Yemeni Houthis claim downing third US drone in September 

Update Yemeni Houthis claim downing third US drone in September 
File image of Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah Media Centre on August 4, 2024, shows what they say is the wreckage of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone they shot down over Saada governorate.(AFP)
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Updated 16 September 2024
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Yemeni Houthis claim downing third US drone in September 

Yemeni Houthis claim downing third US drone in September 
  • Houthis have exaggerated claims in the past in ongoing campaign targeting shipping in the Red Sea over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthis claimed on Monday that they shot down another US drone over central Yemen, the third such claim this month. This comes as the Houthis abducted two Yemeni workers for international organizations.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a televised statement that their air defenses shot down a US military MQ-9 drone over the province of Dhamar that was conducting “hostile” missions using a locally made surface-to-air missile, bringing the total number of US drones claimed down by the Houthis to ten since the militia’s assault campaign on ships began in November. The Houthis recently claimed to have brought down two US military drones over the provinces of Marib and Saada. 

The Houthis have launched hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles and drone boats at international commercial and naval ships in global shipping lanes off Yemen since November, claiming to be acting to pressure Israel to end its war in Gaza. The Houthis said on Sunday that they fired the “new hypersonic” ballistic missile that struck the center of Israel’s capital.

This comes as the US Central Command said on Sunday night that its forces had destroyed one missile system in a Houthi-controlled Yemeni area, marking the latest round of US military attacks on Houthi targets in Yemen in response to ship attacks. 

Meanwhile, Yemeni government officials and human rights organizations said on Monday that the Houthis had abducted two Yemeni workers with international aid organizations, as the Yemeni militia escalated attacks on people working for foreign aid and human rights organizations on espionage charges.

The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms, also known as YNRF, said the Houthis abducted a Yemeni worker of the UK-funded organization Oxfam in Saada, but did not specify the worker’s name or the date of the kidnapping. 

On Saturday, the Houthis abducted Abdullah Al-Baydani, a Yemeni information technology worker for the UN World Food Programme in Sanaa, the YNRF said. Yemen’s Human Rights Minister Ahmed Arman confirmed to Arab News the abduction of Al-Baydani.

Over the past three months, the Houthis have abducted at least 70 Yemeni workers from UN agencies, international rights and aid organizations, and diplomatic missions after raiding their homes and workplaces. 

The Houthis accuse Yemeni workers at those organizations of using their jobs as a cover for spying for US and Israeli intelligence agencies, allegations that the UN and other organizations strongly deny. 

According to the Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms, the abducted workers have been subjected to torture, forcibly disappeared, and are unable to communicate with or see their families. 

“Abductees from international organizations and UN agencies are still subjected to violations such as torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, and deprivation of communication with their families,” the Yemeni organization said.


Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election

Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
Updated 06 October 2024
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Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election

Tunisia votes with Saied set for re-election
  • Three years after a sweeping power grab by Saied, the election is seen as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy
  • After rising to power in a landslide in 2019, Saied, now 66, led a sweeping power grab that saw him rewrite the constitution

TUNIS: Tunisia holds a presidential election Sunday with no real opposition to incumbent Kais Saied, widely tipped to win as his most prominent critics, including a key contender, are behind bars.
Three years after a sweeping power grab by Saied, the election is seen as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.
The North African country had prided itself for more than a decade for being the birthplace of the Arab Spring uprisings against dictatorship.
Polling stations open at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and close at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT). Preliminary results should come no later than Wednesday but may be known earlier, according to ISIE, the electoral board.
In the lead-up to polling day, there have been no campaign rallies or public debates — and nearly all of the campaign posters in city streets have been of Saied.
With little hope for change in a country mired in economic crisis, the mood among much of the electorate has been one of resignation.
“We have nothing to do with politics,” Mohamed, a 22-year-old who gave only his first name for fear of retribution, told AFP in Tunis.
Neither he nor his friends planned to vote, he said, because they believed it was “useless.”
After rising to power in a landslide in 2019, Saied, now 66, led a sweeping power grab that saw him rewrite the constitution.
A burgeoning crackdown on dissent ensued, and a number of Saied’s critics across the political spectrum were jailed, sparking criticism both at home and abroad.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that more than “170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights.”
Jailed opposition figures include Rached Ghannouchi, head of the Islamist-inspired opposition party Ennahdha, which dominated political life after the revolution.
Also detained is Abir Moussi, head of the Free Destourian Party, which critics accuse of wanting to bring back the regime that was ousted in 2011.

