Israeli warplanes bombed ports and a power plant in Yemeni territory controlled by the Houthis on Friday, the Israeli military said, in the latest attempt to force the Iranian-backed militant group to stop firing at Israel and commercial ships in the Red Sea.

Israel has escalated its strikes on the Houthis in recent weeks in response to repeated attacks by the Yemeni militia, which has been launching missiles and drones against Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza. The United States and Britain have also struck Yemen repeatedly in an effort to secure international waterways from Houthi attacks, including new American strikes on Wednesday.

But it was far from clear whether Israel and its allies could successfully compel the Houthis to end their attacks on Israel and on ships through a bombing campaign. Months of Israeli and American airstrikes have failed to deter the well-equipped militia from conducting attacks.

The Israeli military said it had bombed the Hezyaz power station near Sana, the Houthi-controlled capital, and the Red Sea ports of Hudaydah and Ras Isa. The power station is not far from where thousands of Yemenis had gathered in a weekly rally in solidarity with Palestinians, and Ras Isa is Yemen’s main oil export terminal.

Experts have warned that attacking ports like Hudaydah, a major conduit for essential supplies in northern Yemen, could further worsen what is already one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Rocked by civil war for more than a decade, millions of people in Yemen face the threat of malnutrition, according to the United Nations.

The Israeli military said it had struck targets at sites that were being used by the Houthis for military purposes. More than 20 aircraft took part in the operation, which required in-flight refueling, and dropped about 50 munitions, said an military official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in accordance with military protocol.

One worker at the Hezyaz power station was wounded, according to al-Masira, the Houthi-affiliated broadcaster. There were no other immediate reports of serious casualties.

“The port of Hudaydah is paralyzed and the port of Ras Isa is ablaze,” Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, said in a statement. “The message is clear: Anyone who harms Israel will be struck tenfold.”

The Houthis, who control much of western Yemen, are more than 1,000 miles from Israeli territory and have survived numerous efforts to defeat them since they rose to power in a civil war that began in 2014. The United States designates the Houthis as a terrorist group, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, U.S. allies in the region, intervened in the civil war to fight against the Houthis.

Since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 prompted the Gaza war, the Houthis have fired hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel. They have also hampered global shipping by firing at passing commercial freighters in a self-declared effort to enforce a blockade on Israel.

Over the past two months, the Houthis have stepped up their attacks, sending Israelis across central Israel rushing for bomb shelters late at night as air-raid sirens blare. On Thursday, Houthi militants fired three drones at Israeli territory; the Israeli military said it intercepted them all.

Israel has bombarded Yemen several times in response — sending its jets more than 1,000 miles to do so — but has struggled to decisively subdue the Houthis.

After the strikes on Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, said that “the Houthis are paying, and will continue to pay, a heavy price for their aggression against us.”

But Israel’s options against its faraway enemy are limited. Israel’s security establishment has never prioritized Yemen and for years did not intensively focus on gathering intelligence on the Houthis, experts say.

The Houthis rarely expend their munitions in massive barrages, instead firing a missile or a drone at a time. They could likely maintain that pace for a long time, military experts say. Even if there were a cease-fire in Gaza, the Houthis might continue firing in an attempt to leverage their newfound significance on the regional stage, they say.

On Friday, Mr. Katz threatened to kill Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the group’s leader, as well as its other commanders.

“No one is immune,” Mr. Katz said. “We will hunt you down and destroy the terror infrastructure which you built. Israel’s long arm will reach you, wherever you are.”

Israel’s intelligence agencies spent months hunting for Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, in the relatively small enclave of the Gaza Strip. Experts say it would be much more difficult to locate Houthi leaders in the much larger and less well-surveilled territory of Yemen.

Here are other developments in the region:

• An Israeli airstrike on Friday in southern Lebanon killed at least two people, according to the country’s health ministry, a day after Lebanon elected a new president amid resurgent hopes of peace and stability. The attack, which Lebanon’s state-run news agency said targeted a vehicle, comes with just over two weeks to go until a cease-fire agreement expires between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Amid accusations of cease-fire violations by both sides, Lebanon has reported to the U.N. Security Council that Israel had launched over 800 “ground and air attacks” since the cease-fire came into effect in November.

Johnatan Reiss, Euan Ward, Stephen Castle and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

A facility where users can inject drugs under nurses’ supervision is set to open in Glasgow on Monday after almost a decade of debate over how to deal with the city’s unwanted status as a European capital for narcotic-related deaths.

Offering hot drinks and a lounge with sofas, as well as booths for injections, the Safer Drug Consumption Facility is the first of its kind in Britain and follows similar initiatives in other cities around the world, including New York.

Those using the facility, which has been named the Thistle in a reference to a national emblem of Scotland, will bring their own drugs. Staff will not administer injections but will be on hand to monitor safety.

