DUBAI: Yemen’s Arab Coalition-backed army has advanced into the governorate of Nham east of Sanaa, liberating several Houthi-held sites, the Saudi-state news channel reported on Monday.
Yemeni sources said the army liberated the strategic mountains of Nakhsh after heavy fighting that killed at least 25 Houthi gunmen.
This latest news comes at a time when the army targeted various locations of the militia in several areas of the same region which saw the destruction of various pieces of Houthi military equipment.
Meanwhile in Taiz, 40 Houthi militia were killed in fighting with the Yemeni army. According to Yemeni sources, the army shelled military positions and reinforcements on the line between Naquil Al-Salu and Dimna Khadeer in Taiz, while destroying military vehicles and equipment belonging to the Houthi militia in Khadair district.
Separately, medical sources said Sunday a mother and three of her children were killed in a double suicide bombing in Aden, raising the death toll to 12.
The family was among seven people who succumbed to wounds sustained in Saturday's attack, which was claimed by Daesh.
Five other people, including security officers and a child, were killed on the spot when two suicide car bombings hit the headquarters of an anti-terror unit on a beach near the Tawahi district of Aden.
Daesh claimed the attack through its propaganda arm Amaq. Daesh has repeatedly attacked Aden, where the government is based, claiming hundreds of victims and mainly targeting government forces.
Yemen army advances east of Sanaa while dozens of Houthis are killed in Taiz
Yemen army advances east of Sanaa while dozens of Houthis are killed in Taiz
Father of the last living American hostage in Gaza hopes Trump can bring his son home
Adi Alexander said he thinks Netanyahu wants to bring everybody home, but on his own terms
TEL AVIV: Unlike many families who blame Israel’s government for not getting their loved ones released from captivity in Gaza, Adi Alexander is hesitant to point fingers.
Pragmatic and measured, the father of the last living American being held hostage by Hamas just wants his son to come home.
“I don’t want to get into who came first, the egg or the chicken,” Alexander told AP on Friday from his New Jersey home. Still, with the once-promising ceasefire giving way to renewed fighting between Israel and Hamas, he wonders whether Israel can secure his son’s freedom and is more hopeful about the US’s chances to do it.
Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old Israeli-American soldier who grew up in the US, is one of 59 hostages still in Gaza, more than half of whom are believed to be dead. Last week, Hamas said it would release Edan and the bodies of four other hostages if Israel recommitted to the stalled ceasefire agreement.
Days later, though, Israel launched rockets across Gaza, breaking the two-month-old deal and killing hundreds of Palestinians. The hostilities show no signs of abating, with Israel vowing Friday to advance deeper into Gaza until Hamas releases the remaining hostages.
The return to fighting has inflamed the debate in Israel over the fate of those held captive. Netanyahu has come under mounting domestic pressure, with mass protests over his handling of the hostage crisis. But he also faces demands from his hard-line allies not to accept any deal that falls short of Hamas’ destruction.
A father’s hope
Adi Alexander said he thinks Netanyahu wants to bring everybody home, but on his own terms. He questions Netanyahu’s plans whereas he believes US President Donald Trump’s message is clear: He’s focused on bringing the hostages home. Alexander said he’s counting on the US to bridge the large gap between Israel and Hamas. His message to Trump about his administration’s efforts to free his son and the others: “Just keep this job going.”
Many families of the hostages say Trump has done more for them than Netanyahu, crediting the president with the ceasefire. In December, before taking office, Trump demanded the hostages’ immediate release, saying if they weren’t freed before he was sworn in for his second term there would be “hell to pay.”
Phase one of the deal began weeks later, and saw the release of 25 Israeli hostages and the bodies of eight others in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The ceasefire was supposed to remain in place as long as talks on the second phase continued, but Netanyahu balked at entering substantive negotiations.