ISIE said about 9.7 million people are expected to turn out, but the near certainty of a Saied win and the country’s mounting hardships have inspired little to no eagerness to vote.
The International Crisis Group think tank said on Friday that “the president’s nationalist discourse and economic hardship” have “corroded any enthusiasm ordinary citizens might have felt about the election.”
“Many fear that a new mandate for Saied will only deepen the country’s socio-economic woes, as well as hasten the regime’s authoritarian drift,” it said.
Voters are being presented with almost no alternative after ISIE barred 14 hopefuls from standing in the race, citing insufficient endorsements among other technicalities.
Hundreds of people protested in the capital on Friday, marching along a heavily policed Habib Bourguiba Avenue as some demonstrators bore signs denouncing Saied as a “Pharaoh manipulating the law.”
Standing against him Sunday are former lawmaker Zouhair Maghzaoui, a supporter of the power grab Saied staged in 2021, and Ayachi Zammel, a little-known businessman who has been in jail since his bid was approved by ISIE last month.
Zammel currently faces more than 14 years in prison on accusations of having forged endorsement signatures to enable him to stand in the election.
In a speech on Thursday, Saied called for a “massive turnout to vote” and usher in what he called an era of “reconstruction.”
He cited “a long war against conspiratorial forces linked to foreign circles,” accusing them of “infiltrating many public services and disrupting hundreds of projects” under his tenure.
The International Crisis Group said that while Saied “enjoys significant support among the working classes, he has been criticized for failing to resolve the country’s deep economic crisis.”
 


At least 18 killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza mosque

At least 18 killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza mosque
Updated 17 min 24 sec ago
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At least 18 killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza mosque

At least 18 killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza mosque
  • Israeli military says the target once served as the ‘Shuhada Al-Aqsa’ Mosque but was being as Hamas command and control center
  • Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians and displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people

GAZA/CAIRO: At least 18 people were killed and dozens of others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a Gaza mosque early on Sunday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
The strike on the mosque, near the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, came as the war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian enclave approaches its first anniversary.
Eyewitnesses said the number of casualties could rise as the mosque was being used to house displaced people.
The Israeli military said in a statement it “conducted a precise strike on Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control center embedded in a structure that previously served as the ‘Shuhada Al-Aqsa’ Mosque in the area of Deir al Balah.”
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also displaced nearly all of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, caused a hunger crisis and led to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.


Hezbollah says repelled ‘attempted’ Israeli infiltration at border village

Hezbollah says repelled ‘attempted’ Israeli infiltration at border village
Updated 06 October 2024
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Hezbollah says repelled ‘attempted’ Israeli infiltration at border village

Hezbollah says repelled ‘attempted’ Israeli infiltration at border village

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Hezbollah said its fighters pushed away Israeli troops that attempted to storm into a Lebanese border village early Sunday, in the latest clashes after Israel announced ground operations earlier this week.
The fighters launched “artillery shells” at “Israeli enemy soldiers who attempted to infiltrate from... Blida... forcing (them) to retreat,” the Iran-backed group said in a statement.

 

 


Iran ‘ongoing threat’ to Israel, says president

Iran ‘ongoing threat’ to Israel, says president
Updated 06 October 2024
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Iran ‘ongoing threat’ to Israel, says president

Iran ‘ongoing threat’ to Israel, says president
  • Since late September the conflict with Hezbollah has escalated into full-on war

JERUSALEM: President Isaac Herzog said on Saturday that Iran remains an “ongoing threat” to Israel, a year after the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants.
“In many senses we are still living the aftermath of October 7... It is in the ongoing threat to the Jewish State by Iran and its terror proxies, who are blinded by hatred and bent on the destruction of our one and only Jewish nation state,” Herzog said in a statement to mark the first anniversary of the Hamas onslaught.
On October 1, Iran struck Israel with about 200 missiles in what was its second direct attack in less than six months during the ongoing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
US officials told American news outlets after Iran’s earlier strike in April that Israel in turn carried out a retaliatory strike on the Islamic republic.
Iran had targeted Israel with drones and missiles after a deadly strike, which it blamed on Israel, against Tehran’s embassy consular annex in Syria.
The latest missile barrage from Iran came, it said, in retaliation for the killings of top militant leaders.
In response to the missile fire, most of which was intercepted, Iran and much of the international community is now bracing for a potential Israeli attack on the Islamic republic.
The attack by Palestinian militants Hamas almost a year ago triggered war with Israel that continues in the Gaza Strip, as well as supporting fire from Iran-backed groups in the Middle East, mainly Lebanon’s Hezbollah which is armed and financed by Iran.
Since late September the conflict with Hezbollah has escalated into full-on war.


Israeli air strikes target Palestinian refugee camp, Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut

Israeli air strikes target Palestinian refugee camp, Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut
Updated 06 October 2024
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Israeli air strikes target Palestinian refugee camp, Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut

Israeli air strikes target Palestinian refugee camp, Hezbollah TV studios in Beirut
  • Refugee camp deep in the north hit for the first time as strikes target both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters
  • Building housing studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel also targeted 

BEIRUT: Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.

