tuesday.

“Such hostile behavior reflects only the barbarism of Netanyahu,” the minister said, according to the Foreign Ministry.

He added that Netanyahu “was pushing the region toward irreparable instability, undermining international laws and frameworks.”

Sheikh Mohammed also “criticized Netanyahu for previously declaring intentions to reshape the Middle East, questioning whether this was also meant as a threat to reshape the Arabian Gulf,” the statement said.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said Wednesday that five people, including a child, died of causes related to malnutrition in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours, raising the overall toll of such deaths since the beginning of the war to 404, including 141 children.

The ministry said the overall tally includes 126 Palestinians – among them 26 children – who died of malnutrition-related causes since international experts announced famine in Gaza City on Aug. 22.

The leader of the United Arab Emirates traveled to Qatar on Wednesday, a day after Israel launched an attack on Hamas’ political leadership in Doha, the capital city.

The visit by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also the ruler of Abu Dhabi, likely underscores the growing unease the UAE feels with Israel.

In recent days, the Emirates warned Israel that any effort to annex the West Bank, part of land that Palestinians want for their future state, would be a “red line” that would threaten the Abraham Accords, the 2020 diplomatic recognition deal it struck with Israel.

Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, welcomed Sheikh Mohammed.

The two leaders had been on opposite sides of a political dispute for years during the first Trump administration, which saw the UAE and three other nations boycott Doha.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, in a social media post, said Von der Leyen had succumbed to pressures that undermine Israel-Europe relations.

He said her actions will embolden Hamas.

Qatar has limited means by which to respond to the attack, analysts say, which likely entered into the Israeli calculus on launching the assault.

“Qatari officials have condemned the attack, but its options are constrained by the absence of formal ties with Israel,” said Torbjorn Soltvedt, an analyst at the risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft.

“And more importantly, after investing considerable time and diplomatic effort into strengthening ties with Washington, Qatar’s political leadership is acutely aware of the potential repercussions of any actions that could jeopardize relations with Washington.”

An international activist flotilla seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza says it was attacked for the second night in a row on Wednesday.

The Global Sumud Flotilla said in a statement that one of its boats, the British-flagged “Alma,” was attacked by a drone while it was docked in Tunisian waters and pointed fingers at Israel. No one was harmed.

The group shared security camera footage showing people on board shouting “fire” and pointing to the sky when flames fell from the sky, impacting the deck and causing a ball of fire.

The attack appeared similar to the one sustained the night before by the Portuguese-flagged “Family” vessel.

The flotilla, consisting of around 20 boats, departed Barcelona with a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid on September 1. It had planned a stop in Tunis before sailing to Gaza again.

There was no immediate reaction from Israel.

Von der Leyen said she plans to freeze support to Israel given by the European Union’s executive branch, which would not require the approval of the 27 member countries.

It was not immediately clear how much financial support the executive branch, known as the European Commission, provides to Israel and what it is used for.

“We will put our bilateral support to Israel on hold. We will stop all payments in these areas, without affecting our work with Israeli civil society or Yad Vashem,” the Holocaust memorial, von der Leyen told EU lawmakers.

The commission also gives support to the Palestinian Authority.

Von der Leyen also said the commission “will set up a Palestine donor group next month,” part of which will focus on Gaza’s future reconstruction.

“Man-made famine can never be a weapon of war. For the sake of the children, for the sake of humanity. This must stop,” she added, to applause in the European Parliament at its meeting in Strasbourg, France.

The Israeli attack on Hamas in Qatar threatens to upend negotiations over a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and Israel’s efforts to reach out to Gulf Arab states.

That’s according to an analysis Wednesday by the New York-based think tank The Soufan Center.

“The attack has profound strategic implications because by striking a Gulf Cooperation Council state, Israel risks undermining the Abraham Accords and unraveling the fragile normalization framework with Arab partners,” the center said, referring to the 2020 diplomatic recognition deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

“Israel’s strike on Qatar raises the uncomfortable question: if a state like Qatar, with its carefully cultivated neutrality and commitment to peacemaking, is punished for its role, who will dare step into the vacuum of mediation in the future?” the center asked.

Qatar’s local media hewed tightly to government statements issued after Tuesday’s attack, which killed at least six people in a neighborhood in Doha home to foreign embassies and schools. Qatar is ruled by a hereditary emir and tightly restricts speech like other Gulf Arab nations.

Al Jazeera, the outspoken satellite news network funded by Qatar’s government, described the attack as a “brutal aggression” in its headlines.

The Israeli government has banned Al Jazeera from operating in Israel or the West Bank during the Israel-Hamas war, though its journalists still broadcast from the Gaza Strip.

The state-run Qatar News Agency noted its ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, held a series of calls with world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump.

Sheikh Tamim in the call condemned the attack “and held the Israeli entity responsible for its repercussions, in light of the policy of aggression they adopt that threatens the region’s stability and obstructs efforts to de-escalate and reach sustainable diplomatic solutions,” a readout of the call said.

Qatar Airways, a major East-West airline that operates out of the country’s massive Hamad International Airport, sought to assure passengers their flights were safe and would not be interrupted.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, said Tuesday night that “the Israeli enemy used weapons that were not detected by radar.” He did not elaborate.

However, that suggests Israeli fighter jets likely launched so-called “stand-off” missiles at a distance to strike the site without actually entering Qatari airspace – possibly over the Persian Gulf.

The U.S. has said it warned Qatar before the strike. Qatar disputes that, with Sheikh Mohammed saying that “the Americans sent a message 10 minutes after the attacks took place, saying they were informed that there was going to be a missile attack on the state of Qatar.”

Qatar maintains a major arsenal of air defense systems, including both American-made Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD batteries.

Qatar is also home to the U.S. military’s forward headquarters for its Mideast-based Central Command. That base, at the sprawling Al Udeid Air Base, also has American-run radars and defense systems and hosted President Donald Trump on his regional tour in May.