Dubai:

Severe flooding and violent windstorms have affected 562,000 people across Yemen in recent weeks, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Thursday, appealing for $13.3 million in donations amid a funding shortfall.

The “unprecedented weather events” have compounded suffering in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, which is already grappling with one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, said the IOM.

“The scale of the destruction is staggering, and we urgently need additional funding to ensure that the most vulnerable are not left behind,” said Matt Huber, the IOM’s acting Yemen mission chief.

Since late July, torrential rains and flooding have destroyed homes, displaced thousands of families and severely damaged critical infrastructure, including health centres, schools and roads, according to the UN agency.

Late last month, torrential rains caused flash floods in Yemen’s Mahawit governorate, leaving around 40 people either missing or dead, according to the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA.

Dozens of houses were damaged or destroyed, forcing 215 families into displacement, it said.

Another 60 people were killed and hundreds more were injured in earlier flash floods across Yemen since late July, according to UN figures.

“These rains have not only led to tragic loss of life but have also wiped out entire communities’ belongings and means of survival,” the IOM said.

“Immediate funding is necessary to address the most pressing needs on the ground,” the IOM said, warning that severe weather conditions are expected to continue in the coming weeks.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Dubai:

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Saturday they had attacked a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden, as a multinational naval force said two missiles exploded near a Liberia-flagged vessel.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation targeting the ship (GROTON) in the Gulf of Aden,” Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised statement.

He said the ship had been hit and that it was the second time it had been attacked after a similar incident on August 3.

The Yemeni rebels have waged a campaign against international shipping passing through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that they say is in solidarity with Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Earlier on Saturday, the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), run by a Western naval coalition, reported that the Groton had been targeted by two ballistic missiles when it was 130 nautical miles east of Aden.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency, run by Britain’s Royal Navy, said the captain reported that all crew were safe and the Groton was “proceeding to next port of call”.

The Houthi attacks, targeting ships that they say are linked to Israel, have disrupted traffic in a maritime zone that is vital to global trade.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command said Saturday that US forces destroyed a Houthi drone and an uncrewed surface vessel in rebel-controlled areas of Yemen over the past 24 hours.

“It was determined these systems presented a clear and imminent threat to US and coalition forces,” CENTCOM said in a statement on X.

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New Delhi:

Yemen’s Supreme Court pronounced death sentence to an Indian nurse on charges of murdering a Yemeni national and the case is currently with the President of the ruling dispensation of Sana’a, the government said in Lok Sabha on Friday.

The government of India is providing all possible assistance in the case including seeking consular access to the nurse, Nimishapriya, in jail and providing a lawyer to represent her case, Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh said.

“The Supreme Court of Yemen in Sana’a had pronounced death sentence to Nimishapriya, an Indian nurse on the charges of murdering a Yemeni national,” he said in a written reply.

“The issue related to the execution of the death sentence is currently with the President of the ruling dispensation of Sana’a,” he said.

Mr Singh said the government has received some representations, including from civil society, regarding the case of Nimishapriya.

“The government accords the highest priority for the welfare of Indians abroad and provides all possible support to those who fall in distress including in the instant case,” he said.

“The government of India is providing all possible assistance in the case including by seeking consular access to Nimishapriya in jail and providing a lawyer to represent her case from the Indian Community Welfare Fund (ICWF),” he said.

Asked whether the government has taken any action to ensure that ‘blood money’ is paid to ensure the safe release of Nimishapriya, Singh said it is a matter between the family of the person who had died and the nurse’s family.

“The matter regarding the payment of blood money towards the release of Nimishapriya is between the family of the deceased and Nimishapriya’s family,” he said. 

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Hodeida, Yemen:

Yemen’s Houthi rebels promised a “huge” retaliation against Israel on Sunday following a deadly strike on the port of Hodeida, as violence sparked by the Gaza war gripped the region.

Israel bombed the Palestinian territory, Lebanon and Yemen in quick succession this week in response to attacks from Iran-backed militant groups.

Despite Washington asserting that a deal to end more than nine months of devastating war between Israel and Gaza rulers Hamas was near the “goal line”, the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen as it pressed on with its offensive in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Dozens have been killed since Saturday across Gaza, the civil defence agency said, including in strikes on homes in the central Nuseirat and Bureij areas and displaced people near southern Khan Yunis.