Instead, he tried to force Hamas to accept a new ceasefire plan put forth by US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. That plan would have required Hamas to release half its remaining hostages — the militant group’s main bargaining chip — in exchange for a ceasefire extension and a promise to negotiate a lasting truce.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, as called for in the original ceasefire agreement mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar.
The US engages directly with Hamas
As a soldier, Edan would have been released during the deal’s second phase. But Hamas announced this month that it would release Edan after the White House said it had engaged in “ongoing talks and discussions” with the group — separate from the main negotiations. It is the first known direct engagement between Hamas and the US since the State Department designated it a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
Adi Alexander said Adam Boehler, who’s helping spearhead the Trump administration’s efforts to free the hostages, led those separate talks because phase two was stalled. But he said he didn’t believe Hamas’ claim that it would release his son because it came out of left field and wasn’t being considered as part of the discussions between the group and Boehler.
The anxious father said he speaks with Witkoff and Boehler almost daily and understands the negotiations are ongoing despite the resumption of fighting.
A native of Tenafly, a New Jersey suburb of New York City, Edan moved to Israel in 2022 after high school and enlisted in the military. He was abducted from his base during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war, when Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 others hostage.
The grueling wait
Since Edan’s abduction, there’s been little news about him.
Hamas released a video of him over Thanksgiving weekend in November. His family said it was difficult to watch as he cried and pleaded for help, but it was a relief to see he was alive.
Freed hostages have given the family more news, according to his father. Some said Edan had lost a lot of weight. Others said he’d been an advocate for fellow hostages, standing up for kidnapped Thai workers and telling their captors that the workers weren’t Israeli and should be freed.
Although he knows the resumption of fighting means it will take more time to get his son back, Adi Alexander said he thinks both sides had became too comfortable with the ceasefire and that this was one reason phase two never began. He wants the war to end, and hopes the fighting will be limited and targeted and push everyone back to the table.
“Somebody, I think had to shake this tree to create chaos, and chaos creates opportunities,” he said. “The only objective is to get back to the bargaining table to get those people out.”
King Abdullah II urges UK’s PM Starmer to push for Gaza ceasefire reinstatement
- The British premier thanked King Abdullah for his country’s leadership and work towards a political solution
AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdullah II called on the international community to take urgent action to halt Israel’s attacks on Gaza and reinstate a ceasefire during a phone call with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday.
The king also urged the need to resume aid deliveries to Gaza, warning of the worsening humanitarian crisis, Jordan News Agency reported.
Reiterating Jordan’s firm opposition to any displacement of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, King Abdullah warned against continued attacks on Palestinians and violations of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
Discussing Syria, the King Abdullah also reaffirmed Jordan’s support for the Syrian Arab Republic’s unity, sovereignty and stability.
Starmer highlighted his deep concern about the renewed Israeli military action in Gaza and the lack of humanitarian aid to the enclave, a statement from Downing Street said.
The British premier thanked King Abdullah for his country’s leadership and efforts aimed at a political solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis.
He welcomed the Arab plan for Gaza and commended the efforts of Jordan and regional partners in developing it. The leaders agreed to continue urging Israel and Hamas to return to the ceasefire.
Starmer said that the UK remained a strong partner to Jordan and the two leaders agreed to keep in close contact.
45 killed in Sudan paramilitary attack in North Darfur: activists
- The aid group gave a “preliminary list of the victims of Al-Malha massacre” blamed on RSF
KHARTOUM: A paramilitary attack killed at least 45 civilians in North Darfur’s Al-Malha area, according to an initial toll shared by activists Saturday.
The local volunteer aid group, known as a resistance committee, in the state capital El-Fasher, gave a “preliminary list of the victims of Al-Malha massacre” blamed on the Rapid Support Forces, with 15 people still unidentified.
