Houthis claim new attacks on Israel after strikes hit Yemen airport

Update The damaged control tower of Sanaa International Airport following Israeli strikes. (AFP)
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The damaged control tower of Sanaa International Airport following Israeli strikes. (AFP)
Update Sanaa international airport with its damaged control tower following Israeli strikes. (AFP)
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Sanaa international airport with its damaged control tower following Israeli strikes. (AFP)
Update The damaged control tower of Sanaa International Airport following Thursday's Israeli airstrikes. (AP)
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The damaged control tower of Sanaa International Airport following Thursday's Israeli airstrikes. (AP)
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Updated 27 December 2024
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Houthis claim new attacks on Israel after strikes hit Yemen airport

Houthis claim new attacks on Israel after strikes hit Yemen airport
  • Houthis also launched drones at Tel Aviv and a ship in the Arabian Sea
  • Israel bombed Sanaa airport as head of the UN’s World Health Organization prepared to board flight

Yemen's Houthis claimed new attacks against Israel on Friday, after Israeli air strikes hit rebel-held Sanaa’s international airport and other targets in Yemen.
The Israeli strikes on Thursday landed as the head of the UN’s World Health Organization said he and his team were preparing to fly out from Yemen’s Houthi rebel-held capital, injuring a UN crew member.
Hours later on Friday, the Iran-backed Houthis said they fired a missile at Ben Gurion Airport outside Tel Aviv and launched drones at the city as well as a ship in the Arabian Sea.
Israel’s military had earlier on Friday reported a missile launched from Yemen had been intercepted “before crossing into Israeli territory.” Sirens sounded because of possible falling debris after the interception, it said.
Yemen’s Houthis have stepped up their attacks against Israel since late November when a ceasefire took effect between Israel and another Iran-backed group, Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Israeli “aggression will only increase the determination and resolve of the great Yemeni people to continue supporting the Palestinian people,” a Houthi statement on Friday said.
Despite the damage, flights from Sanaa airport resumed at 10:00 am (0700 GMT) on Friday, Houthi Deputy Transport Minister Yahya Al-Sayani said.
“The airport tower has been directly hit in addition to the departure lounge and airport navigation equipment. The attack resulted in four dead until now and around 20 wounded from staff, airport and passengers,” Sayani said.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they knew at the time that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was there.
The strikes left the top of the control tower a bombed-out shell and large windows in the airport building were shattered, with glass littering the ground.
Israel’s attack came a day after the rebels claimed the firing of a missile and two drones at Israel.
The strikes against what Israel’s military called rebel “military targets” marked the second time since December 19 that Israel has hit targets in Yemen after rebel missile fire toward Israel.
In his latest warning to the Houthis, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would “continue until the job is done.”
“We are determined to cut this branch of terrorism from the Iranian axis of evil,” he said in a video statement.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the escalation in hostilities and said bombing transportation infrastructure threatened humanitarian operations in Yemen, where 80 percent of the population is dependent on aid.
Tedros was in Yemen to seek the release of United Nations staff detained for months by the Houthis, and to assess the humanitarian situation.
On Friday he said that a member of the UN’s Humanitarian Air Service “who was injured yesterday due to the bombardment underwent successful surgery and is now in stable condition.”
A witness told AFP that raids also targeted the adjacent Al-Dailami air base. Strikes also targeted a power station in Hodeida, on the rebel-held coast, a witness and Al-Masirah TV said.
Following rebel attacks against Israel this year, Israeli strikes had twice before hit Hodeida, a major entry point for humanitarian aid to the country ravaged for years by its own war.
On December 19, after the rebels fired a missile toward Israel and badly damaged a school, Israel for the first time struck targets in Sanaa.
Houthi media said those strikes killed nine people.
In the latest attacks, the Israeli military said its “fighter jets conducted intelligence-based strikes” on Houthi “military targets.”

