Israel strikes on Yemen port: what is the damage?

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Thick smoke billows from a raging fire at oil storage tanks a day after Israeli strikes on the port of Yemen's Huthi-held city of Hodeida on July 21, 2024. (AFP)
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Debris hangs from a damaged crane on a loading dock a day after Israeli strikes on the port of Yemen's Huthi-held city of Hodeida on July 21, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 23 July 2024
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Israel strikes on Yemen port: what is the damage?

  • The attack destroyed most of the port’s fuel storage capacity of 150,000 tons, leaving the Hodeida governorate with an overall capacity of 50,000, the US-based Navanti Group said, citing merchants
  • The ship “remains operational,” but “all 780,000 liters of fuel stock was likely destroyed,” said Pierre Honnorat, WFP’s Yemen country director, adding that all the agency’s staff were safe and accounted for

DUBAI: Israeli strikes on Saturday hit a power plant and fuel storage facilities in Hodeida, the main port under the control of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Here is what we know about the damage caused by the attack, which set oil tanks ablaze for days and came a day after the first fatal strike by the Houthis in Israel.

Saturday’s long-distance strike, the first by Israel on the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, hit the Hodeida harbor, a key gateway for fuel and international aid into Houthi-held parts of Yemen.




A satellite image shows a closer view of burning oil tanks after an Israeli air strike on Houthi military targets in Hodeidah, Yemen, July 21, 2024. (REUTERS)

The Houthis, who control swathes of the country including much of its Red Sea coast, said the attack struck fuel storage facilities at the harbor, killing six people, all of them port employees of the Yemen Petroleum Company.
A nearby power plant was also targeted, according to the rebels.
AFPTV images showed huge flames and black smoke spiralling into the sky from burning oil tanks at the port. Debris covered the dock where equipment was damaged.
High-resolution satellite images taken by Maxar Technologies showed flames consuming a heavily damaged fuel storage area, which still appeared to be burning on Monday, according to an AFP correspondent.




Debris litters a loading dock a day after Israeli strikes on the port of Yemen's Huthi-held city of Hodeida on July 21, 2024. (AFP)

A Hodeida port employee who was at the harbor the day of the attack said several tanks exploded sequentially.
But “the port, with its dock, containers, and ships, is intact,” said the employee who spoke on condition of anonymity over security concerns.
Analysis of satellite imagery from Planet by Dutch peace organization PAX showed at least 33 destroyed oil storage tanks, said Wim Zwijnenburg, a project leader with the organization.
“We expect (to find) more damage, as not all storage tanks are visible because of heavy smoke” from the fire and burning fuel, Zwijnenburg told AFP.

According to Zwijnenburg, the bombing has resulted in tens of thousands of liters of oil burning.
“Localized coastal pollution is expected from wastewater and leaking fuel,” said the expert, who specializes in the environmental impacts of war.
Maritime security firm Ambrey said satellite imagery following the strikes showed “extensive damage to the oil products storage facilities,” clarifying, however, that “the bulk terminal storage facilities appeared to be unaffected.”
The attack destroyed most of the port’s fuel storage capacity of 150,000 tons, leaving the Hodeida governorate with an overall capacity of 50,000, the US-based Navanti Group said, citing merchants.
The Israeli army on Sunday published a video showing them hitting two container yard cranes at the harbor.
The Navanti Group said five cranes are now “most likely non-operational.”
Ambrey said two merchant vessels were alongside the yard at the time the cranes were hit, but it did not specify if they were damaged.
The British agency had earlier observed four merchant vessels in the port at the time of the strikes and another eight in the anchorage.
“No vessel arrivals or departures have occurred since the Israeli attack on Hodeida,” Ambrey reported on Monday.

The World Food Programme on Monday told AFP that there had been “minor” damage to a crane on one of its aid vessels in the port and that its fuel storage facility was impacted.
The ship “remains operational,” but “all 780,000 liters of fuel stock was likely destroyed,” said Pierre Honnorat, WFP’s Yemen country director, adding that all the agency’s staff were safe and accounted for.
“WFP will source enough fuel supplies to ensure this loss has no significant effect on our operations,” he said.
Yemeni port authorities have said Hodeida “is operating at its full capacity,” according to the rebels’ Saba news agency.
“We are working around the clock to receive all ships and there is no concern about the supply chain and supplies of food, medicine, and oil derivatives,” port official Nasr Al-Nusairi was quoted by Saba as saying on Sunday.
A Houthi transport official on Monday said “work is underway to receive and unload food and fuel shipments within 24 hours.”
While firefighting teams were still struggling to contain the blaze at the harbor, a fire that erupted at a nearby power plant was nearly under control on Monday, according to Mohammed Albasha, the Navanti Group’s senior Middle East analyst.
“Repairs have started” as electricity gradually returns to the city following outages over the weekend, the analyst said.
 