How will the drug consumption room work?

The new facility, which will operate throughout the year, has a reception and waiting area, a separate space with individual booths where injecting can take place, a recovery area and an aftercare area where advice will be offered by charities and support organizations.

Users will have access to clean syringes, needles and swabs, and will be allocated one of eight booths.

Lynn Macdonald, service manager at the Thistle, told Scotland’s public broadcaster, STV, that users “don’t have to show us what drugs they are going to use.” But they will be asked to do so, she added, “so we can talk to them about harm reduction. In the using space, there will be nurses who will supervise injections.”

Each booth has a mirror that is slightly tilted so that staff can observe the injection is taking place safely, without being too close to the person. “This also gives them a bit of dignity,” Ms. Macdonald said. “That’s key to this service — that people are treated with respect and dignity when they come here.”

The Scottish government is funding the initiative by providing £2 million, or about $2.4 million, a year.

What do organizers hope to achieve, and why in Glasgow?

There are now more than 100 drug consumption rooms worldwide, researchers say, including in Europe, Canada, the United States and Australia. Supporters say such facilities cut the risk of overdose and infection, reduce the costs of acute hospital admissions, and put users in touch with health care professionals who can offer drug addiction treatment.

In Scotland, which has the highest rate of recorded drugs deaths in Europe, the Thistle is seen as one answer to a lengthy debate about how to combat the harm from drugs. In 2023, 1,172 people died from drug misuse — a rise of 12 percent on the previous year.

Opioids such as heroin, morphine and methadone were the most common drugs connected to fatalities, being implicated in 937 deaths.

In 2015, there was a significant outbreak of H.I.V. in Glasgow, particularly among those injecting in public places. The virus was linked to homelessness and injecting in public spaces, according to the Glasgow City Council.

Calls for a safe drug consumption facility gained traction after a 2016 report that estimated that around 400 to 500 people were regularly injecting drugs in Glasgow’s city center, increasing the risk of infection and causing a wider hazard to the public from discarded equipment including needles.

The City Council said that research showed such facilities reduce drug-related harm, including overdose and death, and the transmission of infectious diseases, and produced “an overall cost saving” by reducing calls on the health service, and cutting the time spent by the police and courts in handling drug-related issues.

Glasgow’s initiative marks a significant, if contested, moment for British drugs policy after years of debate over how to reduce overdoses and take consumption off the streets. Drug laws that cover Scotland are set by the British Parliament at Westminster, but are enforced by Scottish courts, which operate their own system.

The new facility became legally possible after Scotland’s most senior lawyer, who is known as the Lord Advocate, said that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute users for possession of illegal drugs in a safe consumption facility.

The British government said that it respects that decision and will not interfere with the Glasgow project. While it says it will watch the results of the initiative, it said there are no plans to reintroduce such schemes in England or Wales.

What do critics say?

Some local residents oppose the opening because they fear it could bring more drug dealing into the area.

Other critics worry that it will be counterproductive. One charity, Faces & Voices of Recovery U.K., said in a statement that there was “nothing kind about offering people a place to continue destructive behaviors that keep them trapped in cycles of chaos, compulsion, and despair.”

By focusing on consumption rather than recovery, it added, “these rooms communicate a devastating message: ‘We don’t believe you can get better.’”

But Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, welcomed the opening, saying in a statement on Friday that “while this facility is not a silver bullet, it is another significant step forward and will complement other efforts to reduce harms and deaths.”

The Israeli military said on Friday that Hamza Ziyadne, an Arab citizen of Israel held hostage in Gaza, had been killed in the Palestinian enclave, as efforts by mediators to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas to free hostages have seen little success.

Over 15 months after the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023 prompted the war in Gaza, around 98 hostages remain in Gaza; roughly 36 are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.

The confirmation of Mr. Ziyadne’s death comes just a day after family and friends buried his father, 53-year-old Youssef Ziyadne, who was also taken hostage. The Israeli military said their bodies been found together in a tunnel under the southern Gaza city of Rafah alongside their dead captors. It was not clear when they were found.

Before they were found, neither hostage had been designated as presumed dead by Israeli officials, who have sought to use intelligence to assess the condition of the remaining hostages. That was likely to further escalate fears among the families of the remaining captives in Gaza that their relatives might have already suffered the same fate.

It was not immediately clear how the Ziyadnes died: Some hostages have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, while Israel has said that others were executed by their captors. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesman, said on Wednesday — after Youssef’s death was confirmed — that the military was still investigating.

Israel’s Arab citizens, like Mr. Ziyadne, were not spared in Hamas’s attack. At least 17 were killed and several others taken hostage. Around 1,200 people were killed in the assault and 250 taken hostage, according to Israel.

