CAIRO: Yemeni Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani called on Wednesday for the arrest of a group of leaders from Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis who he said will attend Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral in Beirut.
Nasrallah, who had served as Hezbollah’s secretary general for more than 30 years, was killed on September 27 as Israel ramped up its attacks on southern Lebanon. His funeral is scheduled for February 23.
Eryani demanded that the Lebanese government arrest the Houthi leaders and hand them over to the rival internationally recognized government in a post on X.
He did not name the Houthi officials.
Neither the Lebanese government nor Houthi leaders was immediately available for comment.
The Houthis did not officially announce a delegation was attending the funeral, but the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported a delegation from Yemen would participate. “We affirm that the movement of these terrorist leaders... in this timing is not a mere participation in the funeral, which is being used as a cover, to gather all the leaders of the Iranian axis and assess the situation after the blows they received,” he added.
The Yemeni minister was referring to the recent Israeli attacks against Iran-backed groups in the region including Hezbollah and the Houthis.
Both groups launched parallel attacks against Israel during its war in Gaza to show support for Palestinians.
The Houthis, who control northern Yemen, also carried out more than 100 attacks on ships off the shores of Yemen since November 2023, disrupting global shipping and causing route changes and losses.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023 killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials, laid waste to much of the enclave, and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Yemeni minister calls for arrest of Houthi officials attending Hezbollah chief Nasrallah’s funeral
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Yemeni minister calls for arrest of Houthi officials attending Hezbollah chief Nasrallah’s funeral

- The Houthis did not officially announce a delegation was attending the funeral, but the Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported a delegation from Yemen would participate
13 killed including 3 children in Sudan paramilitary strikes in Darfur
“Another 21 people were injured due to the artillery shelling from the Rapid Support militia,” the source said, referring to the Rapid Support Forces, at war with the regular army since April 2023.
The RSF has besieged the North Darfur state capital since May of last year and has launched repeated attacks in an attempt to seize the city of an estimated million people.
The strike came hours after Sudan’s ruling Transitional Sovereignty Council said army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan’s office had agreed in a phone call with UN chief Antonio Guterres to a “week-long humanitarian truce in El-Fasher to support UN efforts and facilitate aid access to thousands of besieged civilians.”
Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday said “we are making contacts with both sides with that objective.”
The UN has repeatedly warned of the plight of trapped civilians in the city, where hunger has pushed families to survive on eating leaves and peanut shells as nearly no aid is allowed in.
Civilians report soaring prices and a near-total absence of health facilities, nearly all of which have been forced shut by the fighting.
A World Food Programme facility inside El-Fasher was damaged from repeated RSF shelling last month, and in early June five aid workers were killed in an attack on a UN convoy seeking to supply the city.
The paramilitary has repeatedly attacked the city and its surrounding famine-hit displacement camps, killing hundreds of civilians and pushing hundreds of thousands of already displaced people to flee.
UNICEF has described the situation as “hell on earth” for at least 825,000 children trapped in and around El-Fasher.
The RSF conquered nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur in the early months of the war, but has been unable to seize North Darfur state capital El-Fasher despite besieging the city for over a year.
An RSF source told AFP Friday the paramilitary had not received a ceasefire proposal.
Aid sources say an official famine declaration is impossible given the lack of access to data, but mass starvation has already taken hold of the city.
Over a million people are on the brink of famine in North Darfur, according to the latest available UN figures.
Of the 10 million people currently internally displaced in Sudan — the world’s largest displacement crisis — nearly 20 percent are in North Darfur.
UN chief says Gazans seeking food must not face ‘death sentence’

- Hamas-run health ministry says since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centers
- GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points
NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that hungry people in Gaza seeking food must not face a “death sentence” as controversy swirls around a new US- and Israeli-backed distribution system.
“People are being killed simply trying to feed themselves and their families. The search for food must never be a death sentence,” Guterres told reporters, without explicitly naming the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, whose operations have led to near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people desperate to get food.
“Any operation that channels desperate civilians into militarized zones is inherently unsafe. It is killing people,” Guterres added.
The health ministry in the Hamas-run territory says that since late May, more than 500 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce supplies.
GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.
Starting in March, Israel blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza for more than two months, leading to warnings of that the entire population of the occupied Palestinian territory is at risk of famine.
The United Nations says Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal under international law.
The densely populated Gaza Strip has been largely flattened by Israeli bombing since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.
Israel began allowing food supplies to trickle in at the end of May, using GHF — backed by armed US contractors, with Israeli troops on the perimeter — to run operations.
“The problem of the distribution of humanitarian aid must be solved. There is no need to reinvent the wheel with dangerous schemes,” Guterres said.
The UN and major aid groups have refused to work with the GHF, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals and that it violates basic humanitarian principles by working with one of the sides in a conflict.
“We have the solution — a detailed plan grounded in the humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, and independence. We have the supplies. We have the experience. Our plan is guided by what people need,” said the UN chief.
He said a “handful” of medical crossed into Gaza this week, the first shipment in months.
“A trickle of aid is not enough. What’s needed now is a surge — the trickle must become an ocean,” said Guterres.
Guterres said that as the world focuses on the conflict between Israel and Iran, the suffering of Palestinians must not be “pushed into the shadows,” calling for “political courage for a ceasefire.”
Israeli military orders war crime probe into Gaza aid shootings, Haaretz reports

