Houthis fire 3 cruise missiles at Israel in support of Lebanon and Palestine

Israeli air strikes on Yemen killed four people on September 29 and wounded more than 30 after Israel's military said it struck targets in the Iran-backed militia's territory including Hodeida. (File/AFP)
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Updated 02 October 2024
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Houthis fire 3 cruise missiles at Israel in support of Lebanon and Palestine

  • There was no announcement from the Israeli military about rocket fire from Yemen

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Houthi militia claimed to have fired three cruise missiles at Israel, as thousands of Houthi supporters marched through Sanaa to show their support for Iran’s missile barrage against Israel.

In a televised statement, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said on Wednesday that their missile forces fired three Quds 5 cruise missiles at “vital targets” inside Israel in support of the people of Palestine and Lebanon against Israel.

He said the missiles hit their targets, vowing to carry out more missile and drone attacks on Israel until it ends its war in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military told CNN that the army was “unaware” of the missile attacks launched from Yemen.

Sarea expressed the militia’s support for Iran’s missile attack on Israel and stated that they would participate in any retaliatory military responses by Palestinian and Lebanese groups against Israel.

This comes as hundreds of Houthi supporters gathered in Sanaa’s streets on Tuesday to express their support for Iran’s missile strike on Israel, shortly after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Israel.

Supporters of the Houthis raised the Hezbollah flag and a picture of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, chanting, “Oh Iran, my dear … strike, strike Tel Aviv.”

The Houthis are part of the Axis of Resistance, which consists of Iran-backed armed groups, including Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Yemeni government and others have accused Hezbollah of sending military experts and Iran-made weapons to Yemen to support the Houthis, as well as training Houthi fighters over the last decade and harboring Houthi figures in the group’s stronghold in Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.

At the same time, Mwatana for Human Rights condemned on Wednesday Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s western city of Hodeidah, saying that approximately 20 airstrikes by Israeli warplanes “totally” destroyed three power stations in Hodeidah, as well as fuel tanks at Ras Issa Port on Sunday.

The airstrikes left thousands of residents of the humid and hot city without power and forced health facilities such as neonatal units and dialysis centers to suspend operations, causing chaos in the city and panic buying of gas and fuel, Mwatana said.

“The Israeli fighter jets’ targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yemen underscores their pattern of attacking essential resources for civilians. This assault exacerbates the suffering of hundreds of thousands in Al-Hodeidah and other governorates,” Mwatana’s Chairwoman Radhya Al-Mutawakel said in a statement.

At the same time, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said on Tuesday that the Hodeidah and Ras Issa ports, which were targeted by Israeli warplanes, are still operational and capable of handling ships and that the UN has provided fuel to health facilities to keep their power generators operational.

“Power stations throughout Hodeidah city are, however, running at a very limited capacity. We are distributing fuel to health facilities to keep their generators going so they continue to provide health services to those who need it,” Dujarric said in a press briefing in New York.

Meanwhile, the Houthis released Abdu Mused Al-Mudani, a journalist, and Ahmed Saleh Al-Jabli, an activist, who were among more than 400 Yemenis abducted by the Houthis in recent weeks for commemorating the 1962 revolution, Yemeni activists and local media reported Wednesday.

Al-Mudani was released a day after the Yemeni Journalist Syndicate said that he was transferred to an intensive care unit at a Sanaa hospital after his health deteriorated due to mistreatment by his Houthi captors and poor conditions at the detention facility.


American killed in Lebanon was a US citizen, State Dept says

Kamel Ahmad Jawad. (Courtesy Jawad Family)
Updated 05 October 2024
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American killed in Lebanon was a US citizen, State Dept says

  • State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller earlier this week said it was Washington’s understanding that Jawad was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen. On Friday, the department said that he was a US citizen

