How effective are the US strikes on the Houthis?

The location was given as “somewhere over the US Central Command area of responsibility.” (US Central Command)
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Updated 18 March 2025
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How effective are the US strikes on the Houthis?

  • Fate of militia’s leaders unknown as health ministry blames US campaign for deaths of scores of people, including women and children
  • Prospect of prolonged campaign raises questions of cost, Israeli role and US ability to weaken Houthi defenses and eliminate key leaders

LONDON: Few took notice of a five-minute video posted on YouTube on Friday by Media Magik Entertainment, an American “veteran-owned company” that regularly uploads public-relations footage shot by the US military.

The short film, which by the weekend had attracted only a few hundred views, showed a flight of four US Navy F/A-18 fighter jets, assigned to the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, refueling in the air above a semi-mountainous desert landscape.

The location was given as “somewhere over the US Central Command area of responsibility.” CENTCOM’s area includes the Red Sea, Arabian Gulf and the entire Middle East.

The footage ended with an on-screen message from CENTCOM. The carrier strike group, it read, “is ready … to execute the full spectrum of carrier operations essential to US national security, including the defense of the US and partner forces … and freedom of navigation to ensure maritime security and stability.”




CENTCOM said that the strikes, which so far had hit radar sites, missile defenses and missile and drone systems, could last for days. (AFP)

At that moment the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier was at the northern end of the Red Sea, having passed through the Suez Canal in December.

The following day millions around the world watched footage of some of those same aircraft taking off from the carrier, bound for targets in Yemen as part of a package of strikes aimed at the Houthis, formally designated by the US as a foreign terrorist organization on March 4.

The video released by the US military — of fighters taking off from the aircraft carrier, missiles launching from ships and the black-and-white drone-shot footage of missiles striking targets marked by crosshairs — was eerily reminiscent of the nightly news footage that was seen throughout the “shock and awe” phase of the US-led invasion of Iraq over 20 years ago.

On Truth Social, his social media platform, President Trump announced he had ordered the US military “to launch decisive and powerful military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen,” who had “waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.”

CENTCOM said that the strikes, which so far had hit radar sites, missile defenses and missile and drone systems, could last for days and, depending on the Houthi response, could “intensify in scope and scale.”

Targets on the first day of strikes included a building in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, described as a Houthi stronghold; a power station in the town of Dahyan, close to the northern city of Saada; and military sites in the southern city of Taiz.

Strikes continued throughout the weekend and into Monday, concentrating on targets in Al-Jawf governorate, adjacent to Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen, and in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.




Strikes continued throughout the weekend and into Monday. (Google Earth)

“CENTCOM has shifted from the mission as a ‘defensive operation’ for protecting international shipping to a large-scale operation,” Hisham Mgdashi, a Yemeni military and security analyst, said in an assessment of the US military attacks on X.

“The latest strikes targeted entirely new locations that had not been previously hit. Hitting Al-Jarraf is strategically comparable to striking Dahiyeh in Beirut. The continued waves of operations suggest that a pre-planned target list is being systematically executed.”

In a post on X on Monday morning, Houthi health ministry spokesman Anis Al-Asbahi said that the US strikes had so far killed 53 people, including “five children and two women,” and wounded 98 others. As yet there is no confirmation of US claims that “key Houthi figures” were targeted and have been killed.

The Houthis had actually paused their attacks on shipping in January but appeared poised to resume them. On March 7 Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, the group’s leader, released a statement on X, saying he was giving the mediators of the Gaza peace process “a four-day deadline. If the Israeli enemy continues to withhold humanitarian aid from the Gaza Strip, we will resume our naval operations against them. We will respond to the siege with a siege in the Red Sea.”

Al-Houthi’s whereabouts are currently unknown. Five days ago, a source within the Houthi militia told Newsweek magazine that it was “proceeding with extreme caution” to protect its leadership, “but at the same time, we are highly prepared to make sacrifices and cannot back down.”




