DUBAI: An attack by Yemen’s Houthi militants targeted a commercial ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden but apparently caused no damage, authorities said Saturday, in the latest strike on the shipping lane by the group.
The Houthi attack comes after the sinking this week of the ship Tutor, which marked what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign of strikes on ships in the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, US officials reportedly ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading America’s response to the Houthi attacks, to return home after a twice-extended tour.
The captain of the ship targeted late Friday saw “explosions in the vicinity of the vessel,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. A later briefing by the US-overseen Joint Maritime Information Center said the vessel initially reported two explosions off its port side and a third one later.
“The vessel was not hit and sustained no damage,” the center said. “The vessel and crew are reported to be safe and are proceeding to their next port of call.”
The Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, claimed the attack Saturday night. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi military spokesman, identified the vessel targeted as the bulk carrier Transworld Navigator.
The Houthis have launched more than 60 attacks targeting specific vessels and fired off other missiles and drones in their campaign that has killed a total of four sailors. They have seized one vessel and sunk two since November. 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 militants say.
In March, the Belize-flagged Rubymar carrying fertilizer became the first to sink in the Red Sea after taking on water for days following a militant attack.
The Houthis have maintained that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the Israel-Hamas war.
Meanwhile, the US Naval Institute’s news service reported, citing an anonymous official, that the Eisenhower would be returning home to Norfolk, Virginia, after an over eight-month deployment in combat that the Navy says is its most intense since World War II. The report said an aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific would be taking the Eisenhower’s place.
The closest American aircraft carrier known to be operating in Asia is the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The Roosevelt anchored Saturday in Busan, South Korea, amid Seoul’s ongoing tensions with North Korea.
The Eisenhower had repeatedly been targeted by false attack claims by the Houthis during its time in the Red Sea. Saree on Saturday night claimed another attack on the carrier — but again provided no evidence to support it as the carrier was reportedly already scheduled to leave the region.
Houthi attack targets a ship in the Gulf of Aden as the Eisenhower reportedly heads home
https://arab.news/w95k3
Houthi attack targets a ship in the Gulf of Aden as the Eisenhower reportedly heads home
- The Houthi attack comes after the sinking this week of the ship Tutor
- US officials reportedly ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading America’s response to the Houthi attacks, to return home after a twice-extended tour
Residents of Gaza Strip cautioned against helping Israel with protests
CAIRO: Palestinian groups threatened punishment on Thursday for “collaborators” furthering Israeli goals after the first substantial protests against the war in Gaza and Hamas’ rule.
Hundreds of Palestinians have rallied in recent days in north and central Gaza, some chanting “Hamas out” in a rare show of opposition to the group whose October 2023 raid on Israel triggered a devastating offensive in the enclave.
More demonstrations, which Israel’s government has applauded, were being planned on Thursday.
A statement by the “Factions of the Resistance,” an umbrella group including Hamas, threatened punishment for leaders of the “suspicious movement,” which Palestinians took to mean the street marches.
“They persist in blaming the resistance and absolving the occupation, ignoring that the Israeli extermination machine operates nonstop,” it said.
“Therefore, these suspicious individuals are as responsible as the occupation for the bloodshed of our people and will be treated accordingly.”
Hamas officials have said people have the right to protest, but rallies should not be exploited for political ends or to exempt Israel from blame for decades of occupation, conflict, and displacement in Palestinian territories.
Some protesters said they took to the streets to voice rejection of continued war, adding that they were exhausted and lacked basics like food and water.
“We are not against the resistance. We are against war. Enough wars, we are tired,” said a resident of Gaza City’s Shejaia neighborhood, which saw protests on Wednesday.
“You can’t call people collaborators for speaking up against wars, for wanting to live without bombardment and hunger,” he added via a chat app.
Videos on Wednesday, whose authenticity Reuters could not verify, showed protests in Shejaia in the north where the rallies began and in the central Gaza areas of Deir Al-Balah, indicating the protests were spreading.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the rallies showed Israelis’ decision to renew the military offensive in Gaza after a ceasefire was working.
Hamas police, the group’s enforcers, are again off the streets.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz urged Gaza residents to keep expressing their discontent.
“Learn from the residents of Beit Lahia,” he wrote on X, referring to the first protest. “Just as they did, demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages — this is the only way to stop the war.”
A Palestinian official with a militant group said protests were allowed — but not cooperation with Israel.
“Those suspicious figures try to exploit legitimate protests to demand an end to the resistance, which is the same goal as Israel’s,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
US Senator Sanders to force Senate votes on blocking arms for Israel
WASHINGTON: US Senator Bernie Sanders said on Thursday he would force votes next week on resolutions that would block $8.8 billion in arms sales to Israel, citing the human rights crisis faced by Palestinians in Gaza after Israel’s bombardment of the enclave and its suspension of aid deliveries.
“(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu has clearly violated US and international law in this brutal war, and we must end our complicity in the carnage,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement announcing his plan.
