The Israeli military said on Thursday it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, with the Iran-backed Huthi rebels claiming responsibility for the attack.

Israel’s army said on Telegram that “the air force intercepted a missile launched from Yemen.

Huthi military spokesman Yahya Saree later said the group had launched a “Palestine 2 hypersonic ballistic missile” targeting Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.

READ ALSO:Israeli Fire Kills 34 In Gaza

The Yemeni rebels have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since their Palestinian ally Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

The Huthis, who say they are acting in support of the Palestinians, paused their attacks during a two-month ceasefire in Gaza that ended in March, but renewed them after Israel resumed major operations.

Israel has carried out several retaliatory strikes in Yemen, targeting Huthi-held ports and the airport in the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
AFP

Nearly 20,000 residents of a community in western Canada were on standby on Wednesday as a wildfire engulfed a mountain overlooking the city of Port Alberni, the latest area threatened in the country’s second-worst fire season on record.

“I’ve lived in Port Alberni since 1956, and this is one of the biggest fires we’ve ever seen,” Russ Wetas, 69, told AFP as smoke from Mount Underwood filled the sky behind him.

The wildfire service in the west coast province of British Columbia has listed the Mount Underwood fire as “out of control,” meaning it is expected to spread further.

But it remained unclear if Port Alberni, roughly 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) north, will be evacuated.

On the opposite end of the vast country, in the easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador, parts of the capital, St. John’s, received evacuation orders on Tuesday, following several days of intensifying fire.

READ ALSO:Britain, Canada, France Warn Israel Over ‘Egregious Actions’ In Gaza

A wildfire was also burning on Wednesday on the outskirts of Halifax, a major city in the eastern province of Nova Scotia, with a population of nearly half a million.

This is already Canada’s second-worst wildfire season in terms of landmass burned, based on figures dating back to 1983.

So far, 7.4 million hectares (18.3 million acres) have been scorched, an area nearly as large as Panama, putting 2025 past the 7.1 million hectare mark from 1995.

But this year is not expected to pass 2023, when 17.3 million hectares burned, an extraordinary toll that focused global attention on the growing threat of wildfires boosted by human-induced climate change.

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Smoke from this year’s wildfires has put tens of millions of people under air quality alerts in both Canada and the United States. The haze has even crossed the Atlantic, affecting people in western Europe.

More than 700 wildfires were burning across Canada on Wednesday, including 161 considered out of control, with nearly every province and territory impacted.

Mount Underwood is on Vancouver Island, making the blaze there part of a worrying trend of increased wildfire activity near the coast.

Experts have said that historically, coastal areas did not burn, but more serious wildfires near the ocean are being recorded, even if they remain less intense than blazes further inland.

READ ALSO:Trump’s Tariff War: Airline Travel Between Canada, US ‘Collapsing’

“This is a fire that hasn’t been seen on Vancouver Island,” John Jack, a First Nations chief and regional official, told the public broadcaster CBC.

Ted Hagard, who works at Port Alberni’s paper mill, told AFP he had been watching the fire’s progression on social media but needed to see it for himself.

It’s “insane how huge it is,” the 46-year-old said, standing on the shores of a lake adjacent to Mount Underwood.

Canada is experiencing a rise in conditions that are conducive to fires, experts say, linking the trend to climate change, which has caused elevated temperatures, reduced snow, shorter and milder winters, and earlier summer weather.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukraine and its allies must work together to pressure Russia into ending its invasion, ahead of talks in Berlin with European leaders and US President Donald Trump.

“Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a fair peace. We must learn from the experience of Ukraine and our partners to prevent deception on the part of Russia,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“There are currently no signs that the Russians are preparing to end the war,” he added.

Zelensky is due in Berlin on Wednesday for talks with European leaders and Trump ahead of the US president’s summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

READ ALSO:Trump Bans Citizens Of Chad, Congo, 10 Others From Entering US

The Ukrainian leader said he and his team had held more than 30 conversations with world leaders and high-ranking officials ahead of the talks.

The flurry of diplomatic engagements have been overshadowed by rapid, but so far limited Russian push in the eastern Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.

A member of the Ukrainian delegation travelling with Zelensky to Berlin told AFP that the Russian gains around the mining hub of Dobropillia “did not influence” preparation for Wednesday’s talks.

Zelensky conceded one day earlier that Russian forces had advanced by up to 10 kilometres (six miles), but ruled out swapping territory with Moscow as part of any deal with Russia.

AFP