US military targets Houthi radar sites in Yemen after a merchant sailor goes missing

US military targets Houthi radar sites in Yemen after a merchant sailor goes missing
The US and its allies have been conducting flight operations in response to increased Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. Above, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower crew members prepare for nighttime sorties on January 22, 2024 against the Houthis. (AFP)
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Updated 16 June 2024
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US military targets Houthi radar sites in Yemen after a merchant sailor goes missing

US military targets Houthi radar sites in Yemen after a merchant sailor goes missing
  • US strikes destroyed seven radars within Houthi-controlled territory, the military’s Central Command said
  • US separately destroyed two bomb-laden drone boats in the Red Sea, as well as a drone launched by the Houthis over the waterway

DUBAI: The US military unleashed a wave of attacks targeting radar sites operated by Yemen’s Houthi rebels after one merchant sailor went missing and the vessel he was on caught fire in the latest Houthi strike on shipping in the crucial Red Sea corridor, authorities said Saturday.
The attacks come as the US Navy faces the most intense combat it has seen since World War II in trying to counter the Houthi campaign — attacks the rebels say are meant to halt the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. However, the Iranian-backed rebel assaults often see the Houthis target ships and sailors who have nothing to do with the war while traffic remains halved through a corridor vital for cargo and energy shipments between Asia, Europe and the Mideast.
US strikes destroyed seven radars within Houthi-controlled territory, the military’s Central Command said. It did not elaborate on how the sites were destroyed and did not immediately respond to questions from The Associated Press.

 

“These radars allow the Houthis to target maritime vessels and endanger commercial shipping,” Central Command said in a statement.
The US separately destroyed two bomb-laden drone boats in the Red Sea, as well as a drone launched by the Houthis over the waterway, it said.
The Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, did not acknowledge the strikes, nor any military losses. That’s been typical since the US began launching airstrikes targeting the rebels.
The Central Command said one commercial sailor from the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk cargo carrier Tutor remained missing after an attack Wednesday by the Houthis that used a bomb-carrying drone boat to strike the vessel.
“The crew abandoned ship and were rescued by USS Philippine Sea and partner forces,” Central Command said. The “Tutor remains in the Red Sea and is slowly taking on water.”
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said Saturday afternoon that the Tutor was “still on fire and sinking.”
The missing sailor is Filipino, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency, which cited Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac. He said most of the Tutor’s 22 mariners were from the Philippines.
“We’re trying to account for the particular seafarer in the ship and are praying that we could find him,” he said Friday night.
Also on Saturday, Central Command said the vessel M/V Anna Meta rescued crew members from the cargo carrier M/V Verbena, which was struck Thursday in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Yemen in two separate missile attacks by the Houthis.
The crew abandoned ship after being unable to bring fires on the vessel under control. One mariner was severely wounded.
CENTCOM said the Verbena is a Palauan-flagged, Ukrainian-owned and Polish-operated bulk cargo carrier that had docked in Malaysia and was on its way to Italy carrying wood.
The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, killed three sailors, seized one vessel and sunk another since November, according to the US Maritime Administration. A US-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the rebels say.
The war in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians there, according to Gaza health officials, while hundreds of others have been killed in Israeli operations in the West Bank. It began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage.
“The Houthis claim to be acting on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza and yet they are targeting and threatening the lives of third-country nationals who have nothing to do with the conflict in Gaza,” Central Command said. “The ongoing threat to international commerce caused by the Houthis in fact makes it harder to deliver badly needed assistance to the people of Yemen as well as Gaza.”