Many, like Mr. Ziyadne, belonged to the Bedouin Arab minority, a group that has long lived on the margins of Israeli society. Historically nomadic herders, many Bedouins now reside in a constellation of cities and hamlets throughout southern Israel, some of which lack basic government services like running water and electricity.

Hamza Ziyadne, 23, was taken hostage alongside his father and two younger siblings, Bilal and Aisha, while at the Israeli kibbutz where his father worked. Bilal, 18, and Aisha, 17, were freed during a weeklong truce in November 2023 in which 105 Israeli and foreign hostages — mostly women and children — were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

The Hostages Family Forum, which represents the captives’ relatives, said that Hamza Ziyadne was survived by his wife and two children. In a statement, the group described him as a “nature lover who had a deep affection for animals and was beloved by his friends.”

“Four family members were kidnapped, with only two returning alive,” the group said in a statement. “Youssef and Hamza, who survived a period in the hell of Gaza captivity, could have been saved through an earlier agreement.”

Months of efforts to bridge the gaps between Israel and Hamas on a cease-fire and hostage release deal have failed to bear fruit. Qatar and Egypt have led the talks, which are also being brokered by the Biden administration.

On Thursday, Mr. Biden said that “real progress” was being made in the negotiations, without providing further details. Officials on all sides have repeatedly voiced optimism over a breakthrough over the past several months, only to see hopes dashed a few days later over new obstacles.

For months, Israel and Hamas have leveled seemingly irreconcilable conditions for an agreement. Hamas has demanded an end to the war and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza as part of any deal to release hostages. Israeli leaders have said they will not end the war before Hamas is destroyed in Gaza and vowed to maintain overriding security control there.

Michael D. Shear in Washington contributed reporting.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Russia remains open to a meeting between President Vladimir V. Putin and President-elect Donald J. Trump, but that any concrete steps to set up such talks could be made only once Mr. Trump is sworn into office on Jan. 20.

Responding to comments made on Thursday by Mr. Trump, who said that Mr. Putin wants to meet him to discuss the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s spokesman reaffirmed Russia’s longstanding official position that Moscow is ready to talk.

“We need a mutual desire and political willingness to engage in a dialogue,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters. “We see that Mr. Trump also declares his readiness to solve issues via dialogue. We welcome that.”

Mr. Peskov added that the Kremlin’s understanding is that there is a “mutual readiness for a meeting,” but, he said, “it looks like things will start to move after Trump enters the Oval Office.”

Mr. Peskov did not confirm that Mr. Putin had requested a meeting with Mr. Trump or that one was being set up, as Mr. Trump said on Thursday night.

While asserting its territorial claim over its five regions in Ukraine, the Kremlin has been insisting that it would prefer diplomacy over war.

Ukraine and some of its Western allies have questioned Russia’s seriousness in offering to negotiate, and said that the Kremlin’s conditions actually represent a demand for Ukrainian capitulation.

After being largely isolated from the West for almost three years since the invasion of Ukraine, a meeting with the American president would represent a chance for Mr. Putin to negotiate with a friendlier American administration.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that he could resolve the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours after entering office, without saying how, but this week suggested that it could take up to six months.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said that he was sympathetic with the Russian position that Ukraine should never join NATO, one of the main conditions put forward by the Kremlin to end the war.

Mr. Trump’s victory in November produced a wave of cautious optimism that the war could end soon, even if in an unstable cease-fire. But analysts have said that the process will be hard and tedious, and many in Ukraine and elsewhere fear that Mr. Trump might want to push through a deal at the expense of its capitulation.

In Russia, Giorgy Bovt, a political analyst, said that if a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin happens too early, when “the conditions for peace have not yet matured,” it could “lead to greater escalation.”

“Both warring parties are still betting on continuing military action,” Mr. Bovt wrote in a post on Telegram, a popular messaging app. “They do not consider their forces exhausted.”

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote on social media that “the higher the expectations” from the meeting “the riskier the game, most of all for Trump.”

For decades, Hezbollah’s grip on Lebanon was iron tight.

With its vast arsenal, the militant group was more powerful than the country’s national military. It controlled or held sway over Lebanon’s most important government agencies as well as critical infrastructure, like its border with Syria and commercial port. Almost no major political decisions could be made without its backing, and no political party could seriously challenge any move it, or its patron Iran, made.

But that longstanding status quo has now been shaken — a turnabout for Hezbollah that has opened a new political chapter in Lebanon.

Fourteen months of fighting against Israel has left the once untouchable Shiite Muslim group battered. Rebels toppled its main ally in neighboring Syria, the dictator Bashar al-Assad. Iran also now finds itself weakened as it and its allies have been hit hard by Israel.