- Investigation is over allegations Israeli forces deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians near Gaza aid distribution sites, Israeli newspaper reports
- Unnamed Israeli soldiers tell Haaretz they were told to fire at the crowds to keep them back
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Military Advocate General has ordered an investigation into possible war crimes over allegations that Israeli forces deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians near Gaza aid distribution sites, Haaretz newspaper reported on Friday.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed over the past month in the vicinity of areas where food was being handed out, local hospitals and officials have said.
Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli newspaper, quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers as saying they were told to fire at the crowds to keep them back, using unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat.
The military told Reuters that the Israel Defense Forces had not instructed soldiers to deliberately shoot at civilians. It added that it was looking to improve “the operational response” in the aid areas and had recently installed new fencing and signs, and opened additional routes to reach the handout zones.
Haaretz quoted unnamed sources as saying that the army unit established to review incidents that may involve breaches of international law had been tasked with examining soldiers’ actions near aid locations over the past month.
The military told Reuters that some incidents were being reviewed by relevant authorities.
It added: “Any allegation of a deviation from the law or IDF directives will be thoroughly examined, and further action will be taken as necessary.”
There is an acute shortage of food and other basic supplies after the nearly two-year-old military campaign by Israel against Hamas militants in Gaza that has reduced much of the enclave to rubble and displaced most of its two million inhabitants.
Thousands of people gather around distribution centers desperately awaiting the next deliveries, but there have been near daily reports of shootings and killings on the approach routes. Medics said six people were killed by gunfire on Friday as they sought to get food in southern Gaza Strip.
In all, more than 500 people have died near aid centers operated by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) or in areas where UN food trucks were set to pass since late May, the Gaza health authorities have said.
The unnamed Israeli soldiers told Haaretz that military commanders had ordered troops to shoot at the crowds of Palestinians to disperse them and clear the area.
During a closed-door meeting with senior Military Advocate General officials this week, legal representatives rejected IDF claims that the incidents were isolated cases, Haaretz reported.
There has been widespread confusion about access to the aid, with the army imposing for a time a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew on approach routes to GHF sites. But locals often have to set out well before dawn to have any chance of retrieving food.
The Gaza war began when Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, killing nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 others hostage into the enclave.
In response, Israel launched a military campaign that has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, according to local health authorities in Gaza.
The Gaza health ministry said on Friday that at least 72 people were killed and more than 170 wounded by Israeli fire across Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours.
MSF slams Gaza aid scheme as ‘slaughter masquerading’ as aid

- MSF says more than 500 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip while seeking food in recent weeks
- Charity says US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation forces Palestinians to choose between starvation or risk their lives for minimal supplies
GENEVA: Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on Friday for a controversial Israel- and US-backed relief effort in Gaza to be halted, branding it “slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid.”
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which began operating last month, “is degrading Palestinians by design, forcing them to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies,” MSF said in a statement.
It said more than 500 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip while seeking food in recent weeks.
Starting in March, Israel blocked deliveries of food and other crucial supplies into Gaza for more than two months, leading to warnings of that the entire population of the occupied Palestinian territory is at risk of famine.
The United Nations says Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is illegal under international law.
The densely populated Gaza Strip has been largely flattened by Israeli bombing since the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas.
Israel began allowing food supplies to trickle in at the end of May, using GHF — backed by armed US contractors, with Israeli troops on the perimeter — to run operations.
The latter have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on people desperate to get food.
There are also concerns about the neutrality of GHF, officially a private group with opaque funding.
The UN and major aid groups have refused to work with it, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals and that it violates basic humanitarian principles.
The Gaza health ministry says that since late May, nearly 550 people have been killed near aid centers while seeking scarce food supplies.
“With over 500 people killed and nearly 4,000 wounded while seeking food, this scheme is slaughter masquerading as humanitarian aid and must be immediately dismantled,” MSF said.
GHF has denied that fatal shootings have occurred in the immediate vicinity of its aid points.
On Tuesday, the United Nations condemned what it said was Israel’s “weaponization of food” in Gaza and called it a war crime.
MSF said the way GHF distributes food aid supplies “forces thousands of Palestinians, who have been starved by an over 100 day-long Israeli siege, to walk long distances to reach the four distribution sites and fight for scraps of food supplies.”
“These sites hinder women, children, the elderly and people with disabilities from accessing aid, and people are killed and wounded in the chaotic process,” it said.
Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, said the four sites were all under the full control of Israeli forces, surrounded by watch points and barbed wire.
“If people arrive early and approach the checkpoints, they get shot. If they arrive on time but there is an overflow and they jump over the mounds and the wires, they get shot,” he said in the statement.
“If they arrive late, they shouldn’t be there because it is an ‘evacuated zone’ — they get shot.”
MSF said that its teams in Gaza were seeing patients every day who had been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of the sites.
It pointed to “a stark increase in the number of patients with gunshot wounds.”
MSF urged “the Israeli authorities and their allies to lift the siege on food, fuel, medical and humanitarian supplies and to revert to the pre-existing principled humanitarian system coordinated by the UN.”
Israeli strike kills 18 Palestinians in central Gaza