 


Israel opposition accuses Netanyahu's government of ‘burying’ October 7 probe

Israel opposition accuses Netanyahu's government of ‘burying’ October 7 probe
Updated 7 sec ago
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Israel opposition accuses Netanyahu's government of ‘burying’ October 7 probe

Israel opposition accuses Netanyahu's government of ‘burying’ October 7 probe
  • Benjamin Netanyahu's government suggested that any probe should wait until after the fighting in Gaza is over
  • Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of having ignored intelligence warnings before Hamas attack

JERUSALEM: Israel’s opposition leader accused the government on Monday of resisting a state probe into the events surrounding Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, after an inconclusive, court-ordered cabinet meeting about a potential inquiry.
The Hamas attack, which triggered more than 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip, was the deadliest in Israeli history. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused accepting responsibility for failures, and his government has suggested that any probe should wait until after the fighting is over.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, speaking in parliament, said that “the government did everything yesterday to bury this commission,” referring to a cabinet meeting late Sunday which ended with no decision on a formal inquiry.
Lapid said that an investigation was needed so that a similar attack “won’t happen again.”
He also accused Netanyahu of having ignored intelligence warnings before of the cross-border attack, and pursuing a policy to “strengthen Hamas” over several years prior to it.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, of whom 73 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Following appeals from relatives of victims and hostages as well as NGOs, Israel’s supreme court on December 11 demanded the government meet within 60 days to discuss the creation of an inquiry commission.
The government met on the subject on Sunday and took no decision.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday defended the government’s position and said that “in the middle of a war, it is not the right time to investigate.”
A fragile truce since last month has largely halted Israel’s military operations in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, whose health ministry says the war has killed at least 48,208 people in the territory.
Smotrich said that while he was “in favor of investigating” the October 7 attack, he “does not trust” the judiciary — a frequent target of criticism from Netanyahu’s government — with the responsibility.
According to Israeli law, if the government decides to set up a state commission of inquiry, it must inform the president of the Supreme Court, who is then responsible for appointing its members.
Since the 1960s, more than a dozen such commissions have been formed in Israel, notably after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, a 1982 massacre in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon by Israeli-backed militias, and the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
More recently, state commission was launched into a deadly 2021 stampede in which 45 people lost their lives during a Jewish pilgrimage in Israel’s north.
A bill to form a state commission of inquiry into October 7 was rejected by a majority of lawmakers on January 22.


UN pauses some Yemen operations over Houthi detention of staff

A United Nations vehicle is parked in Taiz, Yemen. (File/AFP)
A United Nations vehicle is parked in Taiz, Yemen. (File/AFP)
Updated 12 min 26 sec ago
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UN pauses some Yemen operations over Houthi detention of staff

A United Nations vehicle is parked in Taiz, Yemen. (File/AFP)

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations has paused all operations in Yemen’s Saada governorate after more UN staff were detained by the Houthis, deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday.
“This extraordinary and temporary measure seeks to balance the imperative to stay and deliver with the need to have the safety and security of the UN personnel and its partners guaranteed,” Haq said. “Such guarantees are ultimately required to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of our efforts.” 


International Criminal Court opens inquiry into Italy over release of Libyan warlord

International Criminal Court opens inquiry into Italy over release of Libyan warlord
Updated 33 min 59 sec ago
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International Criminal Court opens inquiry into Italy over release of Libyan warlord

International Criminal Court opens inquiry into Italy over release of Libyan warlord
  • Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio defended the decision to send the suspect back to Libya
  • The warlord was arrested in Turin on an ICC warrant on January 19 but was later released

THE HAGUE: Judges at the International Criminal Court have officially asked Italy on Monday to explain why the country released a Libyan man suspected of torture, murder and rape rather than sending him to The Hague.
Italian police arrested Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama Al-Masri, last month but rather than extraditing him to the Netherlands, where the ICC is based, sent him back to Libya aboard an Italian military aircraft.
“The matter of state’s non-compliance with a request of cooperation for arrest and surrender by the court is before the competent chamber,” the court’s spokesperson Fadi El-Abdallah said in a statement.
Addressing parliament last week, Italian Justice Minister Carlo Nordio defended the decision to send Al-Masri home, claiming the ICC had issued a contradictory and flawed arrest warrant. The court, he said, “realized that an immense mess was made,” he told lawmakers.
Al-Masri was arrested in Turin on the ICC warrant on Jan. 19, the day after he arrived in the country from Germany to watch a soccer match. The Italian government has said Rome’s court of appeals ordered him released on Jan. 21 because of a technical problem in the way that the ICC warrant was transmitted, having initially bypassed the Italian justice ministry.
The ICC said it does not comment on national judicial proceedings.
Al-Masri’s arrest had posed a dilemma for Italy because it has close ties to the internationally recognized government in Tripoli as well as energy interests in the country.
According to the arrest warrant, Al-Masri heads the Tripoli branch of the Reform and Rehabilitation Institution, a notorious network of detention centers run by the government-backed Special Defense Force, which acts as a military police unit combating high-profile crimes including kidnappings, murders as well as illegal migration.
Like many other militias in western Libya, the SDF has been implicated in atrocities in the civil war that followed the overthrow and killing of the Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Additionally, any trial in The Hague of Al-Masri could bring unwanted attention to Italy’s migration policies and its support of the Libyan coast guard, which it has financed to prevent migrants from leaving.
In October, the court unsealed arrest warrants 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.