It is quite possible that the Houthis have a sufficiently large and well distributed arsenal to resume and keep up their attacks on shipping for some time. (Ansarullah Media Centre/AFP)

It is not known if Al-Houthi is on the American hit list, but Israel has already made clear its eagerness to see him killed. In December Energy Minister Eli Cohen told an Israeli radio station: “I’m sending a message to the Houthi leader that if he continues with his actions, he will end up exactly like (Hamas leader) Sinwar and (Hezbollah Secretary-General) Nasrallah.” Both Sinwar and Nasrallah were killed in separate attacks last year by Israeli forces.

It is also unclear whether Israel will join the US assault on the Houthis, but in the recent past it has attacked Yemen unilaterally, its aircraft hitting port facilities in September in response to missile attacks on Israel from Yemen.

The Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping began after the Hamas assault on Israel in October 2023. Since then, Trump said, the last American warship to pass through the Red Sea “was attacked by the Houthis over a dozen times.”

In November 2024, the Biden administration had authorized a series of airstrikes “against multiple Houthi weapons storage facilities (which) housed a variety of advanced conventional weapons used by the Iran-backed Houthis to target US and international military and civilian vessels navigating international waters in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.”

FASTFACTS

• Iran-backed Houthis descended from Saada to seize most of north Yemen, including Sanaa, in 2014. 

• Yemen’s UN-recognized government, backed by a coalition, has been fighting the militia since then. 

• The conflict has left 150,000+ dead and thousands more wounded, both combatants and civilians. 

• Yemen’s govt. ‘monitored and documented’ 1,985 violations committed by the Houthis during 2024.


But this response, Trump wrote on Truth Social at the weekend, had been “pathetically weak.” Now, by contrast, “we will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”

Resorting to his trademark capitals for emphasis, Trump added: “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”

That seems highly possible, given the predictable response from the Houthis: “The American aggression on Yemen,” they said in a statement, “is a criminal escalation that will not break the resolve of the Yemeni people and will only increase their determination to support Gaza and the resistance.”




President Donald Trump looks on as military strikes are launched against the Houthis. (White House)

On Monday, the Houthis claimed to have launched two attacks against the US carrier group in the Red Sea over the weekend. An anonymous US official cited by some media reports confirmed the carrier and other ships had been targeted by 11 drones, all of which had been shot down, and a missile that fell into the sea. No US ships were hit.

“The idea that you’re going to do this massive wave of airstrikes and the Houthis are just going to lie on their backs and take it is absurd,” Mohammad Albasha, founder of Basha Report, a US-based Middle East security advisory, told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday. “They’re going to retaliate and retaliate severely. It’s going to be a vicious cycle.”

Regardless of the scale of any Houthi response, analysts say the US military strikes look like the beginning of a sustained campaign that could last for weeks regardless of how high the final bill for the Pentagon. “The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end. But until then, it will be unrelenting,” Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, told Fox News, describing freedom of navigation as “a core national interest.”

The Houthi attacks on shipping have been cripplingly effective. According to a statement released by the White House on Saturday, since November 2023, when the Houthis seized the M/V Galaxy Leader and began to attack commercial shipping with anti-ship missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles, they have attacked US warships more than 174 times and commercial vessels 145 times.

As a result, the number of merchant ships passing through the Red Sea has more than halved from 25,000 a year to about 10,000, having “a sustained negative effect on global trade and the economic security of the United States.”




The Houthis had actually paused their attacks on shipping in January but appeared poised to resume them. (AFP)

An estimated 75 percent of US- and UK-affiliated vessels now reroute around Africa instead of risking a transit of the Red Sea. Traveling via the Cape of Good Hope instead of the Red Sea and Suez Canal adds an average of 10 days to voyages to Europe from the Middle East or Far East, with an estimated additional fuel cost of $1 million for each trip.

That factor alone, claims the White House, was responsible for increasing global consumer goods inflation between 0.6 and 0.7 percent in 2024.

The Trump administration is signaling that the attacks on the Houthis, while designed to end their attacks on Red Sea shipping, are also a warning shot aimed at Tehran.

“Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY,” Trump warned Iran. If not, “BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!”

Shortly after, in an interview with ABC, Mike Waltz, White House national security adviser, delivered a heavy hint that direct action against Iran was now being considered by the administration.

“All options are always on the table with the president, but Iran needs to hear him loud and clear,” he said.




