Iran war updates: Thousands march for Houthis in Sanaa, fighting rages

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• Yemen’s Human Rights Ministry, part of the internationally recognised government, has accused Iran-backed Houthi fighters of attacking Saudi-funded aid and medical facilities, warning that civilians could lose access to basic services.
• US President Donald Trump has extended US sanctions on Iran by five years, replacing their 2026 expiry date with 2031.
• Qatar has denied allegations that fuel sent to Gaza in support of humanitarian aid reached Hamas, describing the reports as “fabricated”, adding that Doha “never provided money to Hamas”.
• Saudi Civil Defence issued, then withdrew, alerts about potential danger in several locations across the country.
• The US has told several European allies, including Germany, to expect to wait up to five years for key weapons deliveries due to a depletion of stockpiles during its war on Iran, Bloomberg reported.
• The Israeli army is facing a “severe shortage” of troops and military equipment after three years of war and is preparing to suspend soldiers’ leave, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported.
• Tens of thousands have marched through the streets of Sanaa in support of the Houthis and against Saudi Arabia, as fighting heats up in western Yemen.
• The Israeli army has bombed the outskirts of Haris, a town in southern Lebanon, and carried out a massive detonation in Mansouri, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency.
• An Israeli attack on Gaza City has killed one person and injured several more, including a child who is in critical condition, according to the Wafa news agency.
• The US Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned BitBank, an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange, over alleged payments linked to passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Turkiye’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) has revoked the operating licence of Iranian lender Bank Mellat’s Istanbul main branch after 44 years, as Washington intensifies economic pressure on Tehran.

The BDDK decision, published in the Official Gazette on Saturday, did not directly link the move to US sanctions. It cited a provision allowing a licence to be withdrawn if continued operations pose a risk to depositors’ rights or the stability of the financial system.

Bank Mellat remains on the US Treasury’s sanctions list, covering “all branches worldwide”, and is subject to secondary sanctions. Washington designated it in 2018, accusing it of providing financial support to Mehr Eqtesad Bank, which the US links to Iran’s Basij.

Bank Mellat’s own 2025 financial report says the US sanctions led to its Turkish operation losing access to SWIFT and being removed from Turkiye’s electronic funds transfer system.

US President Donald Trump has signed into law legislation expanding sanctions, tariffs and other restrictions on Russia while extending existing US sanctions on Iran.

The White House said Trump signed H.R. 5334, the “Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026” – named in honour of the late senator – on Friday. The legislation includes sanctions targeting Russian officials, financial institutions and other entities, as well as measures covering Russian energy and trade.

The law also extends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 by five years, replacing its 2026 expiration date with 2031.

The US House of Representatives approved the measure on Wednesday after it passed the Senate in August.

Iraq’s national security adviser Qasim al-Araji says no deadline has been set for a committee tasked with bringing all weapons under the government’s control.

“Recent reports about setting a timeframe for the work of the committee on restricting weapons are completely incorrect,” al-Araji said in a statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency. “There is no specific period for bringing weapons under state control.”

He said the committee was formed by the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Shia parties, and is working under the direct supervision of Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi.

Al-Araji added that once the committee completes its work and weapons are fully brought under government control, anyone carrying arms illegally would face legal action and be treated as an outlaw.

The comments come as Baghdad pushes armed factions to hand over weapons, which several groups have resisted, and in the wake of Iraq-based attacks on Saudi Arabia and its interests.

US Representative Delia Ramirez has responded to reports that Israel is tripling its E1 settlement, which would cut deeper into the occupied West Bank.

“Palestine belongs to Palestinians. Not to developers and Israeli settlers. Period,” said Ramirez, a Democrat.

She urged US lawmakers to use their power to end military support to Israel.

E1 (East 1) would link Ma’ale Adumim and other illegal Israeli settlements to occupied East Jerusalem, effectively severing the West Bank in two. Both supporters and critics agree that the settlement would end the possibility of a Palestinian state.

