Live updates: Middle East crisis

The United States will keep attacking Yemen's Houthis until they end attacks on shipping, the US defense secretary said on Sunday, as the Iran-aligned group signalled it could escalate in response to deadly US strikes the day before.

The Houthis' military spokesperson on Sunday said, without offering evidence, that the group had targeted US aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman and its warships in the Red Sea with ballistic missiles and drones in response to the US attacks.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures": "The minute the Houthis say we'll stop shooting at your ships, we'll stop shooting at your drones. This campaign will end, but until then it will be unrelenting."

"This is about stopping the shooting at assets ... in that critical waterway, to reopen freedom of navigation, which is a core national interest of the United States, and Iran has been enabling the Houthis for far too long," he said. "They better back off."

Gaza’s health ministry has updated the number of people killed and wounded by Israel’s offensive in the Strip since October 7, 2023.

The ministry, in a statement, noted that 29 killed, including 14 newly killed and 15 corpses were recovered from under the rubble while 51 wounded people from Israeli strikes arrived in hospitals in the past 24 hours, as per Al Jazeera.

The new numbers have brought the death toll from occupations’ attacks to at least 48,572 with 112,032 wounded.

An Israeli negotiating team is currently discussing the hostages issue with Egyptian mediators in Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Sunday.

"Under the directive of Prime Minister Netanyahu, representatives of the negotiation team are currently meeting in Egypt with senior Egyptian officials to discuss the issue of the hostages," the statement said, a day after announcing that a team would continue indirect ceasefire negotiations with Hamas.

US strikes on Yemen will continue until the Houthis no longer have the capability to attack global shipping and the US Navy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the CBS News "Face the Nation" program on Sunday.

He said there was no talk of US ground raids in Yemen, adding: "I don't think there's a necessity for it right now". 

Rubio also said that there was "no way" the Houthis would have the ability to attack global shipping without support from Iran.

US strikes killed multiple Houthi leaders in Yemen, the White House said Sunday, adding Iran was "put on notice" to stop backing the rebel group and its attacks on Red Sea shipping.

The airstrikes Saturday "actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out," National Security Advisor Michael Waltz told ABC News.

"We just hit them with overwhelming force and put Iran on notice that enough is enough," he said in a separate appearance on Fox News.

He also reiterated a US warning that "all options are on the table" to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his US counterpart Marco Rubio in a phone call Saturday that all sides should refrain from the "use of force" in Yemen and enter a "political dialogue", Moscow said on Sunday.

Moscow said Rubio informed Lavrov about Washington's decision to launch strikes against Yemen's Houthis, in a call that came after the two countries have relaunched dialogue since Donald Trump took office.

"In response to argumentation put forward by American representatives, Sergei Lavrov stressed the need for an immediate cessation of the use of force and the importance for all sides to engage in political dialogue so as to find a solution that would prevent further bloodshed," Russia's foreign ministry said.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Sunday threatened a "decisive" response to any attack, after US President Donald Trump ordered a wave of air strikes against Yemen's Houthi rebels and warned Tehran to stop backing the group.

On Saturday, Trump said the United States had launched "decisive and powerful military action" to end the Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping, and warned Iran's support for the rebels "must end immediately". A Houthi health official said the strikes had killed 31 people.

Iranian Guards chief Hossein Salami denounced Trump's threats in a televised speech on Sunday, adding that "Iran will not wage war, but if anyone threatens, it will give appropriate, decisive and conclusive responses".

The first US strikes against Yemen's Houthis since Donald Trump took office killed 31 people, the group said on Sunday, with the US president warning "hell will rain down upon" them if it did not stop attacking shipping.

The Houthis, who have attacked Israel and Red Sea shipping throughout the Gaza war, said children were among those killed.

An AFP photographer in the rebel-held capital Sanaa heard explosions and saw plumes of smoke rising.

Attacks on Sanaa, as well as on areas in Saada, Al-Bayda and Radaa, killed at least 31 people and wounded 101, "most of whom were children and women", Houthi health ministry spokesperson Anis Al-Asbahi said.