WASHINGTON: An American killed in Lebanon this week was a US citizen, a State Department spokesperson said on Friday, adding that Washington was working to understand the circumstances of the incident.
Kamel Ahmad Jawad, from Dearborn, Michigan, was killed in Lebanon in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday, according to his daughter, a friend and the US congresswoman representing his district.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller earlier this week said it was Washington’s understanding that Jawad was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen. On Friday, the department said that he was a US citizen.
“We are aware and alarmed of reports of the death of Kamel Jawad, who we have confirmed is a US citizen,” the spokesperson said.
“As we have noted repeatedly, it is a moral and strategic imperative that Israel take all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Any loss of civilian life is a tragedy.”
Israel says it is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, who have been firing rockets into Israel since the war in Gaza began a year ago.
Its recent military campaign in Lebanon has killed hundreds and wounded thousands, according to the Lebanese government, which has not said how many of the casualties were civilians versus Hezbollah members. The Israeli bombardment has also driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes.
The governor of Michigan has urged the US government to do more to rescue Americans stuck in Lebanon, many of them from Michigan, during Israel’s military offensive in the country.

 


Tunisians protest against President Saied two days before presidential vote

Updated 05 October 2024
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Tunisians protest against President Saied two days before presidential vote

  • The opposition’s anger flared after presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was handed down three prison sentences totalling 14 years

TUNIS: Hundreds of Tunisians marched in the capital on Friday, escalating protests against President Kais Saied, two days before what they say is an unfair presidential vote in which Saied has removed most other candidates to remain in power.
Protesters, who held up banners reading “Farce elections” and “Freedoms, not a lifelong presidency,” marched to Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main thoroughfare in Tunis and a focus point in 2011 protests that toppled former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Political tensions in the North African country have risen since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three other prominent candidates, and an independent court has been stripped of authority to adjudicate on election disputes by the parliament.
The opposition’s anger flared after presidential candidate Ayachi Zammel was handed down three prison sentences totalling 14 years.
He has been in jail since he was arrested a month ago on charges of forging electoral documents.
Saied now faces just two rival candidates, Zammel and Zouhair Maghzaoui, who was a former Saied ally and then turned critic.
Protesters chanted slogans against Saied: “The people want the fall of the regime” and Dictator Saied ... your turn has come.”
“Tunisians are not accustomed to such an election. In 2011, 2014 and 2019 they expressed their opinions freely, but this election does not allow them the right to choose their destiny,” said Zied Ghanney, an opposition figure.

 


Hamas counters abduction claim, says Yazidi woman’s Gaza departure was voluntary

Updated 05 October 2024
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Hamas counters abduction claim, says Yazidi woman’s Gaza departure was voluntary

  • “The Yazidi woman left the government facility to the crossing on her own, with the knowledge of her deceased husband’s family and the Palestinian government
  • A US defense official said on Thursday the American military did not have a role in the evacuation

CAIRO: The Islamist group Hamas rejected what it called “a false narrative and fabricated story” about a Yazidi woman Israel said was freed in Gaza in a secret operation involving Israel, the United States and Iraq.
The woman, whom Israeli officials have said was taken captive when she was 11 years old and sold to a Hamas member, had never been abducted or sold, and was able to leave Gaza with the knowledge of the Hamas authorities, the Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Friday.
It said the 25-year old woman, identified as Fawzia Sido, was married to a Palestinian who fought alongside the Syrian opposition forces before he was killed. She later moved to live with his mother in Turkiye before traveling to Egypt, where she continued to live with her mother-in-law and later crossed into Gaza legally.
Years after she moved to live in Gaza, she married her husband’s brother before he was killed during the ongoing Israeli military offensive, Hamas said.
“She requested to contact her family because she felt increasingly unsafe in Gaza amid the intense bombing and brutal attacks by the Israeli occupation. She asked for evacuation, especially after her husband was martyred,” the Gaza government media office said.
“The Yazidi woman left the government facility to the crossing on her own, with the knowledge of her deceased husband’s family and the Palestinian government. The occupation did not ‘rescue’ her, as falsely claimed in its statement aimed at misleading public opinion,” it added.
Reuters could not reach the woman directly for comment on Thursday, with Iraqi officials saying she was resting after having been reunited with her family in northern Iraq.
On Thursday, the Israeli military said it had coordinated with the US Embassy in Jerusalem and “other international actors” in the operation to free Sido.
It said in a statement her captor had been killed during the Gaza war, presumably by an Israeli strike, and she then fled to a hideout inside the Gaza Strip.
“In a complex operation coordinated between Israel, the United States, and other international actors, she was recently rescued in a secret mission from the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom Crossing,” it said.
A US defense official said on Thursday the American military did not have a role in the evacuation.
She was freed after more than four months of efforts that involved several attempts that failed due to the difficult security situation resulting from Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, Silwan Sinjaree, chief of staff of Iraq’s foreign minister, told Reuters on Thursday.
Iraq and Israel do not have any diplomatic ties.
“The narrative the occupation attempted to promote is entirely false. The woman traveled to Gaza through multiple airports and official border crossings,” the Hamas statement said.
“How could she pass through all these checkpoints without security noticing, only for the occupation to later claim she was kidnapped?” it added.