Residents said a major operation was underway in the Saudi district west of Rafah in the south, reporting heavy artillery and clashes.

The deadly strikes in Gaza came hours after Hezbollah and its ally Hamas said they fired at Israeli positions from south Lebanon, while Yemen’s Houthi rebels vowed to respond to Israeli warplanes hitting a key port.

On Sunday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the rebel’s  “response to the Israeli aggression against our country is inevitably coming and will be huge.”

Fire still raging

The fire left raging by the strikes on rebel-held Hodeida port “is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Saturday.

The Houthis control swathes of Yemen, including much of its Red Sea coast, while the internationally recognised government has withdrawn to Aden on the south coast.

Detailing the first strikes claimed by Israel in Yemen, Gallant warned of further operations if the Houthis “dare to attack us” after a rebel drone strike killed one in Tel Aviv on Friday.

In Hodeida, three people were killed and 87 wounded, health officials said in a statement carried by Houthi media.

Firefighters struggled to contain the massive blaze caused by the strike on Hodeida, with a port employee saying fuel storage tanks and a power plant were still on fire on Sunday.

Following the strikes, the Israeli military said on Sunday it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen towards the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. Saree said the rebels had fired ballistic missiles towards the port city.

Netanyahu travels to Washington

The trio of militant groups has vowed to keep up attacks on Israel until a truce ends the violence in Gaza, which lies in ruins, with most residents forced to flee their homes.

The Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s military retaliation to wipe out Hamas has killed at least 38,983 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

The war has also unleashed hunger and health crises in Gaza, with Israel and the United Nations trading blame for vital aid supplies failing to reach those in need.

After the detection of poliovirus in Gaza sewage, though no individual cases, the World Health Organization said there were “monumental” constraints to mounting a timely response.

WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said Friday the agency believes many more diseases are “spreading out of control” inside Gaza.

The months-long war has also brought Israelis to the streets, sometimes in their tens of thousands, focused on securing the release of the remaining hostages.

“Bring them home,” demonstrator Ofira Azrieli said Saturday in Tel Aviv, appealing to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The premier is due to address US lawmakers Wednesday in Washington, where he will be under pressure to reach a ceasefire with Hamas.

His office announced that he will meet US President Joe Biden on Tuesday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Representational file image.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli air defences intercepted a surface-to-surface missile fired from Yemen on July 21, the military said, and Yemen’s Houthi movement said it had targeted the Israeli Red Sea city of Eilat with multiple missiles.

The Israeli military said its Arrow 3 missile defence system had shot down the projectile before it crossed into Israeli territory.

Before the interception, air raid sirens had sounded in Eilat, sending residents running for shelter.

The latest exchange between Israel and Iran-backed Houthis followed a strike on Saturday by Israeli fighter jets on Houthi military targets near Yemen’s Hodeidah port that killed at least three people and wounded 87.

That airstrike was in response to a long-range drone launched by the Houthis that hit the centre of Tel Aviv on Friday, killing one man and wounding four others.

The strike on Yemen, which Israeli officials said came after more than 200 Houthi attacks on Israel, underlined fears that the Gaza war, triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, could spiral into a regional conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today sent a stern warning to anyone “doubting” Israel after Israeli warplanes killed three people in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni port of Hodeida.

The strikes on the key port are the first claimed by Israel in the Arabian peninsula’s poorest country and came in “direct response” to Iran-backed rebels’ drone attack in Tel Aviv on Friday that killed an Israeli civilian.

“I have a simple message for Israel’s enemies: Do not doubt Israel’s determination to defend itself on every front. All those who seek to harm us will pay a very heavy price for their aggression,” Netanyahu said in a televised address.

He also said the port that was targeted was not an “innocent port”.  

“It was used as their (Houthis) entry point for weapons that are supplied by Iran to its Houthi terrorist proxies. The Houthis have used those weapons to attack Israel, to attack Arab states in the region, to attack many others,” Netanyahu said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening:

“From the beginning of the war, I made it clear that Israel will act against all those who attack us.

This is why earlier today, I asked the Israeli cabinet to back my decision to strike against the Houthi targets in Yemen. pic.twitter.com/xWE3KXQaeV

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) July 20, 2024

“This strike comes in direct response to the killer drone attack that killed one person and injured several others, a hundred yards from the US Consulate in Tel Aviv. But the aggression of the Houthis goes well beyond that single attack. For the past eight months, the Houthis have launched hundreds of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones against Israel,” he said.