A US F/A-18 fighter aircraft preparing for take off. (CENTCOM)

“It is completely unacceptable, and it will be stopped, the level of support that they have been providing the Houthis, just like they have Hezbollah, the militias in Iraq, Hamas and others.

“The previous administration had a series of feckless responses. President Trump is coming in with overwhelming force (and) we will hold not only the Houthis accountable but we’re going to hold Iran, their backers, accountable as well.”

That accountability also extends to concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. On March 7 Trump said at the White House that Iran would not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

“We are at final moments with Iran,” he said. “Something’s going to happen very soon. There’ll be some interesting days ahead, that’s all I can tell you. You know, we’re down to final strokes with Iran.”

He had, he said, sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, “saying, I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing for them.”

Tehran’s UN mission later said that no such letter had been received.

Speaking on ABC News on Saturday, Stephen Ganyard, a military analyst and retired US Marine Corps colonel, said the “intended audience” of the weekend attacks “was Iran. The Trump administration has made it clear that they want the Iranians to negotiate an end to their nuclear program, and if they don’t there could be military action like we saw tonight, directly against Iran.”




It is not known if Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al- Houthi is on the US hit list. (X)

Meanwhile, although US forces are obviously capable of identifying and hitting targets with pinpoint accuracy, it is quite possible that the Houthis have a sufficiently large and well distributed arsenal to resume and keep up their attacks on shipping for some time.

“The Houthis have been able to maintain their pressure campaign despite efforts from the US, EU and the international community to restrain attacks,” Caroline Rose, director of the Strategic Blind Spots Portfolio at the New Lines Institute, told Arab News by email. “While Iran’s proxy network in the Levant has largely become dislodged — between Hezbollah’s decline in Lebanon, the departure of the Assad regime in Syria, and a decline of militia influence in Iraq — it’s likely that Iran has channeled its attention and resources toward the Houthis, given their effectiveness in launching strikes against commercial maritime vessels and military assets as an extension of the conflict in Gaza.”


According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, over the past few years “the Houthis have amassed a remarkably diverse array of anti-ship weaponry”. In a research paper published in December the IISS concluded that the Houthis possessed at least six different types of ballistic anti-ship missile, with ranges from between less than 200 and up to 1,300 km, “all of which either originate from Iran or are based on Iranian technology.”

In addition, when the Houthis seized control in northern Yemen in 2014-15, “they inherited a number of older Soviet and Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) from Yemen’s pre-war navy,” and since then had been receiving regular shipments of Iranian ASCMs.

Other weapons the Houthis have deployed against shipping include Sammad drones, also of Iranian origin, which are used both to identify and, carrying an 18kg warhead, to strike targets, and fast, remotely controlled unmanned boats packed with explosives. This type of surface weapon was first used in 2017 in an attack on the Saudi frigate Al-Madinah, which killed two of the crew, and has been deployed against Red Sea shipping over the past year.

The size of the Houthis’ anti-ship arsenal is not known. What is clear, however, according to IISS, is that “the international arms embargo that has been in place against the Houthis since 2015 has demonstrably failed to prevent them from obtaining increasingly advanced weapons from Iran and other sources.”




President Trump announced he had ordered the US military “to launch decisive and powerful military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen.” (White House)

Nevertheless, the Trump administration seems determined to “punch back,” in the words of Morgan Ortagus, the deputy presidential special envoy to the Middle East.

“Terrorists are not going to be allowed to shoot at US Navy ships, to shoot at our soldiers, to shoot at our commercial vessels, to impede free and fair commerce and trade,” she said, speaking on Fox News on Sunday.

“We’re going to put an end to that … these are not the strikes from the Biden administration that were for show.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reinforced that message in a recent appearance on CBS News. The US, he said, was “doing the entire world a favor by getting rid of these guys and their ability to strike global shipping. That's the mission here, and it will continue until that’s carried out.”

