Drone fired by Yemen's Houthis wounds 22 in southern Israel, in a rare breach of missile defenses

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JERUSALEM (AP) — A drone launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels wounded 22 people in the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Wednesday, according to medics. It was a rare breach of Israel's sophisticated missile defenses, which have greatly limited casualties from such attacks.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, according to local hospitals. U.S. President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy expressed optimism over a new plan for ending the war, without saying what it entails or if Israel or Hamas have accepted it.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have regularly fired drones and missiles at Israel — and attacked international shipping — in what they say is support for the Palestinians. The vast majority of the drones and missiles fired at Israel have been shot down or fallen in open areas without wounding anyone.

The Houthis said in a statement that they had fired two drones at Israel. Israel has carried out retaliatory airstrikes on Yemen after past attacks, and Defense Minister Israel Katz, in a post on X, warned the Houthis that “anyone who harms Israel will be harmed sevenfold.”

The Israeli military said it had tried to intercept the drone. The Magen David Adom rescue service said the wounded were taken to a nearby hospital, two of them with “severe shrapnel injuries to their limbs.”

In Gaza, at least 22 people were killed when an Israeli strike hit tents sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, according to Dr. Fadel Naim, director of the Al-Ahli hospital, which received the casualties. Three children and nine women were among those killed, he told The Associated Press.

The Israeli military said it targeted two Hamas militants, using precise munitions and taking other measures to avoid harming civilians. Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths because the militants are embedded in densely populated areas.

Another Israeli strike hit a group of Palestinians in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing at least 12 of them, according to the Al-Awda Hospital. Another 18 people were wounded, it said. Four people — two children and their parents — were killed in a strike on their home in Nuseirat, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah.

There was no immediate comment from the military on those strikes.

Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza said that it received the bodies of three people killed by gunfire while seeking aid. Health officials in Gaza and the U.N. human rights office say hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli fire while seeking humanitarian aid in recent months.

The military has said it only fires warning shots when people approach its forces in what it considers a threatening manner.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a 24-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli forces near the northern city of Jenin, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The military said soldiers shot and killed a man after he hurled an explosive device at them.

The latest violence came as the Mideast crisis was front and center at the U.N. General Assembly.

At separate events, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s lead negotiator Steve Witkoff both offered optimistic views about what Witkoff called a “Trump 21-point plan for peace” that was presented to Arab leaders on Tuesday.

“We had a very productive session,” Witkoff said at a conference in New York. “I think it addresses Israeli concerns, as well as the concerns of all the neighbors in the region. And we’re hopeful, and I might say even confident, that in the coming days, we’ll be able to announce some sort of breakthrough.”

Speaking to senior officials from the Gulf Cooperation Council, Rubio said “some very important work is ongoing even as we speak, and we’re hoping to achieve this as soon as possible.”

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, in a post on X, said the latest proposals are “an important foundation upon which we can build further in the coming period to achieve peace.”

The U.S., along with Egypt and Qatar, have spent months trying to broker a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release. Those efforts suffered a major setback earlier this month when Israel carried out an airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Forty-eight captives are still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive, after most of the rest were freed in ceasefires or other deals.

Israel's ongoing retaliatory offensive has killed more than 65,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It doesn't say how many were civilians or combatants, but says women and children make up around half the fatalities. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government. U.N. agencies and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

Israel launched another major ground operation earlier this month in Gaza City, which experts say is experiencing famine. More than 300,000 people have fled, but up to 700,000 are still there, many because they can't afford to relocate.

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Krauss from Ottawa, Ontario. Associated Press writers Matthew Lee at the United Nations and Fay Abuelgasim in Cairo contributed.

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Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war