ADEN: Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port last month appeared to be an indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians which may amount to a war crime, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Monday.
Israel said on July 20 its warplanes struck Houthi military targets near Hodeidah.
The attack targeted oil facilities and a power station and HRW said it killed at least six people and wounded at least 80.
It took place a day after a Houthi drone hit Israel’s economic hub Tel Aviv, killing one person, which HRW said also may constitute a war crime.
The retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on Hodeidah hit more than two dozen oil storage tanks and two shipping cranes in the port, as well as a power plant in the province’s Salif district, Human Rights Watch said.
“The attacks appeared to cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects. Serious violations of the laws of war committed willfully, that is deliberately or recklessly, are war crimes.”
Analyzed satellite imagery found that the oil tanks burned for at least three days, posing environmental concerns, according to the HRW report.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli foreign ministry.
Hodeidah, which has been under Houthi control since 2021, is critical for delivering food and other necessities to the Yemeni population, who depend on imports. About 70 percent of Yemen’s commercial imports and 80 percent of its humanitarian assistance passes through the port.
The Houthis have launched missiles and drones at Israel and disrupted global trade through the Red Sea in response to Israel’s assault on Gaza, further destabilising the Middle East as war in the Palestinian enclave rages on after 10 months.
Israel says the Houthis have launched 200 attacks against it since the Gaza war began, many of them intercepted and most of them not deadly.
But a rare Houthi drone strike on July 19 that hit Tel Aviv prompted Israel to announce its first strikes against the group the next day.
The Houthi movement, known formally as Ansar Allah, said it would continue to attack Israel in response.
Israel’s July strikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port a ‘possible war crime’, HR Watch says
https://arab.news/vdrtw
Israel’s July strikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port a ‘possible war crime’, HR Watch says
- The retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on Hodeidah hit more than two dozen oil storage tanks and two shipping cranes in the port
- Oil tanks burned for at least three days, posing environmental concerns
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
