British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said attacks by Houthi rebels could not continue with impunity and that overnight strikes by the U.S. and Britain should “degrade and disrupt” their ability to endanger shipping through the Red Sea.

“Over the last month, we’ve seen a significant increase in the number of Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea,” he said while on a visit to Ukraine. “That’s putting innocent lives at risk, it’s disrupting the global economy and it’s also destabilizing the region.”

The Kremlin on Friday condemned the U.S.-led strikes on Houthi rebel positions in Yemen, calling them “illegitimate from the point of view of international law.”

“The countries that struck, they tried to put their actions on the basis of international law,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters, referring to a U.N. resolution adopted earlier this week that demanded an immediate halt to attacks by the Houthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea. “This attempt was unsuccessful, because the adopted resolution does not provide any right to strike,” Peskov said.

Hamas has condemned U.S.-led strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, saying Washington and London are responsible for any repercussions in the wider region.

“We consider it (the attack) a crime and a blatant aggression against Yemeni sovereignty, and a threat to the security of the region,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement on Telegram.

American and British air strikes on targets in rebel-held Yemen killed five people and wounded six, the Iran-backed Houthi forces said on Friday.

"The raids led to the death of five martyrs and the injury of six others from our armed forces," Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree wrote on X.

The U.S. and British militaries have bombed more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, early on Friday, in a massive retaliatory strike using warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, U.S. officials said.

The U.S. Air Force's Mideast command said it struck over 60 targets at 16 sites in Yemen, including "command-and-control nodes, munitions depots, launching systems, production facilities and air defense radar systems."

A spate of attacks by Yemeni rebels on Red Sea shipping has disrupted the vital trade route, but experts say stopping them appears difficult at best -- and risky at worst.

Dozens of drone and missile attacks have been launched on ships by the Huthis, part of the Iran-backed "axis of resistance" reinvigorated by Israel's war on Hamas.

A continent away from the war in Gaza, South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians and pleaded with the United Nations' top court on Thursday to urgently order a halt to the country's military operation. Israel has vehemently denied the allegations.

South African lawyers said during the opening arguments that the latest Gaza war is part of a decadeslong oppression of the Palestinians by Israel.

Israel bombarded the southern Gaza Strip Thursday as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Egypt on the final leg of regional talks aimed at preventing the Israel-Hamas war from spreading.

His arrival coincided with the start of a hearing at the UN's top court over accusations Israel has committed "genocidal acts" in Gaza.

Israel will defend itself in the United Nations' highest court starting Thursday against allegations that its military campaign in Gaza amounts to genocide.

South Africa asked the International Court of Justice to consider Israel's actions in light of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust.

Barely two weeks after he was released from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela flew to Zambia to meet with African leaders who had supported his fight against South Africa's apartheid system of forced racial segregation.

One figure stood out among the men in dark suits eagerly waiting to greet Mandela on the airport tarmac: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, wearing his black and white checkered keffiyeh headdress, had traveled to see the newly freed Mandela.