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli campaign in Gaza, Palestinian officials say. It was launched after thousands of Hamas-led gunmen attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, leaving hundreds of thousands of people sheltering in tents or bombed-out buildings.
A decades-long tradition of strong bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress means resolutions to stop weapons sales are unlikely to pass, but backers hope that raising the issue will encourage Israel’s government and US administrations to do more to protect civilians.
“No humanitarian aid has entered Gaza in more than three and a half weeks since Israeli authorities announced a complete blockade – that’s no food, water, medicine, or fuel since the start of March,” Sanders said in a statement.
Last month, the UN Human Rights Chief accused Israel on Wednesday of showing an unprecedented disregard for human rights in its military actions in Gaza and said Hamas had violated international law.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly in November to block three resolutions introduced by Sanders that would have halted transfers of weapons approved by the administration of then-President Joe Biden, a Democrat whom progressives criticized as doing too little to help Palestinians as conditions in Gaza worsened.
President Donald Trump, who began a second term on Jan. 20 and is a fierce advocate for Israel, has reversed Biden’s efforts to place some limits on what arms are sent to Netanyahu’s government.
Last month, Trump sidestepped the congressional review process to approve billions of dollars in military sales to Israel.
US law gives Congress the right to stop major foreign weapons sales by passing resolutions of disapproval. Although no such resolution has both passed Congress and survived a presidential veto, the law requires the Senate to vote if a resolution is filed. Such resolutions have at times led to angry debates embarrassing to past presidents.
Sudan paramilitaries vow ‘no surrender’ after Khartoum setback
- Rapid Support Forces said it would 'deliver crushing defeats to the enemy on all fronts'
- War has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million in Sudan, according to UN figures
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces vowed on Thursday there would be “no retreat and no surrender” after rival troops of the regular army retook nearly all of central Khartoum.
From inside the recaptured presidential palace, Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, at war with his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo since April 2023, had on Wednesday declared the capital “free” from the RSF.
But in its first direct comment since the army retook what remains of the capital’s state institutions this week, the RSF said: “Our forces have not lost any battle, but have repositioned.
“Our forces will continue to defend the homeland’s soil and secure a decisive victory. There will be no retreat or surrender,” it said.
“We will deliver crushing defeats to the enemy on all fronts.”
AFP could not independently confirm the RSF’s remaining positions in the capital.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million, according to UN figures.
It has also split Africa’s third-largest country in two, with the army holding the north and east while the RSF controls parts of the south and nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur, which borders Chad.
On Wednesday, the army cleared Khartoum airport of RSF fighters and encircled their last major stronghold in the Khartoum area, just south of the city center.
An army source told AFP that RSF fighters were fleeing across the Jebel Awliya bridge, their only way out of greater Khartoum.
A successful withdrawal could link the RSF’s Jebel Awliya troops to its positions west of the city and then to its strongholds in Darfur hundreds of kilometers (miles) away.
On Wednesday, hours after Burhan arrived in the presidential palace for the first time in two years, the RSF announced a “military alliance” with a rebel group, which controls much of South Kordofan state and parts of Blue Nile bordering Ethiopia.
The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, led by Abdelaziz Al-Hilu, had clashed with both sides, before signing a political charter with the RSF last month to establish a rival government.
On Thursday evening, witnesses in the Blue Nile state capital Damazin reported that both its airport and the nearby Roseires Dam came under drone attack by the paramilitaries and their allies for the first time in the war.
Fighters in retreat across the capital
Following a year and a half of defeats at the hands of the RSF, the army began pushing through central Sudan toward Khartoum late last year.
Analysts have blamed the RSF’s losses on strategic blunders, internal divisions and dwindling supplies.
Since the army recaptured the presidential palace on Friday, witnesses and activists have reported RSF fighters in retreat across the capital.
The army’s gains have been met with celebrations in its wartime headquarters in the Red Sea coastal city of Port Sudan, where displaced Sudanese rejoiced at the prospect of finally returning to Khartoum.
“God willing, we’re going home, we’ll finally celebrate Eid in our own homes,” Khartoum native Motaz Essam told AFP, ululations and fireworks echoing around him.
Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader since he ousted civilian politicians from power in a 2021 coup, said on Wednesday the army was looking to form a technocratic government and had “no desire to engage in political work.”
“The armed forces are working to create the conditions for an elected civilian government,” Burhan said in a meeting with Germany’s envoy to the Horn of Africa, Heiko Nitzschke, according to a statement from Burhan’s office.
The RSF has its origins in the Janjaweed militia unleashed by then strongman Omar Al-Bashir more than two decades ago in Darfur.
Like the army, the RSF has sought to position itself as the guardian of Sudan’s democratic uprising which ousted Bashir in 2019.
The United States has imposed sanctions on both sides. It accused the army of attacks on civilians and said the RSF had “committed genocide.”