Netanyahu also said the “only reason those attacks have not caused a greater loss of life has been the defensive measures taken by Israel and its allies, which together have intercepted hundreds of projectiles”.

“But the drone attack that struck Israel on Friday shows that more than defensive action is needed to curtail the Houthis. Offensive action is also needed. It’s needed to ensure that Iran’s terror proxies pay a price for their brazen aggression,” he added

He thanked the United States, Britain, France, and other members of the international maritime coalition that was formed to repel Houthi attacks.

Israeli Jets Strike Yemen Rebels At Hodeida Port

The Israeli strikes killed three people and wounded 87 at Hodeida port. The attack targeted “fuel storage facilities and a power plant” in Hodeida “to pressure Yemen to stop supporting” Palestinians in Gaza, top Houthi official Mohammed Abdulsalam said while referring to the Israel-Hamas war.

Hodeida port, which is a vital entry point for imports and international aid for rebel-held areas of Yemen, had remained largely untouched through the decade-long war between the Houthis and the internationally recognised government propped up by neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis’ Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, has now warned that the Israeli strikes on Hodeida marked a dangerous turn nine months into the war in Gaza.

The United Nations says about one million people have been displaced from Rafah since early May, when Israel began ground operations in pursuit of Hamas militants. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Israel bombed and shelled Gaza on Saturday, witnesses and first responders said, with fallout from the war bringing a resurgence of tensions to the Lebanon border and Yemen.

In the ninth month of war between Palestinian Hamas militants and Israeli forces, the Civil Defence agency in Gaza City reported 10 bodies recovered from Israeli strikes on three separate homes.

In Rafah witnesses reported clashes between militants and Israeli troops in the city’s west, and artillery fire towards a refugee camp in the city centre.

Fears of a broader West Asia conflict have surged again, with Lebanon-based Hezbollah fighters, who are backed by Iran and allied with Hamas, launching waves of rockets and drones against Israeli military targets.

Hezbollah said intense strikes since Wednesday were retaliation for Israel’s killing of one of its commanders.

Israeli forces responded with shelling, the military said, also announcing air strikes on Hezbollah infrastructure across the border.

The fallout from the Gaza war also escalated this week off Yemen.

On Friday the U.S. military said it destroyed two unmanned surface vessels in the Red Sea belonging to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels, as well as one drone and seven radars that allowed the rebels to target ships.

In Rafah’s west, militants and Israeli troops clashed while artillery fire struck a refugee camp

Sanaa:

Yemen’s Houthi rebels say that they have launched a missile strike on a United States aircraft carrier in the Red Sea in retaliation for recent deadly strikes by the US and UK in Yemen, Al Jazeera reported.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced the attack on the Eisenhower carrier on Friday, following earlier claims by the group that at least 16 people were killed in US and UK assaults on Yemen’s Hodeidah province. This marks the highest publicly acknowledged death count from multiple rounds of strikes linked to the group’s alleged assaults on shipping.

Al Masirah television, a Houthi-controlled channel, broadcasted footage showing wounded civilians being treated in Hodeidah, revealing the fallout from Thursday’s attacks. At least 42 people were reported injured.

“The American-British aggression will not prevent us from continuing our military operations in support of Palestine,” Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukhaiti said on X, warning that the rebels would “meet escalation with escalation”.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported that attacks on 13 Houthi targets resulted in the destruction of eight uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and over the Red Sea, according to Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the British Ministry of Defence stated that Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4s conducted strikes on Hodeidah and Ghulayfiqah. It described targets as “buildings identified as housing drone ground control facilities and providing storage for very long-range drones, as well as surface-to-air weapons”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended the military action as a form of “self-defence in the face of an ongoing threat that the Houthis pose”.

The Houthi movement, aligned with Iran, controls significant portions of Yemen after nearly a decade of conflict against a Western-backed and Saudi-led coalition. They have vocally supported Palestinians amid Israel’s ongoing conflict in Gaza, launching repeated drone and missile attacks on ships in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb strait, and the Gulf of Aden since November.

Iran condemned the US-UK strikes as “violations of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity … international laws and human rights”, Al Jazeera reported, citing, Iranian state media.

“The aggressor US and British governments are responsible for the consequences of these crimes against the Yemeni people,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said.