A series of strong explosions were reported near midnight after Israel’s military called on residents to evacuate areas in Beirut’s Haret Hreik and Choueifat neighborhoods. Residents were also told to evacuate buildings in the areas of Al-Kafaat, Al-Laylaki, and the Madi neighborhood.

Blasts illuminated the skyline of the densely populated southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. They followed a day of sporadic strikes and the nearly continuous buzz of reconnaissance drones.

The strong explosions began near midnight and continued into Sunday after Israel’s military urged residents to evacuate areas in Dahiyeh, the predominantly Shiite collection of suburbs on Beirut’s southern edge.

A  building near a road leading to the Rarik Hariri International Airport was among those hit, triggering violent explosions followed by a massive fire. Social media reports claimed that one of the strikes hit an oxygen tank storage facility, but this was later denied by the owner of the company Khaled Kaddouha.

A building known to house studios of Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV channel was also targeted in the strikes.

Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees from the Sabra and Shatila camps, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.

A video clip posted by LBCI Lebanon News on the X platform showed chaos and confusion along the streets as people rushed for their safety.

Israel’s military confirmed it was striking targets near Beirut and said about 30 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory, with some intercepted.

 

Shortly thereafter, Hezbollah claimed in a statement that it successfully targeted a group of Israeli soldiers near the Manara settlement in northern Israel “with a large rocket salvo, hitting them accurately.”

On Saturday, Israel’s attack on the northern Beddawi camp killed an official with Hamas’ military wing along with his wife and two young daughters, the Palestinian militant group said. Hamas later said another military wing member was killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. The aftermath showed smashed buildings, scattered bricks and stairways to nowhere.

Israel has killed several Hamas officials in Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began , in addition to most of the top leadership of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah as fighting has sharply escalated.

At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes in less than two weeks. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group away from shared borders so displaced Israelis can return to their homes.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah, the strongest armed force in Lebanon, began firing rockets into Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, calling it a show of support for the Palestinians. Hezbollah and Israel’s military have traded fire almost daily.

Last week, Israel launched what it called a limited ground operation into southern Lebanon after a series of attacks killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and others. The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief war in 2006. Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground clashes that Israel says have killed 440 Hezbollah fighters.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Damascus that “we are trying to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and in Lebanon.” The minister said the unnamed countries putting forward initiatives include regional states and some outside the Middle East.

Araghchi spoke a day after the supreme leader of Iran praised its recent missile strikes on Israel and said it was ready to do it again if necessary.

On Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “Israel has the duty and the right to defend itself and respond to these attacks, and it will do so.” On Lebanon, he said ”we are not done yet.”

Fleeing Lebanon on foot

Israel’s military earlier Saturday said about 90 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory. Most were intercepted, but several fell in the northern Arab town of Deir Al-Asad, where police said three people were lightly injured.

At least six people in Lebanon were killed in more than a dozen Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday, according to the Lebanese state-run National News Agency.

Nearly 375,000 people have fled from Lebanon into Syria in less than two weeks, according to a Lebanese government committee.

Associated Press journalists saw hundreds continuing to cross the Masnaa Border Crossing on foot, crunching over the rubble after Israeli airstrikes left huge craters in the road leading to it on Thursday. Much of Hezbollah’s weaponry is believed to come from Iran through Syria.

“We were on the road for two days,” said Issa Hilal, one of many Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are now heading back. “The roads were very crowded … it was very difficult. We almost died getting here.” Some children whimpered or cried.

Other displaced families now shelter alongside Beirut’s famous seaside Corniche, their wind-flapped tents just steps from luxury homes. “We don’t care if we die, but we don’t want to die at the hands of Netanyahu,” said Om Ali Mcheik.

The Israeli military said special forces were carrying out ground raids against Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon. It said troops dismantled tunnel shafts that Hezbollah used to approach the Israeli border.

More evacuation orders in Gaza

Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the war, according to the Health Ministry there, which does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. Almost 90 percent of Gaza’s residents are displaced, amid widespread destruction.

Palestinian medical officials said Israeli strikes in northern and central Gaza on Saturday killed at least nine people. One in the northern town of Beit Hanoun killed at least five, including two children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Another hit a house in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least four, Awda hospital said.

Israel’s military did not have any immediate comment but has long accused Hamas of operating from within civilian areas.

An Israeli airstrike killed two children in Gaza City’s Zaytoun neighborhood, according to the civil defense first responders’ group that operates under the Hamas-run government.

Israel’s military warned Palestinians to evacuate along the strategic Netzarim corridor in central Gaza that was at the heart of obstacles to a ceasefire deal. The military told people in parts of the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps to evacuate to Muwasi, a coastal area it has designated a humanitarian zone.

It’s unclear how many Palestinians are in those areas. Israeli forces have often returned to areas in Gaza to target Hamas fighters as they regroup.