 


Lawyers denounce ‘fabricated’ Tunisia trial of opposition

Updated 21 April 2025
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Lawyers denounce ‘fabricated’ Tunisia trial of opposition

  • Among those sentenced were well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people. Some have already been in prison for two years while others are in exile or still free

TUNIS: Lawyers and relatives on Monday denounced the hefty sentences handed down to Tunisian opposition figures in last week’s mass trial as “fabricated” and “unfounded,” and said they will appeal.
A court in Tunis in the early hours of Saturday handed down jail terms of up to 66 years to around 40 defendants, including vocal critics of President Kais Saied.
They were accused of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group” among other charges, according to their lawyers.
Defense lawyer Samir Dilou said on Monday the trial was “unprecedented in Tunisia” as “it handed the defendants a total of 892 years in prison.”
He said key evidence in the case was still missing, as lawyers had complained that they did not have full access to the case file.
“They still haven’t told us how the defendants conspired against the state,” Dilou told journalists.
He said an appeal could be filed as early as Tuesday.
Among those sentenced were well-known opposition figures, lawyers and business people. Some have already been in prison for two years while others are in exile or still free.
Several were arrested in February 2023, after which Saied labelled them “terrorists.”
Abdennasser Mehri, another defense lawyer, called the trial a “blatant violation of the law.”
“It’s a fabricated, unfounded case with a plan set in advance,” he said. “The scales of justice are broken.”
Dilou said Ahmed Souab, also a defense lawyer, was arrested early Monday after police raided his home.
Local media said he was accused of “threatening to commit terrorist crimes” in a statement made on Saturday after the trial, criticizing political pressure judges were allegedly under.
Online videos showed Souab saying that “knives are not on the necks of detainees, but on the neck of the judge issuing the ruling.”
Souab, a former judge, is expected to remain in detention “for five days and he won’t be allowed to communicate with his lawyers for 48 hours,” Dilou told AFP.
Human Rights Watch said on Saturday the court “did not give even a semblance of a fair trial” to the defendants.
Defense lawyer Dalila Msaddek said the trial was used “to lump together everyone they wanted to get rid of.”
Politicians Issam Chebbi and Jawhar Ben Mbarek of the opposition National Salvation Front coalition, as well as lawyer Ridha BelHajj and activist Chaima Issa, were sentenced to 18 years behind bars.
Activist Khayam Turki was handed a 48-year term and businessman Kamel Eltaief received the harshest penalty — 66 years in prison, according to lawyers.
Some defendants are abroad and were tried in absentia, like French intellectual Bernard Henri-Levy who received a 33-year jail term, lawyers said.
Since Saied launched a power grab in the summer of 2021 and assumed total control, rights advocates and opposition figures have decried a rollback of freedoms in the North African country where the 2011 Arab Spring began.
 

 


RSF shelling kills over 30 in besieged Sudanese city

Updated 21 April 2025
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RSF shelling kills over 30 in besieged Sudanese city

  • Sunday’s attack involved ‘heavy artillery shelling’ and targeted El-Fasher’s residential neighborhoods

PORT SUDAN: Paramilitary shelling of Sudan’s besieged city of El-Fasher, in the western region of Darfur, has killed more than 30 civilians and wounded dozens more, activists said on Monday.

The attack, which took place on Sunday, involved “heavy artillery shelling” and targeted the city’s residential neighborhoods, said the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across Sudan.

Since April 2023, the war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has killed tens of thousands, uprooted 13 million, and created what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

El-Fasher, the state capital of North Darfur, remains the last major city in the vast Darfur region that the paramilitary group has not conquered.

Last week, the RSF launched a renewed offensive on the city and two nearby displacement camps — Zamzam and Abu Shouk — killing more than 400 people and displacing some 400,000, according to the UN.

In a bloody ground offensive, the RSF took control of Zamzam camp, where aid workers say up to 1 million people were sheltering.

According to the UN, most of the displaced fled just north, to El-Fasher city itself, or 60 km west to the small town of Tawila.

By Thursday, more than 150,000 people had arrived in El-Fasher, while another 180,000 had fled to Tawila, the UN’s migration agency has said.

Humanitarian aid is nearly nonexistent in both famine-threatened towns.

On Monday, the UN’s humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, described the situation in the region as “horrifying.”

He said he had spoken by phone with army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his rival paramilitary commander Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, who committed to giving “full access to get aid in.”

Throughout the war, both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war against civilians.

