US military action to deter Iranian-backed groups such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels would take time and the Biden administration “will have more to say about it soon”, said Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) urged the US to support an immediate ceasefire of Israel’s war in Gaza, warning that the risk of a regional conflagration was growing daily as the three-month conflict rages on.

US Central Command said multiple ballistic missiles and rockets were launched on Saturday by Iran-backed militants in Western Iraq, targeting the al-Assad Airbase.

Israel’s rejection of two-state deal ‘very disappointing’, says UK

Israel’s rejection of calls for a Palestinian state was “very disappointing”, UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said in a BBC television interview on Sunday.

“Unless you pursue a two-state solution, I really don’t see that there is another solution,” Shapps said. “Palestinians deserve a sovereign state, Israel deserves to have the full ability to defend itself,” he said. 

Shapps warned that “a more dangerous world” required the UK to be ready and prepared. 

The UK is on track to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence, higher than the Nato target of 2%, he said. “We are committed to spending more when conditions allow.”

Following the collision of two UK minesweeper vessels in a harbour in Bahrain, Shapps said investigations were under way. Britain on Sunday also announced that it would spend £405-million to upgrade the air defence system used to destroy drones in the Red Sea. 

Stopping Houthi ship attacks will take time, says Biden adviser 

US military action to deter Iranian-backed groups such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels would take time and the Biden administration “will have more to say about it soon”, Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer said.

While hinting at unspecified additional measures, Finer’s comments on ABC’s This Week were broadly in line with President Joe Biden’s acknowledgement last week that Houthi missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea were unlikely to stop immediately.

“Deterrence is not a light switch,” Finer said on Sunday. “We are taking down these stockpiles so they will not be able to conduct so many attacks over time. That will take time to play out.”   

US air strikes destroyed a Houthi anti-ship missile on Saturday that was prepared for launch into the Gulf of Aden, the latest action against the Yemen-based militants that have targeted Red Sea commercial traffic for weeks. 

The US and the UK were exploring ways to step up their campaign against the Houthis without provoking a broader war, with a focus on pre-emptive strikes and targeting resupply shipments from Iran, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Read more: The Israel-Iran shadow war reaches a risky new phase: QuickTake

“We totally reject the justification and the rationale that because there’s a conflict going on between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that entitles a group to take military actions against the entire global economy,” Finer said.  

UAE warns US time is running out to avoid wider crisis

The United Arab Emirates urged the US to support an immediate ceasefire of Israel’s war in Gaza, warning that the risk of a regional conflagration was growing daily as the three-month conflict rages on.

“We need a humanitarian ceasefire now, we can’t wait another 100 days,” the UAE ambassador to the United Nations, Lana Nusseibeh, said in an online interview from New York. 

“The risks are high, the war in Gaza is very clearly an open wound and it’s destabilising the region,” she said, adding that the US could play a critical role in easing the tensions.

The warning by one of Washington’s key allies in the region marks a new level of concern about the spiral of attacks involving Israel, Iran and its proxies and US forces as fighting drags on in Gaza amid widespread destruction and a soaring civilian death toll. 

The Iranian-backed militant group Hamas, designated as a terrorist organisation by the US and European Union, killed 1,200 people and abducted 240 others in its 7 October incursion into southern Israel. In retaliation, Israeli troops displaced most of Gaza’s two million population and killed more than 24,000, according to the Hamas-run health authorities. In mid-December, the World Bank estimated that Israeli bombardment had damaged or destroyed more than 60% of Gaza’s infrastructure. 

Israel’s far-right government has vowed to pursue its offensive and rejected a US-backed proposal by five Arab nations including the UAE for post-war Gaza reconstruction because it’s conditional on Israeli support for a Palestinian state.

Read more: Israel rebuffs a post-war Gaza plan pitched by Arab nations 

Since the start of the war in Gaza, there have been almost daily skirmishes on Israel’s border with Lebanon between Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the Iranian-supported Shiite militia. Regional tensions have increased dramatically since late last year with Israel mounting a series of assassinations of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iranian commanders and Iran openly going on the offensive in its proxy war with the Jewish state.

Iran on Saturday accused Israel of a deadly rocket attack on a building in the Syrian capital Damascus serving as a residence for Iranian military advisers, killing at least five people. The strike followed an attack by Iran earlier in the week on what Tehran said was an Israeli spy base in Iraq.

Read more: Iran says Israeli rockets kill military advisers in Syria 

US Central Command also said multiple ballistic missiles and rockets were launched on Saturday by Iran-backed militants in Western Iraq, targeting the al-Assad Airbase. While most of the missiles were intercepted, some impacted the base. A number of US personnel were being evaluated for traumatic brain injuries and at least one Iraqi service member was wounded, according to a post on X. DM