15 killed in an explosion and fire at a gas station in central Yemen

A Yemeni walks and looks through debris and rubble at a destroyed gas station in the northwestern Hajjah province. (AFP file photo)
A Yemeni walks and looks through debris and rubble at a destroyed gas station in the northwestern Hajjah province. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 12 January 2025
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15 killed in an explosion and fire at a gas station in central Yemen

15 killed in an explosion and fire at a gas station in central Yemen

CAIRO: An explosion at a gas station triggered a massive fire in central Yemen, killing at least 15 people, health officials said Sunday.
The explosion occurred Saturday at the Zaher district in the province of Bayda, the Houthi rebel-run Health Ministry said in a statement. At least 67 others were injured, including 40 in critical condition.
The ministry said rescue teams were searching for those reported missing. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the explosion.
Footage circulated online showing a massive fire that sent columns of smoke into the sky and left vehicles charred and burning.

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The explosion occurred in the Zaher district in the province of Bayda, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said.

Bayda is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have been at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade.
Elsewhere in Bayda, the Houthis attacked and looted Hanaka Al-Masoud village in the Al-Qurayshiya district last week, according to the internationally recognized government. It said there were fatalities but gave no figures.
Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani said the attack came after a weeklong siege of the village.
“This horrific attack targeted citizens’ homes and mosques, and resulted in many casualties, including women and children, and the destruction of property,” he said.
Rights activist Riyadh Al-Dubai said the Houthis detained dozens of men and looted homes, seizing valuables such as gold, money, daggers and other possessions. He said shelling by the Houthis had continued relentlessly day and night for more than five days.
The US Embassy in Yemen condemned the attack, saying in a statement that the “deaths, injuries, and wrongful detentions of innocent Yemenis perpetrated by Houthi terrorists are depriving the Yemeni people of peace and a brighter future.”

 


Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns
Updated 26 May 2025
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Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns
  • Jake Wood says he accepted the role as head of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation "to help alleviate the suffering" in Gaza
  • But he is stepping down because “it had become clear that implementing the organization’s plan was not possible”

WASHINGTON: The head of a controversial US-backed group preparing to move aid into the Gaza Strip announced his abrupt resignation Sunday, adding fresh uncertainty over the effort’s future.
In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), executive director Jake Wood explained that he felt compelled to leave after determining the organization could not fulfil its mission in a way that adhered to “humanitarian principles.”
The foundation, which has been based in Geneva since February, has vowed to distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation.
But the United Nations and traditional aid agencies have already said they will not cooperate with the group, amid accusations it is working with Israel.
The GHF has emerged as international pressure mounts on Israel over the conditions in Gaza, where it has pursued a military onslaught in response to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.
A more than two-month total blockade on the territory only began to ease in recent days, as agencies warned of growing starvation risks.
“Two months ago, I was approached about leading GHF’s efforts because of my experience in humanitarian operations” Wood said.
“Like many others around the world, I was horrified and heartbroken at the hunger crisis in Gaza and, as a humanitarian leader, I was compelled to do whatever I could to help alleviate the suffering.”
Wood stressed that he was “proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.”
But, he said, it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,939, mostly civilians.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Wood called on Israel “to significantly expand the provision of aid into Gaza through all mechanisms” while also urging “all stakeholders to continue to explore innovative new methods for the delivery of aid, without delay, diversion, or discrimination.”

 


Israeli strikes kill 46 in Gaza, including 31 in a school-turned shelter, medics say

Israeli strikes kill 46 in Gaza, including 31 in a school-turned shelter, medics say
Updated 26 May 2025
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Israeli strikes kill 46 in Gaza, including 31 in a school-turned shelter, medics say

Israeli strikes kill 46 in Gaza, including 31 in a school-turned shelter, medics say
  • Medics said the dozens of casualties in the strike on the school, in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, included women and children

GAZA CITY: Israeli strikes killed at least 46 people in the Gaza Strip on Monday, including 31 in a school-turned-shelter that was struck as people slept, igniting their belongings, according to local health officials. 
Israel renewed its offensive in March after ending a ceasefire with Hamas. It has vowed to seize control of Gaza and keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed or disarmed, and until it returns the remaining 58 hostages, a third of them believed to be alive, from the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that ignited the war.
Israel began allowing a trickle of humanitarian aid into Gaza last week after blocking all food, medicine, fuel or other goods from entering for 2 1/2 months. Aid groups have warned of famine and say the aid that has come in is nowhere near enough to meeting mounting needs.
A new aid system supported by Israel and the United States but rejected by UN agencies and aid groups is expected to begin operations as soon as Monday, despite the resignation of the American leading the effort, who said it would not be able to operate independently.
Israel says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of its over 2 million population, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
Israel's military campaign has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and internally displaced some 90% of its population. Many have fled multiple times.
 