 


Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria

Updated 7 sec ago
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Sweden charges woman with genocide, crimes against humanity in Syria

  • Daesh ‘tried to annihilate the Yazidi ethnic group on an industrial scale,’ prosecutor Reena Devgun says

DENMARK: Swedish authorities have charged a 52-year-old woman associated with the Daesh group with genocide, crimes against humanity, and serious war crimes against Yazidi women and children in Syria — in the first such case of a person to be tried in the Scandinavian country.

Lina Laina Ishaq, who’s a Swedish citizen, allegedly committed the crimes from August 2014 to December 2016 in Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the self-proclaimed Daesh caliphate and home to about 300,000 people.

The crimes “took place under Daesh rule in Raqqa, and this is the first time that Daesh attacks against the Yazidi minority have been tried in Sweden,” senior prosecutor Reena Devgun said in a statement.

“Women, children, and men were regarded as property and subjected to being traded as slaves, sexual slavery, forced labor, deprivation of liberty, and extrajudicial executions,” Devgun said.

When announcing the charges, Devgun said that they were able to identify the woman through information from UNITAD, the UN team investigating atrocities in Iraq.

 

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Daesh “tried to annihilate the Yazidi ethnic group on an industrial scale,” Devgun said.

In a separate statement, the Stockholm District Court said the prosecutor claims the woman detained a number of women and children belonging to the Yazidi ethnic group in her residence in Raqqa and “allegedly exposed them to, among other things, severe suffering, torture or other inhumane treatment as well as for persecution by depriving them of fundamental rights for cultural, religious and gender reasons contrary to general international law.”

According to the charge sheet, Ishaq is suspected of holding nine people, including children, in her Raqqa home for up to seven months and treating them as slaves. She also abused several of those she held captive.

The charge sheet said that Ishaq, who denies wrongdoing, is accused of having molested a baby, said to have been one month old at the time, by holding a hand over the child’s mouth when he screamed to make him shut up.

She is also suspected of having sold people to Daesh, knowing they risked being killed or subjected to serious sexual abuse.

In 2014, Daesh stormed Yazidi towns and villages in Iraq’s Sinjar region and abducted women and children. Women were forced into sexual slavery, and boys were taken to be indoctrinated in jihadi ideology.

The woman earlier had been convicted in Sweden and was sentenced to three years in prison for taking her 2-year-old son to Syria in 2014, an area that Daesh then controlled.

The woman claimed she had told the child’s father that she and the boy were only going on holiday to Turkiye. However, once in Turkiye, the two crossed into Syria and the Daesh-run territory.

In 2017, when Daesh’s reign began to collapse, she fled from Raqqa and was captured by Syrian Kurdish troops. She managed to escape to Turkiye, where she was arrested with her son and two other children she had given birth to in the meantime, with a Daesh foreign fighter from Tunisia.

She was extradited from Turkiye to Sweden.

Before her 2021 conviction, the woman lived in the southern town of Landskrona.

The court said the trial was planned to start Oct. 7 and last approximately two months.

Large parts of the trial are to be held behind closed doors.


Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says

Updated 15 min 34 sec ago
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Israel violated global child rights treaty in Gaza, UN committee says

GENEVA: A UN committee has accused Israel of severe breaches of a global treaty protecting children’s rights, saying its military actions in Gaza had a catastrophic impact on them and are among the worst violations in recent history.

Palestinian health authorities say 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7. Of those killed in Gaza, at least 11,355 are children, Palestinian data shows, and thousands more are injured.

“The outrageous death of children is almost historically unique. This is an extremely dark place in history,” said Bragi Gudbrandsson, vice chair of the Committee.

“I don’t think we have seen a violation that is so massive before as we’ve seen in Gaza. These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see,” he said.

Israel, which ratified the treaty in 1991, sent a large delegation to the UN hearings in Geneva between September 3-4.

They argued that the treaty did not apply in Gaza or the West Bank and that it was committed to respecting international humanitarian law. It says its military campaign in Gaza is aimed at eliminating Hamas.

The committee praised Israel for attending but said it “deeply regrets the state party’s repeated denial of its legal obligations.”

The 18-member UN Committee monitors countries’ compliance with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child — a widely adopted treaty that protects them from violence and other abuses.

