US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced on Friday, amid US airstrikes on Houthi positions in Yemen, that he had completed a trip to the Middle East, where he met with heads of state willing to work for peace in the region and said Washington intended to use diplomacy to settle the crisis.
"I just wrapped a 10-stop trip that took us from Turkey to Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank, Bahrain, and Egypt. […] Across the region, I met with leaders who are prepared to take steps, to make commitments necessary both for Gaza’s future and for long-term peace and security in the region — a pathway that ensures Israel’s security and includes an independent Palestinian state," Blinken wrote on X.
He also posted a video address in which he said the countries of the Middle East see a path that will give Israel the security it needs, Palestine its own state, as well as unite the region and isolate such actors as Iran and its proxies, such as Palestinian movement Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi rebels.
Overnight into Friday, the US and UK military carried out 23 airstrikes on targets in four provinces in different parts of Yemen, including the capital of Sanaa and the cities of Al Hudaydah, Taizz and Sadah, local government sources told Sputnik. Later in the day, the US Air Forces Central said that US strikes against Houthis in Yemen had hit more than 60 targets in 16 different locations.
On Thursday, the US Central Command said that the Houthis had attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea 27 times since November 19. The Houthis had previously announced their plans to prevent the passage of ships linked to Israeli companies or bound for Israel in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea until the latter's military actions in the Gaza Strip end.