Houthi missiles hit Marib as GCC chief arrives in Aden

GCC chief Jassem Mohammed Al-Budaiwi visited Aden on Thursday to show support for the country’s Presidential Leadership Council. (X, formerly Twitter/@yemen_mofa)
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Updated 31 August 2023
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Houthi missiles hit Marib as GCC chief arrives in Aden

  • Jassem Mohammed Al-Budaiwi’s visit to show support for Presidential Leadership Council and peace process
  • Houthis reportedly fired four missiles at camps for displaced people in Marib
  • Hit three camps but caused no damage or injuries to civilians

AL-MUKALLA: Houthi attacks continued in Yemen on Thursday as the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council arrived in the port city of Aden.

The militia reportedly fired four missiles at camps for displaced people in Marib. They hit three camps but caused no damage or injuries to the civilian population, according to the government’s executive unit for camps for internally displaced people.

The unit urged the international community to protect Yemeni civilians from Houthi aggression and said: “The Houthi militia’s attacks on cities and civilian hiding places are heinous acts that threaten the safety and stability of society. We demand immediate action to control and bring to justice these militias.”

GCC chief Jassem Mohammed Al-Budaiwi visited Aden on Thursday to show support for the country’s Presidential Leadership Council and push for peace efforts to end the war. It was the first time in several years that he had visited Yemen, and he met the leader of the council, Rashad Al-Alimi, Yemen’s official media reported.

During the meeting, Al-Budaiwi reaffirmed the GCC’s support for the leadership council and its efforts to restore peace and stability, and for the intensifying UN-led peace process. He also called for the implementation of all provisions of the 2019 Riyadh Agreement, designed to ease tensions between factions in Yemen, and thanked Saudi Arabia and Oman for their efforts as mediators during the conflict.

“The visit of the Gulf Cooperation Council secretary-general to the interim capital, Aden, confirms the Gulf’s continued support for Yemeni legitimacy, as well as the Gulf’s support for the government’s efforts to establish security, stability, development and the provision of services to citizens,” Abdul Baset Al-Qaedi, undersecretary at Yemen’s Information Ministry, told Arab News.

Yemeni officials said the GCC has been playing an important role in defusing tensions in Yemen for more than a decade, and its peace efforts resulted in two significant power transitions.

Under the 2011 GCC Peace Initiative, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh ceded power to his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. In 2022, the GCC-sponsored Riyadh Consultation on Yemen brought together hundreds of Yemenis from across the political, religious, social and tribal spectrum in a single forum that resulted in the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council.

Al-Budaiwi’s trip to Aden coincided with visits by Hans Grundberg, the UN’s special envoy for Yemen, to a number of regional cities in an attempt to persuade factions in the country to renew a UN-brokered truce and strike a peace agreement.

The UN envoy had visited government-controlled Marib on Wednesday, where he met Sultan Al-Aradah, the city’s governor and a member of the leadership council, to discuss peace efforts and other issues.

Al-Aradah told the envoy that the Houthis are not serious about ending the conflict in Yemen and are collaborating with terrorist organizations to undermine the peace process.


Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Updated 2 sec ago
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Turkiye man kills seven before taking his own life

Istanbul: A 33-year-old Turkish man shot dead seven people in Istanbul on Sunday, including his parents, his wife and his 10-year-old son, before taking his own life, the authorities reported on Monday.
The man, who was found dead in his car shortly after the shooting, is also accused of wounding two other family members, one of them seriously, the Istanbul governor’s office said in a statement.
The authorities, who had put the death toll at four on Sunday evening, announced on Monday the discovery near a lake on Istanbul’s European shore of the bodies of the killer’s wife and son, as well as the lifeless body of his mother-in-law.
According to the Small Arms Survey (SAS), a Swiss research program, over 13.2 million firearms are in circulation in Turkiye, most of them illegally, for a population of around 85 million.

2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

Updated 7 min 26 sec ago
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2 Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in West Bank: PA

  • The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night

Yabad: The Palestinian Authority said two Palestinians, including a teenage boy, were killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank village of Yabad.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli forces entered the village on Sunday night, leading to clashes during which soldiers shot dead two Palestinians.
The two dead were identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Muhammad Rabie Hamarsheh, 13, and Ahmad Mahmud Zaid, 20.
“Overnight, during an IDF (Israeli army) counterterrorism activity in the area of Yabad, two terrorists hurled explosives at IDF soldiers. The soldiers responded with fire and hits were identified,” an Israeli military source told AFP.
Last week, the Israeli army launched several raids in the West Bank city of Jenin, killing nine people, most of them Palestinian militants.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year after Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 777 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Palestinian attacks on Israelis have also killed at least 24 people in the West Bank in the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.


Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

Updated 44 min 45 sec ago
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Israel says hit Hezbollah command center in deadly weekend strike

  • The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday
  • Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army on Monday said it had struck a Hezbollah command center in the downtown Beirut neighborhood of Basta in a deadly air strike at the weekend.
“The IDF (Israeli military) struck a Hezbollah command center,” the army said regarding the strike that the Lebanese health ministry said killed 29 people and wounded 67 on Saturday.
The strike hit a residential building in the heart of Beirut before dawn Saturday, leaving a large crater, AFP journalists at the scene reported.
A senior Lebanese security source said that “a high-ranking Hezbollah officer was targeted” in the strike, without confirming whether or not the official had been killed.
Hezbollah official Amin Cherri said no leader of the Lebanese movement was targeted in Basta.
Since September 23, Israel has intensified its Lebanon air campaign, later sending in ground troops against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
The war followed nearly a year of limited exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas after the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September this year.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.


HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

Updated 25 November 2024
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HRW says Israel strike that killed 3 Lebanon journalists ‘apparent war crime’

BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Monday an Israeli air strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was an “apparent war crime” and used a bomb equipped with a US-made guidance kit.
The October 25 strike hit a tourism complex in the Druze-majority south Lebanon town of Hasbaya where more than a dozen journalists working for Lebanese and Arab media outlets were sleeping.
The Israeli army has said it targeted Hezbollah militants and that the strike was “under review.”
HRW said the strike, relatively far from the Israel-Hezbollah war’s main flashpoints, “was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime.”
“Information Human Rights Watch reviewed indicates that the Israeli military knew or should have known that journalists were staying in the area and in the targeted building,” the watchdog said in a statement.
HRW “found no evidence of fighting, military forces, or military activity in the immediate area at the time of the attack,” it added.
The strike killed cameraman Ghassan Najjar and broadcast engineer Mohammad Reda from pro-Iran, Beirut-based broadcaster Al-Mayadeen and video journalist Wissam Qassem from Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television.
The watchdog said it verified images of Najjar’s casket wrapped in a Hezbollah flag and buried in a cemetery alongside fighters from the militant group.
But a spokesperson for the militant group said he “had no involvement whatsoever in any military activities.”
HRW said the bomb dropped by Israeli forces was equipped with a United States-produced Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit.
The JDAM is “affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates,” the statement said.
It said remnants from the site were consistent with a JDAM kit “assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.”
One remnant “bore a numerical code identifying it as having been manufactured by Woodard, a US company that makes components for guidance systems on munitions,” it added.
The watchdog said it contacted Boeing and Woodard but received no response.
In October last year, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed by Israeli shellfire while he was covering southern Lebanon, and six other journalists were wounded, including AFP’s Dylan Collins and Christina Assi, who had to have her right leg amputated.
In November last year, Israeli bombardment killed Al-Mayadeen correspondent Farah Omar and cameraman Rabih Maamari, the channel said.
Lebanese rights groups have said five more journalists and photographers working for local media have been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and Beirut’s southern suburbs.


16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast

Updated 10 min 34 sec ago
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16 survivors rescued after tourist boat sinks off Egypt’s Red Sea coast

CAIRO: Egyptian authorities rescued 16 people after a tourist boat sank off its Red Sea coast, three security sources told Reuters on Monday, as search operations continued for the remaining passengers and crew members.
The boat, Sea Story, was carrying 45 people, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 14 crew, on a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam, according to a statement by the Red Sea Governorate.
Governor Amr Hanafi said some survivors were rescued using a helicopter and have been taken to medical care. Efforts to locate more survivors were ongoing in coordination with the Egyptian navy and army.
The governorate said a distress call was received at 5:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) and that the boat had departed from Porto Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday, with plans to return to Hurghada Marina on Nov. 29.
The Red Sea is a popular diving destination renowned for its coral reefs and marine life, key to Egypt’s vital tourism industry.