The targets included “military infrastructure” at the airport and power stations in Sanaa and Hodeida, as well as other facilities at Hodeida, Salif and Ras Kanatib ports, an Israeli statement said.
Houthi rebels used the targets “to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials,” the statement said.
Similar strikes in September followed a rebel claim to have targeted Ben Gurion Airport. At that time Israel also said it targeted sites used to “transfer Iranian weaponry.”
Iran’s foreign ministry condemned the latest Israeli strikes as a “clear violation of international peace and security.”
On December 21, Israel’s military and emergency services said a projectile fired from Yemen wounded 16 people in Tel Aviv.
The Houthis have repeatedly fired missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war began in October last year, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians.
They have similarly fired drones and missiles against commercial shipping in surrounding waters vital to world trade, prompting reprisal strikes against Houthi targets by the United States and sometimes Britain.
In July, a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting the first Israeli retaliation on Hodeida.
The Houthis control large parts of Yemen after seizing Sanaa and ousting the internationally recognized government in September 2014.
A Saudi-led coalition in March 2015 began a military campaign against the Houthis that the Yemen Data Project, an independent tracker, said involved more than 25,000 air raids.


France confident Lebanon can form government representing the country’s diversity

France confident Lebanon can form government representing the country’s diversity
Updated 07 February 2025
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France confident Lebanon can form government representing the country’s diversity

France confident Lebanon can form government representing the country’s diversity
  • The spokesman said that France hopes the Lebanese prime minister will find a formula to resolve the impasse

PARIS: France has full confidence that Lebanese authorities can form a government that can bring together the Lebanese people in all their diversity, a French foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday.
Asked about US red lines over Hezbollah’s presence in the Lebanese government, he said that France hopes the Lebanese prime minister will find a formula to resolve the impasse.
The United States has set a “red line” that Shiite armed group Hezbollah should not be a member of Lebanon’s next government after its military defeat by Israel last year, USdeputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus said in Lebanon on Friday.


Israeli victims will continue to work with ICC after US sanctions, says lawyer

Israeli victims will continue to work with ICC after US sanctions, says lawyer
Updated 07 February 2025
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Israeli victims will continue to work with ICC after US sanctions, says lawyer

Israeli victims will continue to work with ICC after US sanctions, says lawyer
  • Israeli families want to continue engaging with it as part of efforts to seek justice, said lawyer Yael Vias Gvirsman
  • “Victims are ever more committed to have direct contact with the court and to pursue the justice they deserve“

THE HAGUE: Israeli victims of the Hamas attack that triggered the Gaza war will still work with the International Criminal Court even after US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the tribunal, a lawyer for victims and victims’ families said on Friday.
The sanctions are in retaliation for the court’s issuing of arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant, who are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The ICC’s prosecutor is also investigating the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. Prosecutors sought arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders for the crimes, but they were all killed in the past 16 months of war in Gaza, according to Israel and Hamas.
While sanctions will complicate dealings with the ICC, the Israeli families want to continue engaging with it as part of efforts to seek justice, said Yael Vias Gvirsman, a lawyer who represents over 350 victims and families of victims.
“Sanctions could complicate the communications channels between Israeli citizens and the court, but victims are ever more committed to have direct contact with the court and to pursue the justice they deserve,” Gvirsman said in an interview with Reuters.
The Gaza conflict has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians since October 2023, the Gaza health ministry says.
The US sanctions, which focus on punishing the court for investigating Israeli officials, can also affect the prosecution’s probe into crimes committed by Hamas, says Vias Gvirsman.
“It will be a dilemma for the court how to engage with Israeli citizens and assess if contact with the court endangers them,” she said.


US has set ‘red line’ that Hezbollah not join Lebanese govt, envoy says

US has set ‘red line’ that Hezbollah not join Lebanese govt, envoy says
Updated 07 February 2025
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US has set ‘red line’ that Hezbollah not join Lebanese govt, envoy says

US has set ‘red line’ that Hezbollah not join Lebanese govt, envoy says
  • Morgan Ortagus first senior US official to visit Lebanon since US President Donald Trump took office