 


Egypt’s plan to save some dough: cut the wheat in bread

Updated 05 October 2024
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Egypt’s plan to save some dough: cut the wheat in bread

  • But bakers, millers and consumers fear the product will smell and taste different

RIYADH: Egypt plans to save millions of dollars in import costs by replacing a fifth of the wheatflour in the nation’s bread with cheaper ingredients such as corn or sorghum, industry sources said on Friday.
But bakers and millers reacted with anger when the plan was put to them by the Supply Ministry, and consumers fear their bread will taste different. “The change could be unpopular, producing bread with a different texture and smell,” said Hesham Soliman, a trader in Cairo.

Bakeries oppose the plan because coarser flour requires lengthier baking and would increase labor costs. Mills are also opposed because they are paid based on how much wheat they process, which would be reduced.

Egypt has tried wheat substitution to reduce imports before. Corn was used for several years two decades ago before campaigning by industry groups pushed the government to abandon it.

In another money-saving move, the government raised the price of subsidised bread this year for the first time in decades.

Egypt needs about 8.25 million tonnes of wheat a year to make subsidised bread available to more than 70 million people. It is one of the world’s largest wheat importers, mostly from Russia, at a cost of more than $2 billion a year.


The International Criminal Court unsealed war crimes arrest warrants for 6 Libyan suspects

Updated 05 October 2024
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The International Criminal Court unsealed war crimes arrest warrants for 6 Libyan suspects

  • Khan said that 3 of the suspects were leaders or senior members of the Al Kaniyat militia that controlled Tarhunah from at least 2015 to June 2020, and 3 others were Libyan security officials associated with the militia at the time of the alleged crimes

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: The International Criminal Court unsealed arrest warrants Friday for six men allegedly linked to a brutal Libyan militia blamed for multiple killings and other crimes in a strategically important western town where mass graves were discovered in 2020.
Libya has been in political turmoil since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Since then, Libya has been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each backed by militias and foreign governments.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said his investigation has gathered evidence “indicating that Tarhunah residents have been subjected to crimes amounting to war crimes, including murder, outrages upon personal dignity, cruel treatment, torture, sexual violence, and rape.”
The court unsealed warrants against six men: Abdelrahim Al-Kani, Makhlouf Douma, Nasser Al-Lahsa, Mohammed Salheen, Abdelbari Al-Shaqaqi and Fathi Al-Zinkal.
Khan said that three of the suspects were leaders or senior members of the Al Kaniyat militia that controlled Tarhunah from at least 2015 to June 2020, and three others were Libyan security officials associated with the militia at the time of the alleged crimes.
Warrants for four of the suspects were issued in April 2023 and two more in July of that year but were kept under seal.
“It is now my view that arrest and surrender can be achieved most effectively through the unsealing of these warrants,” Khan said in a statement.
The mass graves were found in Tarhunah after the militia’s withdrawal following the collapse of a 14-month campaign by military commander Khalifa Haftar to wrest control of Tripoli from an array of militias allied with the former UN-recognized government.
The ICC does not have a police force and relies on cooperation from its 124 member states to enforce arrest warrants. Khan said his office is “seeking to work closely with Libyan authorities so that these individuals can face the charges against them in a court of law” and working with court officials to seek their arrest.
The court opened an investigation in Libya in 2011 at the request of the UN Security Council. It quickly issued warrants for suspects including former dictator Qaddafi, but he was killed before he could be detained and sent for trial. Qaddafi’s son, Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi, also is wanted by the court.