According to the US Maritime Administration, Houthis have launched over 50 attacks on shipping, resulting in casualties, vessel seizures, and disruptions to global trade routes. The campaign has forced shipping firms to seek alternative routes, impacting approximately 12 per cent of global trade that traverses the Red Sea.

Despite retaliatory strikes by the US and UK aimed at degrading Houthi capabilities, the rebels have continued their assaults. In their latest actions, they targeted a Greek-owned bulk carrier and other vessels in response to Israeli strikes on Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Sanaa:

The head of the Houthi Prisoner Affairs Committee, Abdul Qader al-Murtada, said the Iran-backed movement would release 100 prisoners on Saturday belonging to Yemen’s government forces.

A decision was issued by the leader of the Houthi movement, Abdul-Malik Badr Al-Din al-Houthi, Murtada said on Friday.

Yemen’s Houthis last released prisoners in April 2023 in an exchange of 250 Houthis for 70 members of Yemen’s government forces.

“Tomorrow we will implement a unilateral humanitarian initiative in which we will release more than 100 prisoners,” Murtada said in a statement.

Yemen’s conflict, which has killed tens of thousands of people and left millions hungry, has widely been seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Houthis are the de facto authorities in northern Yemen. The internationally recognised government is represented by the Political Leadership Council, which was formed under Saudi auspices last year and took over power from Yemen’s president-in-exile.

A Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Iran-aligned Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa in 2014.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Sanaa:

Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels on Tuesday pledged more attacks against Israel if its war on Hamas in Gaza continues, saying it had already fired drones and ballistic missiles in three separate operations.

“The Yemeni Armed Forces… confirm they will continue to carry out qualitative strikes with missiles and drones until the Israeli aggression stops,” said a Huthi military statement aired on the rebels’ Al-Masirah TV.

It said Huthi rebels “launched a large batch of ballistic missiles… and a large number of armed aircraft” towards Israel on Tuesday, in the third such operation since the Gaza assault began on October 7 after Hamas militants staged the worst attack in Israel’s history.

Earlier, Israel’s military said a “hostile aircraft intrusion” had set off warning sirens in Eilat, its Red Sea resort, later saying it had intercepted a “surface-to-surface missile” fired toward Israeli territory, that was “successfully intercepted by the ‘Arrow’ aerial defence system”.

“All aerial threats were intercepted outside of Israeli territory,” it said.

Abdelaziz bin Habtour, prime minister of the Huthi government, on Tuesday said the rebels were “part of the axis of resistance” against Israel, which includes Tehran-backed groups in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, and were fighting with both “words and drones”.

“It is one axis and there is coordination taking place, a joint operations room, and a joint command for all these operations,” he said.

“We cannot allow this arrogant Zionist enemy to kill our people.”

– Fears of regional conflict –

The Huthis seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 and control large swathes of the country. They have previously carried out strikes in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which carried out a military campaign against the rebels.

The United States, which has tense relations with Iran but has welcomed a de facto truce in Yemen’s bloody civil war since April 2022, responded carefully to the Huthi announcement.

“Anyone thinking about joining this conflict should not do it,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington.

Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder confirmed that Israel took down a medium-range missile fired by the Huthis.

“As we’ve said before, we want to prevent a broader regional conflict,” Ryder said.

Israel had blamed the Huthis for a drone attack on Friday, saying its aircraft had intercepted “hostile targets” headed for southern Israel.

At the same time, six people were lightly injured when debris hit a building across the border from Eilat in the neighbouring Egyptian resort of Taba, the Egyptian army said at the time.

On October 19, the US Navy said it shot down three land-attack cruise missiles and “several” drones fired by the Huthis, possibly at Israel.

Israel has been pounding Gaza since the October 7 attack when Hamas gunmen stormed across the border and killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than 230 others.

Since then, Israel’s bombardments have killed more than 8,500 people, over 3,500 of them children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, an impoverished slice of land which is home to 2.4 million people.

Concerns are high over a regional conflagration, especially as Iran — which financially and militarily backs Hamas but insists it had no involvement in the October 7 attack — has loyalists and proxy fighters in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Since the Gaza conflict began, there have been a string of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria as well as almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army.

On Sunday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi warned on X, formerly Twitter, that Israel had “crossed the red lines, and this may force everyone to take action”, without elaborating.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)