Sanaa: Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Thursday said they carried out a drone attack on Tel Aviv, although there was no direct confirmation from Israeli authorities.
In a statement, the Houthis said they “carried out a military operation targeting a vital target in the Jaffa (Tel Aviv) area in occupied Palestine with a number of Jaffa drones.”
“The operation achieved its goals successfully as the drones reached their targets without the enemy being able to confront or shoot them down.”
The Israeli military said it intercepted “a suspicious aerial target” off central Israel overnight, without giving further details.
On Wednesday, the Houthis claimed to have fired cruise missiles at Israel, following Iran’s mass bombardment of the country the night before.
Last week, the rebels said they fired a missile at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, prompting Israeli air strikes on Yemen including the vital port of Hodeida.
The Houthis, who have controlled large swathes of war-torn Yemen for a decade, are part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the United States.
Since November, they have been attacking ships off Yemen’s coast in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in what they say is a show of solidarity with Palestinians during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Yemen’s Houthis claim drone attack on Tel Aviv
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Yemen’s Houthis claim drone attack on Tel Aviv
- The Israeli military said it intercepted “a suspicious aerial target” off central Israel overnight
Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to mark Passover holiday
- Settlers entered the site through the Mughrabi Gate in groups and performed Jewish prayers
- Israeli forces implemented strict security measures, preventing Palestinians from entering
LONDON: Thousands of Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Compound in the Old City of East Jerusalem to mark the Jewish holiday of Passover on Thursday.
The Jerusalem Governorate, a body affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, said that Israeli settlers entered the site through the Mughrabi Gate in groups and performed Jewish prayers at the site. Settlers also toured Bab Al-Rahma on the eastern wall of the compound, which was a site of conflict between Israeli police and Muslim worshippers in 2019.
Passover is observed from April 12 to 20, when Jewish communities commemorate the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt more than 3,000 years ago.
Far-right Israeli lawmaker Zvi Sukkot, from the Religious Zionism Party, performed in Al-Aqsa the Talmudic ritual known as “epic prostration,” in which the worshipper bows low to the ground in a display of humility and reverence.
Thousands of Jewish worshippers performed the Priest’s Blessing at the Western Wall, a plaza outside the western wall of Al-Aqsa Mosque, on the fifth day of Passover.
Israeli forces implemented strict security measures, turning the Al-Aqsa area into a military zone and preventing Palestinians from entering, the Wafa news agency reported.
On Tuesday, Israeli authorities closed the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, south of the occupied West Bank, as part of security measures during Passover.
The closure meant Palestinians were barred from accessing the site for two days as Israeli settlers celebrated Passover, Wafa added.
Clashes in Sudan’s El-Fasher kill 57: medical source
- The violence came just days after the RSF killed over 400 people in attacks on El-Fasher
- The RSF has ramped up its attacks on the Darfur city following the army’s recapture of Khartoum
PORT SUDAN: Clashes between Sudanese paramilitaries and the regular army have killed at least 57 civilians in the besieged Darfur city of El-Fasher, a medical source and a volunteer aid group said Thursday.
The local resistance committee, a volunteer aid group, said the civilians were killed on Wednesday in clashes and shelling of the city by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023.
The violence came just days after the RSF killed over 400 people in attacks on North Darfur’s capital of El-Fasher and nearby displacement camps, according to the United Nations.
El-Fasher, which the RSF has besieged for nearly a year, is the last major urban stronghold in Darfur still under army control and a strategic target for the paramilitary.
The RSF has ramped up its attacks on the Darfur city following the army’s recapture of the capital Khartoum last month.
The war, which entered its third year on Tuesday, has killed tens of thousands, uprooted 13 million and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
It has also fractured the country in two, with the army holding the center, north and east while the RSF controls nearly all of Darfur and, along with its allies, parts of the south.
Mediator Qatar says Israel ‘did not abide’ by Gaza truce deal
- Israel had converted 30 percent of the Gaza Strip into a buffer zone in the widening air and ground offensive
MOSCOW: Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said Thursday that Israel had failed to respect January’s ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately Israel did not abide by this agreement,” said the ruler of Qatar, a key mediator of the deal.
A truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Qatar with Egypt and the United States, came into force on January 19, largely halting more than 15 months of fighting triggered by Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The inital phase of the truce ended in early March, with the two sides unable to agree on the next steps. Israel resumed air and ground attacks across the Gaza Strip on March 18 after earlier halting the entry of aid.