Yemen’s Human Rights Ministry, part of the internationally recognised government based in Aden, has accused the Houthis of attacking and looting Saudi-funded humanitarian and medical facilities in al-Khawkhah and other areas along the western coast.

The ministry said the alleged attacks affected clinics, food and medicine warehouses, as well as water and shelter projects.

“These attacks represent a direct targeting of humanitarian and relief efforts,” the ministry said, warning that thousands of civilians and displaced people could lose access to basic services.

Qatar is denying allegations it says appeared in Israeli media that humanitarian aid it sent to Gaza reached Hamas, saying the reports were fabricated.

“Reports circulating in the Israeli media about the destination of humanitarian aid provided by Qatar to Gaza are categorically false,” an official statement from Qatar’s International Media Office said.

“Qatar has never provided money to Hamas,” it added.

United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says a report on the underreporting of US service member deaths during the war on Iran is “disgusting and fake”.

In a post on his X account, Hegseth said The Washington Post article, which cites six anonymous US officials familiar with the Defense Department’s internal casualty accounting data, is a “complete lie”, and called the American publisher “worse than Iranian state media”.

According to the article, five of the officials said there have been at least 22 military fatalities – four more than what appears in the Pentagon’s public database – since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28.

A sixth official said 23 service members have died as well as three US contractors based in the region. The official said not all of the undisclosed deaths are directly tied to the conflict but have involved US personnel who were in the Middle East amid ongoing hostilities.

Iran’s Ambassador to Russia, Kazem Jalali, has praised Moscow and Beijing for vetoing a US-backed UN Security Council resolution seeking to extend the mandate of experts monitoring sanctions on Tehran.

“Another desperate attempt by the United States to use the UN Security Council in its own interests to restore illegal sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran has once again failed thanks to the vetoes of Russia and China,” Jalali said in a post on X.

He said the sanctions had previously been “permanently lifted” under the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, and thanked Russia and China for their support.

Russia and China vetoed the US-drafted resolution on Thursday, which received 11 votes with Pakistan and Somalia abstaining. The proposed measure would have extended the mandate of a UN panel tasked with monitoring the implementation of sanctions on Iran for another year.

Germany will cut taxes on petrol and diesel by €0.17 ($0.20) per litre, reducing revenue by an estimated €2.5bn ($2.9bn), Reuters reports.

With oil prices reaching $100 a barrel amid the US-Iran war, fuel prices have become a central issue for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose CDU and its Social Democratic coalition partners have agreed to split funding for the cuts between federal and state governments. The changes will take effect on October 1 and run through the end of the year.

The German government also said it would hold talks with the oil industry as it looks to introduce a cap on rising fuel prices, alongside similar measures in Luxembourg and Belgium.

The United States has warned its allies to expect delays of up to five years in deliveries of key weapons because stockpiles have been depleted during its war on Iran, Bloomberg has reported.

Several European countries, including Germany and countries in Eastern Europe, are facing delays in receiving missile and air defence systems.

The shortages are also affecting Ukraine, which has sought additional Patriot air defence interceptors ahead of an expected difficult winter.

The US is estimated to have used more than half of its advanced Patriot missile variants, about one-third of its Tomahawk missiles, and nearly half of its precision strike missiles and THAAD interceptors during its war with Iran, now in its seventh month.

More than 2,700 Yemeni refugees have arrived in Obock, Djibouti, where humanitarian assistance remains severely limited.

Families are being housed in a temporary shelter while tents are prepared, with shortages of food, accommodation and basic sanitation.

Women, children and men are among those staying in difficult conditions amid extremely high temperatures.

Al Jazeera correspondent Hasan Razzak reports from Obock:

The Israeli army is facing a “severe shortage” of troops and military equipment after three years of war and is preparing to suspend soldiers’ leave, Israeli newspaper Maariv reports.

“The Israeli army does not have enough tanks and armored personnel carriers,” Maariv’s report adds, saying that three years of war had worn down the vehicles and that hundreds had been damaged.