Fatah urges Hamas to relinquish power to safeguard ‘Palestinians’ existence’
- “Hamas must show compassion for Gaza, its children, women and men,” Al-Hayek said
GAZA CITY: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement called on its Islamist rivals Hamas Saturday to relinquish power in order to safeguard the “existence” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“Hamas must show compassion for Gaza, its children, women and men,” Fatah spokesman Monther Al-Hayek said in a message sent to AFP from Gaza. He called on Hamas to “step aside from governing and fully recognize that the battle ahead will lead to the end of Palestinians’ existence” if it remains in power in Gaza.
In Turkiye, mass protests give vent to long simmering anger
- “Some young people are being politicized for the first time in their lives,” said Yuksel Taskin, a lawmaker from the main opposition CHP
- The move sparked a wave of protest which spread within 48 hours to more than two-thirds of Turkiye’s 81 provinces
ANKARA: The massive street protests gripping Turkiye may have been triggered by the arrest of Istanbul’s popular opposition mayor but they reflect a much broader sense of frustration, observers say.
“There is a great anger. People are spontaneously taking to the streets. Some young people are being politicized for the first time in their lives,” said Yuksel Taskin, a lawmaker from the main opposition CHP.
Wednesday’s arrest of Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s most powerful political rival — came just days before the CHP was to formally name him their candidate for the 2028 presidential race.
The move sparked a wave of protest which spread within 48 hours to more than two-thirds of Turkiye’s 81 provinces, even including strongholds of Erdogan’s ruling AKP such as the central area of Konya, as well as Trabzon and Rize on the Black Sea.
Despite a ban on protests and a heavy police presence on the streets, huge crowds of protesters have taken to the streets, including many university students who are not normally seen as politically engaged.
The protests are the biggest in Turkiye since the massive demonstrations of 2013, which began at Istanbul’s Gezi Park to protest its demolition and spread across almost the entire country.
“The feeling of being trapped — economically, socially, politically, and even culturally — was already widespread,” Kemal Can, journalist and author of numerous books on Turkish society told AFP.
Imamoglu’s arrest, he said, had sparked a strong reaction, “especially among young people worried about their future in a country where freedoms are increasingly restricted. It’s a reaction that goes well beyond Imamoglu.”
“We’re the children of the ‘raiders’ who have now grown up,” reads a slogan carried by many young protesters, using an old-fashioned term that Erdogan coined for the 2013 Gezi Park protesters when he was prime minister.
“This is not only about the CHP, but about everyone. The question is whether Turkiye will live under an authoritarian regime or be a democratic country,” said Ilhan Uzgel, who handles the party’s external relations.
In a bid to highlight the non-partisan nature of the protest movement, the CHP has invited all Turks, not just party members, to join its symbolic primary vote on Sunday when Imamoglu is to be named the party’s presidential candidate.
“We are determined to hold this primary although (the government) is trying to block it. But it will go ahead,” insisted Uzgel.
The pro-Kurdish opposition DEM, the third party in parliament, has also thrown its support behind the protests which have taken place for three nights in a row outside Istanbul City Hall.
“By using the judiciary, they are trying to reshape the opposition in order to consolidate the regime,” explained DEM lawmaker Ibrahim Akin.
DEM is regularly accused by the government of having ties with the banned Kurdish militant PKK, which is blacklisted by Ankara as a terror group.
But in recent months, the Turkish government has sought to end the decades-long conflict and last month, jailed PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan urged his fighters to lay down their weapons and disband.
“For several years, the government has sought to split the opposition, or keep it tied up with internal issues. It has succeeded several times. But this time, the opposition has thwarted this strategy,” said Can.
For Gonul Tol of the Washington-based Middle East Institute, the government’s efforts to “drive a wedge” between DEM and CHP through its peace overtures toward the PKK had clearly failed, after DEM came out strongly against Imamoglu’s arrest.
“The government now seems to be seeing how long this wave of discontent will last, hoping to weaken it through pressure, protest bans and arrests,” said Can.
“If the opposition gives in to threats from the authorities who are accusing it of provoking the street, and gives the impression its determination has weakened, the government will increase the pressure,” he said.
“The coming days will be crucial.”