Hezbollah is on its shakiest ground in years, as power dynamics are being realigned across the Middle East after more than a year of war and turmoil. And while the group remains powerful — it still has many thousands of fighters and commands the loyalty of most of the country’s Shiite Muslims — analysts say one thing is clear: The era of Hezbollah and Iran’s unshakable dominance in Lebanon appears to be over.

“It’s a new political reality,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “It will take time for this new reality to unfold,” he added, “but what we’ve seen so far is enough to show us that the tide has turned.”

Those shifting political sands were laid bare on Thursday, when Lebanon’s Parliament elected a new president, overcoming years of political gridlock that many critics attributed to Hezbollah’s efforts to block any attempt at resolution. The political paralysis has left the country under the direction of a weak and ineffectual caretaker government for more than two years.

In Lebanon, many saw the election on Thursday of Gen. Joseph Aoun, the commander of the Lebanese military, as a crucial step toward bringing stability to the country. It was also seen as a concession by Hezbollah and, some analysts said, an acknowledgment that the group was no longer in a position to paralyze the state.

Since Lebanon’s founding, a multitude of factions and sects from the country’s more than a dozen religious groups have jockeyed for power and influence. Its fragile political system relies on agreements among parties and sects, as well as their foreign backers. That system has held the country together by a thread as it has careened from crisis to crisis since a 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

Over the past three decades, Hezbollah — which is both a political party and a militant group — has outmaneuvered its domestic foes and struck strategic alliances to cement its position as the real power underpinning the country’s weak and fractious state.

Even as the government struggled to keep the lights on and water running, Hezbollah built up a vast network of social services — including high-quality health care and free education — for its mostly Shiite supporters.

But over the past three months, the group has been dealt a series of devastating blows.

Its war with Israel wiped out Hezbollah’s top brass, destroyed large chunks of its arsenal and left the country with a multibillion-dollar bill for reconstruction. Its stinging defeat also shattered Hezbollah’s promise to Lebanese that it alone could defend Lebanon from Israel — a claim that served as the group’s official raison d’être.

Then last month, the group lost its main land bridge for weapons and cash, as well as a political ally, when Syrian rebels, whom Hezbollah had once fought, toppled the Assad government.

Hezbollah’s patron Iran has also been on the defensive since Mr. al-Assad’s ouster and given its own escalating tension with Israel, including direct conflict through rocket fire.

Iran’s web of anti-Israel militias, known as the Axis of Resistance — Hezbollah was a key player — has unraveled, taking with it Tehran’s ability to project power as far west as the Mediterranean and south to the Arabian Sea.

Without those pillars of support, Hezbollah’s ability to influence Lebanese politics has diminished, even as the group and its allies try to present themselves as the country’s agenda setters. Their dwindling sway was evident even before the vote when, late Wednesday night, the presidential candidate backed by Hezbollah withdrew from the race.

Hezbollah’s “narrative has been seriously discredited, its military has been seriously weakened and, in my view, politically it will have to start paying the price,” said Sami Nader, the director of the Political Sciences Institute at Saint Joseph University of Beirut.

Most experts agree that even in its weakened state, Hezbollah remains Lebanon’s most dominant political force. But that, they say, is less a testament to the group’s hold on power and more a reflection of the country’s political dysfunction and infighting. That dysfunction was on full display during the parliamentary vote on Thursday, which frequently descended into shouting matches before the votes were cast.

The election on Thursday of General Aoun as president is the first step in determining a new political map for the country and the region, analysts say. General Aoun is widely considered to have the backing of the United States and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis once vied for influence in Lebanon before being eclipsed by Iran and Hezbollah.

In his victory speech, General Aoun hinted at the vision he and his allies share for a new political era in Lebanon, and said the day marked “a new phase in Lebanon’s history.”

He referred to Arab countries, once pushed out of Lebanon by Iran, as “brotherly” nations. He spoke of the state’s “right to monopolize the possession of weapons” — a subtle reference to calls for Hezbollah to be disarmed after its 60-day cease-fire with Israel ends later this month. And he envisioned a state that could be defended by its own national army, absent the militias like Hezbollah that have long dragged the country into infighting and war.

“My pledge is to call for a defensive strategy and the establishment of a state — I repeat, a state — that invests in its army, controls all borders and implements international resolutions,” General Aoun said.

Still, experts caution that the country is still in the early days of this new political chapter — and that Hezbollah may yet rebound. The coming months will be filled with critical litmus tests for the group, including whether it can help rebuild the large swaths of the country devastated by the war and whether it fully withdraws from southern Lebanon, as outlined in the cease-fire deal.

“Hezbollah has been dealt staggering blows in terms of its strategic powers and its ability to confront Israel,” said Paul Salem, the vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “But inside Lebanon, it remains a very heavily armed group, more powerful than any other in the country.”