American and British forces carried out a fresh wave of strikes against 18 Houthi targets in Yemen, following weeks of unrelenting attacks on Red Sea shipping by the Iran-backed rebels.

The strikes "specifically targeted 18 Huthi targets across eight locations in Yemen" including weapons storage facilities, attack drones, air defense systems, radars and a helicopter, a joint statement said.

Israel's war cabinet has discussed the next steps for negotiations towards a hostage deal and ceasefire in its war with Hamas, as concern deepens over the increasingly desperate situation faced by civilians in the devastated Gaza Strip.

An Israeli delegation that had travelled to Paris for fresh talks on a hostage deal returned to brief the country's war cabinet on Saturday night, according to an official and local media reports.

American forces have shot down three attack drones near commercial ships in the Red Sea and destroyed seven anti-ship cruise missiles positioned on land, the U.S. military said.

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis have been targeting shipping for months and their attacks have persisted despite repeated American and British strikes aimed at degrading the rebels' ability to threaten a vital global trade route.

A cargo ship abandoned in the Gulf of Aden after an attack by Yemeni rebels is taking on water and has left a huge oil slick, in an environmental disaster that U.S. Central Command said Friday could get worse.

Rubymar, a Belize-flagged, British-registered and Lebanese-operated cargo ship carrying combustible fertilizer, was damaged in a Sunday missile strike claimed by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Overnight strikes on Gaza killed dozens, the Hamas-run territory's health ministry said Saturday, as Israel's spy chief joined talks in Paris seeking to unblock negotiations on a truce.

The negotiations come after a plan for a post-war Gaza unveiled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew criticism from key ally the United States, and was rejected by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.

The health ministry condemned Friday the "direct" attack on a civilian health center, after two paramedics affiliated with Hezbollah and one of the group's fighters were killed in an Israeli strike on the southern border town of Blida.

The ministry called on the international community to hold Israel to account for its "dangerous violations".

Kiryat Shmona, in the hills of Israel's far north, is virtually empty, with few shops open and mostly military traffic on the roads to and from bases up the valley near the Lebanese border.

On the streets, cats seem to outnumber pedestrians but down a deserted lane a handful of call center workers at a telecoms firm are gathered at the open windows of their office kitchen.

An Israeli delegation led by the head of Israel's overseas intelligence agency arrived in Paris on Friday to "unblock" talks for a ceasefire in Gaza, an Israeli official said.

Mossad director David Barnea will be joined in the French capital by his counterpart at the domestic Shin Bet security agency, Ronen Bar, Israeli media reported.

At least two Hezbollah fighters were killed and three others wounded in an Israeli drone strike on a residential building in south Lebanon on Thursday, a security source said.

The French navy has shot down two drones over the Red Sea where Yemen's Houthi rebels have been attacking ships, the defense ministry said Thursday, in the second such incident this week.

The navy, which has two frigates deployed in the area, detected a threat in the night of Wednesday to Thursday and "destroyed two drones", it said.