Beirut: The United States has set a “red line” that Shiite armed group Hezbollah should not be a member of Lebanon’s next government after its military defeat by Israel last year, US deputy Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus said in Lebanon on Friday.
Ortagus is the first senior US official to visit Lebanon since US President Donald Trump took office and since Joseph Aoun was elected president in Lebanon.
Her visit comes amid a stalled cabinet formation process in Lebanon, where government posts are apportioned on sectarian lines. Hezbollah’s ally Amal has insisted on approving all Shiite Muslim ministers, keeping the process in deadlock.
Speaking to reporters after meeting President Aoun, Ortagus said she was “not afraid” of Iran-backed Hezbollah “because they’ve been defeated militarily,” referring to last year’s war between the group and Israel.
“And we have set clear red lines from the United States that they won’t be able to terrorize the Lebanese people, and that includes by being a part of the government,” she said.
Ortagus had been widely expected to deliver a tough message to Lebanese officials about Hezbollah, which was battered by months of Israeli air strikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon last year.
Fighting ended in late November with a ceasefire brokered by the United States and France that set a deadline of 60 days for Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon, Hezbollah to pull out its fighters and arms and Lebanese troops to deploy to the area.
That deadline was extended to Feb. 18. Ortagus referred to the new date on Friday but did not explicitly say the Israeli army (IDF) would withdraw from Lebanese territory.
“February 18 will be the date for redeployment, when the IDF troops will finish their redeployment, and of course, the (Lebanese) troops will come in behind them, so we are very committed to that firm date,” she said.
Ortagus is expected to meet Lebanese prime minister-designate Nawaf Salam, Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri — who also heads Amal — and make a trip to southern Lebanon with the Lebanese army


Al-Qaeda in Yemen says senior official killed in blast

Al-Qaeda in Yemen says senior official killed in blast
Updated 07 February 2025
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Al-Qaeda in Yemen says senior official killed in blast

Al-Qaeda in Yemen says senior official killed in blast
  • Abu Yusuf Al-Muhammadi Al-Hadrami died when a motorcycle packed with explosives detonated near where he worked in Marib

Dubai: A senior member of Al-Qaeda in Yemen has been killed in a bomb blast, according to a statement from the extremist group behind a string of high-profile attacks.
Abu Yusuf Al-Muhammadi Al-Hadrami died when a motorcycle packed with explosives detonated near where he worked in Marib, east of the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
Washington regards the group, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as most dangerous branch of group
Born in 2009, AQAP grew and developed in the chaos of Yemen’s war.
It has been responsible for multiple attacks, including the deadly 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Aden, which killed 17 US military personnel.
In 2015, AQAP claimed that two French gunmen who massacred 12 people in an attack on the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine were acting on its behalf.


US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW

US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW
Updated 07 February 2025
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US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW

US aid freeze worsening Syria camp conditions: HRW
  • On January 24, four days after US President Donald Trump returned to power, NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) received a letter asking them to cease all activities

Beirut: Human Rights Watch warned Friday that US aid suspensions could worsen “life-threatening conditions” in camps holding relatives of suspected Daesh terrorists in northeast Syria, urging Washington to maintain support.
Kurdish-run camps and prisons in the region still hold around 56,000 people with alleged or perceived links to the Daesh group, years after the jihadists’ territorial defeat.
They include jihadist suspects locked up in prisons, as well as the wives and children of IS fighters held in the Al-Hol and Roj internment camps.
“The US government’s suspension of foreign aid to non-governmental organizations operating in these camps is exacerbating life-threatening conditions, risking further destabilization of a precarious security situation,” HRW said in a statement.
The rights group said the aid freeze could “limit provision of essential services for camp residents,” citing international humanitarian workers.
On January 24, four days after US President Donald Trump returned to power, NGOs linked to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) received a first letter asking them to cease all activities funded by the agency.
A week later, another letter, seen by AFP, authorized them to resume certain missions intended for “life-saving humanitarian assistance.”
The orders have left aid groups in the northeast “unsure how to proceed with deliveries of essential goods, like kerosene and water, further exacerbating pre-existing shortages,” the statement said.
“Secretary of State Marco Rubio should continue US assistance to organizations providing essential lifesaving assistance in northeast Syria,” the group said.
Following the January 24 order, HRW said Blumont, an organization responsible for camp management in Al Hol and Roj, suspended activities and withdrew all staff, including guards.
A few days later, the group received a two-week exemption allowing it to work.
Al-Hol is northeast Syria’s largest internment camp, with more than 40,000 detainees from 47 countries.
The vast majority of Al-Hol and Roj residents are women and children living in dire conditions.
HRW also said that “any political settlement in the region should include ending the arbitrary detention of those with alleged Daesh ties and their families.”
“Thousands of lives, many of them children, are hanging in the balance, and the indefensible status quo of the last six years should not be allowed to continue,” said Hiba Zayadin of Human Rights Watch.
The call comes amid talks between Syria’s new authorities and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) over the group’s future and as clashes rage in the north between the Kurdish-led group and Turkish-backed factions.