Hamas accuses Israel of ceasefire violations, says it will delay next hostage release

Palestinians gather as Hamas fighters escort Red Cross vehicles before handing over three Israeli captives in Deir Al-Balah.
Palestinians gather as Hamas fighters escort Red Cross vehicles before handing over three Israeli captives in Deir Al-Balah.
Updated 10 February 2025
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Hamas accuses Israel of ceasefire violations, says it will delay next hostage release

Palestinians gather as Hamas fighters escort Red Cross vehicles before handing over three Israeli captives in Deir Al-Balah.
  • Next exchange was scheduled for Saturday, releasing three Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners
  • Spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing accused Israel on Monday of systematically violating the ceasefire agreement over the past three weeks

JERSUSALEM: A Hamas spokesman on Monday accused Israel of violating the ceasefire agreement with the group, including targeting Palestinians in Gaza with airstrikes, and said that next Saturday’s hostage release would be delayed.
A Hamas spokesperson said Monday that the group will delay the next hostage release after accusing Israel of violating ceasefire agreement.
Israel and Hamas are in the midst of a six-week ceasefire during which Hamas is releasing dozens of the hostages captured in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
The sides have carried out five swaps since the ceasefire went into effect last month, freeing 21 hostages and over 730 prisoners. The next exchange was scheduled for Saturday, releasing three Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
Abu Obeida, the spokesperson for Hamas’ military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, accused Israel on Monday of systematically violating the ceasefire agreement over the past three weeks, and said Saturday’s release would be delayed.
“The resistance leadership has closely monitored the enemy’s violations and its failure to uphold the terms of the agreement,” Abu Ubaida said.
“This includes delays in allowing displaced Palestinians to return to northern Gaza, targeting them with airstrikes and gunfire across various areas of the Strip, and failing to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid as agreed.”


Israeli forces raid Palestinian villages in south Hebron’s Masafer Yatta

Israeli forces raid Palestinian villages in south Hebron’s Masafer Yatta
Updated 10 February 2025
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Israeli forces raid Palestinian villages in south Hebron’s Masafer Yatta

Israeli forces raid Palestinian villages in south Hebron’s Masafer Yatta
  • Forces damaged approximately 1,000 square meters of mosquito fern nurseries, which serve as feed for roosters and chickens
  • The house of Issa Ahmed Isa Mohammed was demolished

LONDON: Israeli forces demolished on Monday a house, two living units, and two agricultural greenhouses in the Palestinian area of Masafer Yatta, located south of Hebron, which faces eviction orders.

Israeli personnel raided Maghayir Al-Abeed, a hamlet in Masafer Yatta, and demolished two agricultural rooms belonging to Fayez Ibrahim Makhamra and Osama Fayez Makhamra, the Wafa news agency reported.

They also uprooted 10 trees and destroyed crops.

In Jinba village, Israeli authorities demolished two living units belonging to Ibrahim Ahmed Younis Mohammed and uprooted plants and fruit trees.

The house of Issa Ahmed Isa Mohammed was demolished by Israeli forces, who also damaged approximately 1,000 square meters of mosquito fern nurseries, which serve as feed for roosters and chickens.

Masafer Yatta consists of nearly 15 Palestinian hamlets located in the southern occupied West Bank. Israeli forces regularly invade the area in an effort to evict its population of 1,150 residents, half of whom are children. Since the 1980s, the area has been designated a military zone by Israel.