Rescuers recover charred remains
The strike on the school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City also wounded more than 55 people, said Fahmy Awad, head of the ministry’s emergency service. He said a father and his five children were among the dead.
He said the school was hit three times while people slept, setting their belongings ablaze. Footage circulating online showed rescuers struggling to extinguish fires and recovering charred remains.
The military said it targeted a militant command and control center inside the school that Hamas and Islamic Jihad used to gather intelligence for attacks. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in residential areas.
A separate strike on a home killed 15 members of the same family, including five women and two children, according to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which received the bodies.

Plans to control aid hit another obstacle
Israel plans to roll out a new aid distribution system run by a group known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, made up of former humanitarian, government and military officials, that would set up distribution points guarded by private security firms. Israel accuses Hamas of siphoning off assistance, without providing evidence.
The foundation said in a statement that it would begin delivering aid Monday and would reach a million Palestinians — around half of Gaza's population — by the end of the week.
UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to cooperate with the planned U.S.-backed system, saying it would force even more displacement, fail to meet local needs and violate humanitarian principles that prohibit a warring party from controlling humanitarian assistance. They also say there is no evidence of systematic diversion of aid by militants.
Jake Wood, the American heading the foundation, unexpectedly resigned Sunday, saying it had become clear that the foundation would not be allowed to operate independently. It’s not clear who is funding the group.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people in the 2023 attack. More than half the hostages have been returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals, eight have been rescued, and Israeli forces have recovered the remains of dozens more.
The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, rendering entire neighborhoods uninhabitable. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to shelter in schools and squalid tent camps for well over a year.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. It says more than half the dead are women and children but does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.


Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office

Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office
Updated 26 May 2025
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Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office

Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office
  • The visit comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with visiting US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Jerusalem on Sunday, his office said.
US and Israeli media reported that Trump had sent Noem to Jerusalem following the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington last week.
Noem was accompanied at her meeting with Netanyahu by US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement Sunday night.
The office added that during the meeting Noem “expressed her unreserved support for the prime minister and the State of Israel.”
The visit comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip in what it says is a renewed effort to destroy Hamas.
Earlier in the evening, Noem and Huckabee had visited the city’s Western Wall, where early celebrations for Monday’s “Jerusalem Day” holiday were taking place.
The holiday commemorates what Israel considers Jerusalem’s reunification under its authority after the city’s eastern sector was captured by its forces in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.


’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family
Updated 26 May 2025
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’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family
  • The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Alaa Al-Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been bombed in an Israeli air strike.
The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare.
“When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying,” said Ali Al-Najjar, the brother of Alaa’s husband.
Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives.
The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi Al-Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit.
Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital.
When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted.
The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected paediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock.
Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war.

The air strike on Friday afternoon was carried out without warning, relatives said.
Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure” near its troops, adding that claims of civilian harm were under review.
“I couldn’t recognize the children in the shrouds,” Alaa’s sister, Sahar Al-Najjar, said through tears. “Their features were gone.”
“It’s a huge loss. Alaa is broken,” said Mohammed, another close family member.
According to medical sources, Hamdi Al-Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital.
Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions.
Adam had one hand amputated and suffers from severe burns across his body.
“I found my brother’s house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath,” Ali Al-Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children’s bodies.
Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness.
“I don’t know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves.”
“There is no safe place in Gaza,” he added with a weary sigh. “Death is sometimes kinder than this torture.”
 

 


Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children

Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children
Updated 26 May 2025
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Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children

Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children
  • Local journalist and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday
  • Latest deaths resulted from Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in central Gaza Strip

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours killed at least 38 people in Gaza, including children, a local journalist and a senior rescue service official, local health officials said Sunday.

The latest deaths in the Israeli campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In Jabalia, they said local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday.
Another airstrike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory’s civil emergency service, and his wife in their house, medics added.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said that Abu Warda’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 220.
In a separate statement, the media office said Israeli forces were in control of 77 percent of the Gaza Strip, either through ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardment that keeps residents away from their homes.

The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said in separate statements on Sunday that fighters carried out several ambushes and attacks using bombs and anti-tank rockets against Israeli forces operating in several areas across Gaza.
On Friday the Israeli military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
Further details emerged of the Palestinian doctor who lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli strike on Friday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed since Israel ended a ceasefire in March.

Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza. Hamas has yet to release the 58 hostages it still holds.
The conflict has killed more than 53,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.
Israel also blocked all food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza for 2 1/2 months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts’ warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel’s top allies.
Israel is pursuing a new US-backed plan to control all aid to Gaza, but the American heading the effort unexpectedly resigned Sunday, saying it had become clear that his organization would not be allowed to operate independently.
The United Nations has rejected the plan. UN World Food Program executive director Cindy McCain told CBS she has not seen evidence to support Israel’s claims that Hamas is responsible for the looting of aid trucks. “These people are desperate, and they see a World Food Program truck coming in and they run for it,” she said.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing aid for Gaza, said 107 trucks of aid entered Sunday. The UN has called the rate far from enough. About 600 trucks a day entered during the ceasefire.
Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of its over 2 million population, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Israel on Sunday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.