International aid agencies have long warned that a full-scale RSF assault on El-Fasher could lead to devastating urban warfare and a new wave of mass displacement.

UNICEF has described the situation as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around El-Fasher.

Following the army’s recapture of the capital Khartoum last month, the RSF has intensified efforts to seize El-Fasher, a strategic target for the paramilitary to consolidate its hold on Darfur.

The RSF already controls nearly all of the vast region, about the size of France, and parts of the south. 

The army holds the country’s center, east, and north.

However, the UN warned of a catastrophic humanitarian situation as the fighting escalated.

“The humanitarian community in Sudan is facing critical and intensifying operational challenges in North Darfur,” Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan, said on Sunday.

She added that “despite repeated appeals, humanitarian access to El-Fasher and surrounding areas remains dangerously restricted,” warning that the lack of access was increasing the vulnerability of hundreds of thousands of people.”

Medical charity Doctors Without Borders has called for aid airdrops into the city in the face of access restrictions.


Saudi, Middle East, global leaders offer condolences following Pope Francis’ death

Updated 21 April 2025
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Saudi, Middle East, global leaders offer condolences following Pope Francis’ death

  • Countries across the region sent their condolences to the Vatican City

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman sent cables of condolences on the death of Pope Francis on Monday, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The Muslim World League secretary-general Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, who met the Pope at the Vatican in December 2024, told Arab News that their friendship had strengthened cooperation between the League and the Vatican in “shared goals ... championing just humanitarian causes and promoting the values ​​of coexistence and global peace, in the face of the ideas and practices of religious and civilizational conflict and strife.”

The Pope was a man of “wisdom, just stances, and positive contributions, particularly to the Islamic world and its causes,” Al-Issa said.

The Muslim Council of Elders, headed by Egypt’s Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, also mourned Pope Francis’ passing and extended their condolences to “the leaders of the Catholic Church, our Christian brethren, and all advocates of peace and coexistence worldwide.”

Pope Francis and Sheikh Ahmed co-authored the historic Document on Human Fraternity, widely regarded as one of the most significant documents in modern human history.

“Pope Francis devoted his life to serving humanity and advancing the values of dialogue, tolerance, coexistence, peace, and human fraternity while he also tirelessly supported the vulnerable, needy, refugees, and the displaced, embodying a singular example of compassion and becoming a historic religious figure whose enduring humanitarian legacy will inspire future generations,” the group said in a statement on X.

Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi also offered his condolences following the death of Pope Francis on Monday.

“Pope Francis was a voice of peace, love and compassion,” said El-Sisi.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, President of the UAE, said Francis dedicated his life to promoting the principles of peaceful coexistence and understanding.

“I extend my deepest condolences to Catholics around the world on the passing of Pope Francis, who dedicated his life to promoting the principles of peaceful coexistence and understanding. May he rest in peace,” said Sheikh Mohamed via statment on X.

Prime minister of UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum said Pope Francis was a great leader whose compassion and commitment to peace touched countless lives.

In a statement on X, Sheikh Mohammed said “his legacy of humility and interfaith unity will continue to inspire many communities around the world.”

Jordan’s King Abdullah II, on X, meanwhile said: “Deepest condolences to our Christian brothers and sisters around the world. Pope Francis was admired by all as the Pope of the People. He brought people together, leading with kindness, humility, and compassion. His legacy will live on in his good deeds and teachings.”

Lebanon’s Christian President Joseph Aoun mourned the death on Monday of Pope Francis, a “dear friend and strong supporter” of the crisis-hit multi-confessional country.

“We will never forget his repeated calls to protect Lebanon and preserve its identity and diversity,” Aoun – the Arab world’s only Christian president – said in a statement on the presidency’s X account, calling Francis’s death “a loss for all humanity, for he was a powerful voice for justice and peace” who called for “dialogue between religions and cultures”.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas meanwhile paid tribute to Pope Francis, calling him a “faithful friend of the Palestinian people,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Palestinian Christians in Gaza on Monday mourned the death of the Pope, who had maintained close and consistent video contact with the small Christian community in the territory throughout the ongoing war.