- Victims were among a crowd of people getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit in Deir Al-Balah
- The strike was the latest violence surrounding the distribution of food to Gaza’s population
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: An Israeli strike hit a street in central Gaza on Thursday where witnesses said a crowd of people was getting bags of flour from a Palestinian police unit that had confiscated the goods from gangs looting aid convoys. Hospital officials said 18 people were killed.
The strike was the latest violence surrounding the distribution of food to Gaza’s population, which has been thrown into turmoil over the past month. After blocking all food for 2 1/2 months, Israel has allowed only a trickle of supplies into the territory since mid-May.
Efforts by the United Nations to distribute the food have been plagued by armed gangs looting trucks and by crowds of desperate people offloading supplies from convoys.
The strike in the central town of Deir Al-Balah on Thursday appeared to target members of Sahm, a security unit tasked with stopping looters and cracking down on merchants who sell stolen aid at high prices. The unit is part of Gaza’s Hamas-led Interior Ministry, but includes members of other factions.
Witnesses said the Sahm unit was distributing bags of flour and other goods confiscated from looters and corrupt merchants, drawing a crowd when the strike hit.
Video of the aftermath showed bodies, several torn, of multiple young men in the street with blood splattering on the pavement and walls of buildings. The dead included a child and at least seven Sahm members, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where casualties were taken.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Israel has accused the militant Hamas group of stealing aid and using it to prop up its rule in the enclave. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck Gaza’s police, considering them a branch of Hamas.
An association of Gaza’s influential clans and tribes said Wednesday they have started an independent effort to guard aid convoys to prevent looting. The National Gathering of Palestinian Clans and Tribes said it helped escort a rare shipment of flour that entered northern Gaza that evening.
It was unclear, however, if the association had coordinated with the UN or Israeli authorities. The World Food Program did not immediately respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press.
“We will no longer allow thieves to steal from the convoys for the merchants and force us to buy them for high prices,” Abu Ahmad Al-Gharbawi, a figure involved in the tribal effort, told the AP.
Accusations from Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz in a joint statement Wednesday accused Hamas of stealing aid that is entering northern Gaza, and called on the Israeli military to plan to prevent it.
The National Gathering slammed the statement, saying the accusation of theft was aimed at justifying the Israeli military’s “aggressive practices.” It said aid was “fully secured” by the tribes, which it said were committed to delivering the supplies to the population.
The move by tribes to protect aid convoys brings yet another player in an aid situation that has become fragmented, confused and violent, even as Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinians struggle to feed their families.
Throughout the more than 20-month-old war, the UN led the massive aid operation by humanitarian groups providing food, shelter, medicine and other goods to Palestinians despite the fighting. UN and other aid groups say that when significant amounts of supplies are allowed into Gaza, looting and theft dwindles.
Israel, however, seeks to replace the UN-led system, saying Hamas has been siphoning off large amounts of supplies from it, a claim the UN and other aid groups deny.
Israel has backed an American private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has started distributing food boxes at four locations, mainly in the far south of Gaza for the past month.
Thousands of Palestinians walk for hours to reach the hubs, moving through Israeli military zones where witnesses say Israeli troops regularly open fire with heavy barrages to control the crowds.
Health officials say hundreds of people have been killed and wounded. The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots.
A trickle of aid
Israel has continued to allow a smaller number of aid trucks into Gaza for UN distribution. The World Health Organization said on Thursday it had been able to deliver its first medical shipment into Gaza since March 2, with nine trucks bringing blood, plasma and other supplies to Nasser Hospital, the biggest hospital still functioning in southern Gaza.
In Gaza City, large crowds gathered Thursday at an aid distribution point to receive bags of flour from the convoy that arrived the previous evening, according to photos taken by a cameraman collaborating with the AP.
Hiba Khalil, a mother of seven, said she can’t afford looted aid that is sold in markets for astronomical prices and was relieved to get flour for the first time in months.
“We’ve waited for months without having flour or eating much and our children would always cry,” she said.
Another woman, Umm Alaa Mekdad, said she hoped more convoys would make it through after struggling to deal with looters.
“The gangs used to take our shares and the shares of our children who slept hungry and thirsty,” she said.
Separately, Israeli strikes overnight and early Thursday killed at least 28 people across the Gaza Strip, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. More than 20 dead arrived at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, while the bodies of eight others were taken to Nasser Hospital in the south.