Israel said Wednesday that it had converted 30 percent of Gaza into a buffer zone in the widening offensive.
Sheikh Tamim said Qatar would “strive to bridge perspectives in order to reach an agreement that ends the suffering of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza.”
Putin recognized Qatar’s “serious efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict” and called deaths in the conflict “a tragedy.”
“A long-term settlement can only be achieved on the basis of the UN resolution and first of all connected to the establishment of two states,” he added.
Israel’s renewed assault has so far killed at least 1,691 people in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported, bringing the overall toll since the war erupted to 51,065, most of them civilians.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Lebanon says one killed in Israeli strike in south
- The health ministry said: “the raid carried out by the Israeli enemy on the locality of Aitaroun left one dead“
- Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, insists it is adhering to the ceasefire
BEIRUI: Lebanon reported Thursday that one person was killed by an Israeli air strike in the country’s south, hours after Israel said it had attacked sites there belonging to Hezbollah.
The health ministry said: “the raid carried out by the Israeli enemy on the locality of Aitaroun left one dead,” a day after Israeli strikes in the same region killed two people.
The Israeli military said earlier that it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites” in southern Lebanon overnight, without offering details.
The military added that it would “operate against any attempts by Hezbollah to rebuild or establish a military presence under the guise of civilian cover.”
Despite a November 27 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon.
Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, insists it is adhering to the ceasefire, even as Israeli attacks persist.
Rocket fire from Lebanon into Israel has also been reported since the truce was struck, although no group has claimed responsibility for the launches.
On Wednesday, the Lebanese army said it had arrested several people suspected of firing rockets at Israel from Lebanon.
A security official told AFP that three of those detained were members of Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas.
‘Help us,’ says wife of Gaza medic missing since ambulance attack
- Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in the attack
KHAN YUNIS: More than three weeks after an Israeli military ambush killed 15 of her husband’s fellow medics, Nafiza Al-Nsasrah says she still has no idea where he is being held.
“We have no information, no idea which prison he’s in or where he is being held, or what his health condition is,” Nsasrah told AFP, showing a photograph of her husband Asaad in his medic’s uniform at the wheel of an ambulance.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Sunday that Nsasrah was in Israeli custody after being “forcibly abducted” when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances on March 23.
In the early hours of that day, Israeli soldiers ambushed a convoy of ambulances and a firetruck near the southern city of Rafah as the crew responded to emergency calls.
Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in the attack, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA.
Their bodies were found buried in the sand near the site of the shooting in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, in what OCHA described as a mass grave.
One member of the crew survived the attack. He was initially detained by troops but subsequently released.
The Palestinian Red Crescent was able to recover footage of part of the attack filmed by one of the medics on his mobile phone before he was gunned down.
An Israeli military official told journalists that the soldiers who fired at the ambulances “thought they had an encounter with terrorists.”
The video footage contradicts that account as the ambulances had their lights blinking when they came under attack.
“At the time of the incident, we had no idea what had happened,” Nsasrah said in the plastic-sheet shelter in the southern city of Khan Yunis which she and her family have called home for nearly a year.
Her husband’s body was not among those found in the mass grave near Rafah.
“We heard some ambulances had been surrounded (by the Israeli army), so we called (the Red Crescent) because (my husband) was late to return from his shift,” the 43-year-old said.
“They told us that he was surrounded but didn’t know what had happened exactly.”
Afterwards, the Red Crescent told her that he had been detained by Israeli forces.
“We felt a little relieved but not completely because detainees often face torture. So we are still afraid,” Nsasrah said, her voice drowned out by the persistent buzz of an Israeli surveillance drone overhead.
When the Red Crescent announced he had been detained, AFP reached out to the Israeli military for confirmation.
The military responded by referring AFP to an earlier statement noting that armed forces chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had ordered a thorough investigation into the attack.
The March 23 killings occurred days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory and drew international condemnation.
The Palestinian Red Crescent has charged that Israeli soldiers shot the medics in their upper body with “intent to kill.”
Nsasrah, her husband and their six children have been living under canvas in Khan Yunis since May last year.
Despite the hardship, she remains determined to get her husband back.
“I call on the international community to help us get any information on Asaad Al-Nsasrah,” she said.
“I ask to obtain information about his health condition and to allow us to visit him or to help us get him released.”