Burhan and Dagalo, in the fragile political transition that followed Bashir’s overthrow, forged an alliance which saw both rise to prominence. Then a bitter power struggle over the potential integration of the RSF into the regular army erupted into all-out war.
5 Syrian siblings suffocate in house fire in Tripoli
- Electricity generator in basement believed to be source of blaze
- Flames spread to bags of plastic, cardboard collected by children’s father
BEIRUT: Five children from the same Syrian family were killed in a fire at a residential building in Tripoli on Thursday afternoon.
The three brothers and two sisters are thought to have suffocated in their home after an electricity generator caught fire in the basement of the building in the Al Mina area of the city, according to media reports.
The children’s father, who was not named, works as concierge at the building. He also collects recyclable materials, such as plastic and cardboard, which he stored in nylon sacks at the family home.
It is thought these items fueled the blaze.
Rescuers from the Lebanese Civil Defense and the Lebanese Red Cross paramedic teams rushed to the scene to tackle the fire and treat the victims.
The five siblings were identified as Mohammed, Mahmoud, Houssam, Amani and Alaa. Their bodies were taken to three hospitals in the city.
Three other people received medical treatment at the scene, the reports said.
A source from the Lebanese Internal Security Forces told Arab News that an investigation had been launched to determine the cause of the fire.
The children’s mother had been out shopping for Eid clothes for the siblings when the fire broke out. Video footage shared on social media showed her collapsing at the entrance to the building after discovering the tragedy on her return.
Aoun: Hezbollah is cooperative on the weapons issue
- Joseph Aoun: ‘Israel is the one violating this agreement by remaining in the five hills, while Lebanon seeks to preserve this agreement’
- Aoun: ‘Reforms are more a Lebanese necessity than an international demand’
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said that “the Lebanese army is carrying out its duties fully in southern Lebanon,” adding that “the state is committed to implementing Resolution 1701.”
He also announced that “Hezbollah is cooperative on the weapons issue,” noting that “dialogue is the key to solutions.”
His statements came on the eve of his expected visit to Paris and his participation in a summit with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
In an interview with France 24, Aoun said that “the ceasefire agreement must be upheld by all parties,” noting that “Israel is the one violating this agreement by remaining in the five hills, while Lebanon seeks to preserve this agreement.”
He added: “Diplomatic calls are being carried out regarding this matter, and guarantees must come from France and the US, which are partners in the Quintet Committee tasked with monitoring the implementation of the agreement.”
Aoun affirmed Lebanon’s commitment to reforms,” adding that “we don’t have any other option.”
He said: “Reforms are more a Lebanese necessity than an international demand.”
Meanwhile, the Cabinet held a meeting at the Presidential Palace, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, during which a new central bank governor was appointed.
The governor was chosen by voting rather than consensus, but Salam, the Sunni ministers in the government, and ministers Tarek Metri and Ghassan Salameh did not vote for the new governor.
The appointment of Karim Saeed came after a prolonged vacancy in the governorship, which resulted from the failure to elect a president for the republic for more than two years, alongside the arrest of the former central bank governor, Riad Salameh, on charges of embezzlement.
The new governor received 17 votes out of 24, following his responses to the ministers’ questions.
Saeed, 61, was included in a list of three names submitted by Finance Minister Yassine Jaber to the Cabinet, alongside Eddy Gemayel and Jamil Baz.
Saeed’s name is associated with what is known as the “Harvard Plan” for addressing the economic crisis in Lebanon, which was funded by Growthgate Capital.
Saeed is a founding partner and managing partner at Growthgate Equity Partners in the UAE, a firm specializing in alternative asset management that invests in private companies throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He previously held the position of general manager of Investment Banking Services at HSBC.
Additionally, he served as a board member at Emirates Lebanon Bank.
Meanwhile in southern Lebanon, Israeli military drones killed four people in less than 24 hours.
Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Youssef Rajji received a phone call from his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdel Ati. The two men discussed “Egypt’s efforts to curb Israel’s ongoing escalation in southern Lebanon, urging it to withdraw from the occupied Lebanese territories and adhere to the declaration of a ceasefire.”
Two guided missiles hit a car in Yohmor Al-Shaqif, resulting in three deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.
Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee claimed that the missile strikes targeted Hezbollah operatives who were reportedly transporting weapons.
The Ministry of Health also reported the death of another man, who was killed by an Israeli drone strike near Maaroub, Tyre.
The Israeli army claimed responsibility for killing “Ahmad Adnan Bajjiga, a battalion commander in Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, in the Derdghaiya area of southern Lebanon.”
Security reports indicate that Israel has resumed its attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, despite the ceasefire agreement between the two parties, which went into effect on Nov. 27, 2024.
These attacks have resulted in at least 105 deaths — comprising Hezbollah members, civilians and military personnel — and left around 300 others wounded.
The war, which Hezbollah launched in support of Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, along with the subsequent ground war initiated by the Israeli army in Lebanon until the cessation of hostilities on Nov. 27, 2024, has killed 3,961 and injured 16,520, according to the Emergency Committee.