Since the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas, Francis had regularly called Gaza’s Christians, often several times a week, offering prayers, encouragement, and solidarity.

“Today, we lost a faithful friend of the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights,” Abbas said, noting that Pope Francis “recognized the Palestinian state and authorized the Palestinian flag to be raised in the Vatican.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hailed Pope Francis for his efforts to further dialogue between different faiths.

Iran also offered its condolonces. Israeli President Isaac Herzog praised the deceased pope on Monday as “a man of deep faith and boundless compassion.”

Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto on Monday expressed condolences over the death of Pope Francis.

“The Pope’s message of simplicity, pluralism, favoring the poor and caring for others will always be an example for all of us,” the president said in an Instagram post.

Grief-stricken Argentines massed at Buenos Aires Cathedral early Monday to collectively mourn their late pontiff, compatriot and hero, Pope Francis.

In his final years, Francis had often tussled with political leaders, including Argentina’s current libertarian president, Javier Milei.

But there was a rare sense of political unity Monday in what is still a deeply polarized nation, with even Milei too acknowledging that his political differences with the late pontiff “today seem minor,” as he prepared to decree seven days of national mourning.

GALLERY: Pope Francis: The world mourns

Pope Francis, the first Latin American leader of the Roman Catholic Church died after suffering from pneumonia.

In 2019, Pope Francis was the first pontiff to lead a mass in the Middle East, more specifically the UAE.  

Francis charted new relations with the Muslim world by visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope on March 13, 2013, surprising many Church watchers who had seen the Argentine cleric, known for his concern for the poor, as an outsider.

He sought to project simplicity into the grand role and never took possession of the ornate papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace used by his predecessors, saying he preferred to live in a community setting for his “psychological health.”


Gaza civil defense describes medic killings as ‘summary executions’

Updated 21 April 2025
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Gaza civil defense describes medic killings as ‘summary executions’

  • Israel also accused of seeking to ‘circumvent’ its obligations under international law

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Gaza’s civil defense agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out “summary executions” in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

“The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation’s narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions,” Mohammed Al-Mughair, a civil defense official, said, a day after an Israeli army probe denied any execution-style killings. He also accused Israel of seeking to “circumvent” its obligations under international law.

The Palestine Red Crescent also rejected the findings of an Israeli military investigation that blamed operational failures for the killing of 15 Gaza emergency service workers, denouncing the report as “full of lies.”

“The report is full of lies. It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different,” Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, said.


Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair

Updated 21 April 2025
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Israeli opposition leader fears political violence over Shin Bet affair

  • The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise

TEL AVIV: Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said he feared an outbreak of political violence connected to what he called a campaign of hate against the country’s internal security chief, whom the government has moved to sack.
“The red line has been crossed. If we don’t stop this, there will be a political murder here, maybe more than one. Jews will kill jews,” Lapid said at a press conference in Tel Aviv, adding that “the most serious threats are directed at the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar.”
Bar’s dismissal as head of the internal security agency has been challenged in court by the opposition, which decried it as a sign of anti-democratic drift on the part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
Bar has suggested his ouster was linked to investigations into Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack “and other serious matters,” while Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has warned of “a personal conflict of interest on the part of the prime minister due to the criminal investigations involving his associates.”
The supreme court froze the government’s initial attempt to sack Bar, and earlier this month it gave the cabinet and the attorney general’s office until the end of the just concluded Passover holiday to work out a compromise.
Bar could resign soon, according to media reports, which would bring the matter to a close.
Lapid, leader of the center-right Yesh Atid party, argued that Bar should resign over his agency’s failure to prevent the October 7 attack, and acknowledged the government had the legal authority to dismiss him, provided it was done through due process and “approved by the court.”
But he also held Netanyahu responsible for a campaign of threats levelled at Bar.
Lapid presented screenshots of social media posts containing death threats against the security chief, telling Netanyahu: “Stop this.”
“Instead of supporting incitement (to hatred), support the Shin Bet, the security forces, the systems that keep this country alive,” he added.
In 1995, the assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist after a campaign of violent rhetoric against him sent shockwaves through Israel.
Some accused then-opposition leader Netanyahu of not doing enough to discourage incitement to violence at the time.