JERUSALEM —U.S. assets including the USS Laboon (DDG 58) and F/A-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, shot down twelve one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack cruise missiles in the Southern Red Sea Tuesday, according to a statement from the U.S. Central Command.
The drones and missiles were fired by the Houthis over a 10 hour period which began at approximately 6:30 a.m. (Sanaa time) on December 26. There was no damage to ships in the area or reported injuries.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military says it has expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to the densely populated urban refugee camps in the central part of the territory.
With international pressure for a cease-fire building, top U.S. officials were meeting with Israel’s minister for strategic affairs Tuesday at the White House in Washington.
Residents reported shelling and airstrikes shaking the Nuseirat, Maghazi and Bureij camps. The built-up towns hold Palestinians whose families fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s independence.
The camps are now crowded with Palestinians who fled northern Gaza in the early stages of Israel’s ground offensive.
“We have expanded the fighting to an area known as the central camps,” Israel’s military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, told a news conference.
More than 20,900 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants among the dead.
About 1,200 people were killed after Hamas raided southern Israel on Oct. 7, with around 240 people taken hostage. Israel says it aims to free the more than 100 hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.