In its conclusions, it called on Israel to provide urgent assistance to thousands of children maimed or injured by the war, provide support for orphans, and allow more medical evacuations from Gaza.

The UN body has no means of enforcing its recommendations, although countries generally aim to comply.

During the hearings, the UN experts also asked many questions about Israeli children, including details about those taken hostage by Hamas, to which Israel’s delegation gave extensive responses.


Spanish prime minister, Palestinian leader urge Mideast de-escalation

Updated 22 min 31 sec ago
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Spanish prime minister, Palestinian leader urge Mideast de-escalation

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday called for a de-escalation of the conflict in the Middle East.

“Today the risk of escalation is once more increasing in a dangerous way” in Lebanon, said Sanchez, at a news conference withvisitingPalestinianPresident Mahmoud Abbas.

“So we must again make a fresh appeal for restraint,for a de-escalation and for peaceful coexistence between countries, in the name of peace,” he added.

Sanchez was speaking to journalists after more than an hour’s talks with Abbas.

Since the Gaza war began, Sanchez has positioned himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause within the EU.

His socialist government has increasingly taken highly critical positions toward Israel’s conduct of itscampaignagainstHamas,rivalto the Fatah party.

“The international community and Europe cannot remain impassive in the face of the suffering of thousands of innocents, largely women and children,” he added.

Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 41,272 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to data provided by the Health Ministry. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.

Urging a two-state solution, long a cornerstone of international attempts to end the decades-long conflict, Sanchez said that a Palestinian nation “living side by side with the state of Israel” was the only way to “bring stability to the region.”

He pointed out that this is Abbas’s first visit to Spain since Madrid decided to recognize the state of Palestine on May 28. Ireland and Norway took the same decision in May. “Why is this a good thing? Because Palestine exists and has the right to have its state,” the premier added.

While Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, the Fatah party chaired by Abbas controls the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank.


More than 150 in Moroccan court over migration incitement

Updated 8 min 33 sec ago
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More than 150 in Moroccan court over migration incitement

  • They were among around 3,000 who people were involved in a recent mass attempt to reach Spanish territory
  • In August alone, authorities reportedly blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla

RABAT: More than 150 people have appeared in a Moroccan court for alleged incitement of illegal migration, a government spokesman said on Thursday, after a failed mass attempt to reach Spanish territory.
On Sunday, Moroccan police, who fired tear gas, pushed back hundreds of people who headed toward the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, an AFP photographer said, after social media posts encouraged crossing attempts.
“In the framework of the struggle against calls for clandestine immigration, 152 people appeared before a judge,” government spokesman Mustapha Baitas told a press conference.
He said a total of around 3,000 people had tried to illegally enter Ceuta after calls on social media, but all the crossing attempts failed.
A police source previously told AFP that 60 people were arrested between Monday and Wednesday last week for “fabricating and disseminating false information on social media” that encouraged “the organization of collective illegal immigration operations.”
Ceuta and its sister territory of Melilla, wedged on the North African kingdom’s Mediterranean coast, have long been a magnet for irregular migrants, being the only European Union territories on the African continent.
Those heading on Sunday toward the village of Fnideq, which abuts Ceuta, included Moroccans and migrants from other parts of Africa, including some minors, the AFP photographer said.
According to official statistic, one in four Moroccan young people aged 15-24 is neither in the job market, nor in education or training.
The Moroccan interior ministry has said that in August alone, authorities blocked more than 11,300 attempts to cross into Ceuta and about 3,300 into Melilla.
In June, 2022, at least 23 people died when around 2,000 people, many of them Sudanese, stormed the frontier at Melilla attempting to cross.
The main route out of Morocco for irregular migrants hoping to reach Spain remains by sea.
More than 22,300 migrant arrivals were registered this year by August 15 in the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a 126 percent increase from 2023.
 


Six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank’s Qabatiya

Updated 19 September 2024
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Six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in occupied West Bank’s Qabatiya

  • The governor, Kamal Abu Al-Rub, said four of the injured are in critical condition

RAMALLAH: Six Palestinians were killed and 18 others injured by Israeli forces during a military raid in the occupied West Bank city of Qabatiya, the governor of Jenin told Reuters on Thursday.
The governor, Kamal Abu Al-Rub, said four of the injured are in critical condition, and that Israeli forces withdrew from Qabatiya after destroying infrastructure in the area.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with almost daily sweeps by Israeli forces that have involved thousands of arrests and regular gunbattles between security forces and Palestinian fighters.