Category Archives: Israel-Gaza war

Houthi missile targeting US warship intercepted, says US, amid Red Sea tensions

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US Central Command says missile from Houthi-controlled area of Yemen was launched towards USS Laboon before being shot down by fighter jets

US fighter aircraft shot down an anti-ship cruise missile fired from a Houthi-controlled area of Yemen at one of its warships in the Red Sea, the US military said on Sunday night.

The missile was fired towards the USS Laboon which was operating in the Southern Red Sea, US Central Command said in a statement, in what appears to be the first such attempt on a US destroyer. No injuries or damage were reported, Central Command said.

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Thousands march on Washington to demand ceasefire in Gaza

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Flyers indicate protesters came from as far as Florida, Minnesota, Texas and Wisconsin to protest war and US aid to Israel

Thousands of marchers descended on Washington DC on Saturday to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to protest US aid to Israel, more than three months into an Israeli offensive against Hamas that is killing 250 Palestinians per day, according to the Oxfam charity.

The protest, called a march on Washington for Gaza, was promoted as likely to be the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in the US since the 7 October attack on southern Israel by Hamas fighters emerging from Gaza, which killed almost 1,200 people and led to a massive military response from Israel, backed by the US government.

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Middle East crisis live: Protesters in Washington call on Biden administration for a Gaza ceasefire

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Thousands of demonstrators gather at Freedom Plaza for the march on Washington for Gaza

US strikes in Yemen, including the latest one on a military base in Sana’a, had no significant impact on Houthis’ capabilities to continue preventing Israel-affiliated vessels from passing through the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea, Yemen’s Houthis’ spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters.

Houthi Ansarullah official Nasruldeen Amer speaking to Al Jazeera, said that there were no injuries in the latest US strike in Yemen and vowed a “strong and effective response”. “There were no injuries, no material nor human losses,” he said.

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Thousands of pro-Palestine protesters march in London

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About 1,700 officers on duty in UK capital to police demonstration on day for action involving 30 countries

Thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday to show solidarity with Palestine and to reiterate calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Demonstrators met on Queen Victoria Street before making their way along Fleet Street towards Parliament Square. The protest, part of a global day of action, comes after the RAF and the US military carried out airstrikes against Houthi bases in Yemen.

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Red Sea crisis could shatter hopes of global economic recovery

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World Bank warns of surging energy prices, slower growth and higher inflation as threat rises of disruption to world trade

A prolonged conflict in the Red Sea and escalating tensions across the Middle East risk having devastating effects on the global economy, reigniting inflation and disrupting energy supplies, some of the world’s leading economists warn this weekend.

Before a statement expected on Monday by Rishi Sunak in the House of Commons about UK and US airstrikes on Houthi sites in Yemen, economists at the World Bank say the crisis now threatens to feed through into higher interest rates, lower growth, persistent inflation and greater geopolitical uncertainty.

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‘It is a time of witch hunts in Israel’: teacher held in solitary confinement for posting concern about Gaza deaths

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Meir Baruchin, who was fired and jailed for criticising the military, says that many who agree with him are afraid to go public

An unlikely charge of intent to commit treason landed Meir Baruchin, a grey-haired, softly spoken history and civics teacher, in the solitary confinement wing of Jerusalem’s notorious “Russian Compound” prison in early November.

The evidence compiled by police who handcuffed him, then drove to his apartment and ransacked it as he watched, was a series of Facebook posts he’d made, mourning the civilians killed in Gaza, criticising the Israeli military, and warning against wars of revenge.

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US launches fresh strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen, military says

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Bombing comes after Houthis threaten retaliation and anti-ship ballistic missile is fired at vessel in Red Sea

The US has carried out fresh strikes on Yemen, a day after a first raid triggered mass protests in the country’s capital and other Middle Eastern countries voiced concern that the attacks could trigger further unrest in the region.

The strike, carried out by the USS Carney early on Saturday, targeted a Houthi rebel radar site in Yemen and was a “follow-on action” on a target “associated with strikes taken on Jan 12 designed to degrade the Houthi’s ability to attack maritime vessels”, the US military said in a statement on Twitter.

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Hundreds of thousands expected at weekend protests in London after Yemen strikes

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Saturday’s march for Gaza ceasefire as part of global day of action will be followed by static rally for Israel on Sunday

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to gather in London over the weekend in protest against the war in Gaza as the conflict widens to Yemen.

On Saturday, protesters are expected to gather at Bank Junction at midday as part of a global day of action involving 30 countries, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said.

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Houthis show resolve that western strikes will be hard pushed to shake

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With Palestinian plight supercharging movement, restraint may only come with regional pressure on resources

The near-official slogan of the Houthi movement is: “God is the Greatest / Death to America / Death to Israel / A curse upon the Jews.” Crowds of supporters in the group’s northern Yemen strongholds have been chanting it for more than 20 years, ever since the phrase was brought back from Tehran at the turn of the century, when it was first directed at the then Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

So those who claim the Houthis are not serious in attempting to block Israeli-linked trade in the Red Sea underplay the extent to which the defence of Palestine is a foundational principle of the Houthi movement, and highly popular among Yemeni people. The rebel stance over the past two months has afforded this relatively obscure Shia group a status in recent weeks that even Hezbollah in Lebanon cannot claim. They are deeply authoritarian, but skilled mobilisers of popular opinion.

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‘The situation is dire’: winter heaps misery on displaced people of Gaza

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For those living out in open, lack of clothes, blankets and firewood is exacerbated by harsh winds and rain

Harsh winter weather is making life even more difficult for hundreds of thousands of displaced people in Gaza, many of whom fled their homes months ago without warm clothes or blankets.

Some could not carry much and others did not think they would need to prepare for months of war, stretching into the coldest months of the year.

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Israel accuses South Africa of ‘profound distortion’ at ICJ genocide hearing

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Israeli legal team calls South African accusation of genocidal acts in Gaza ‘a partial and deeply flawed picture’

Israel has accused South Africa of presenting a “profoundly distorted” view of hostilities, “barely distinguishable” from that of Hamas, as it presented its defence at the international court of justice in The Hague against accusations of genocide.

A day after South Africa argued that it had committed genocidal acts in Gaza with intent from “the highest levels of state”, Israel said on Friday that was a “partial and deeply flawed picture”.

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Oil prices hit $80 a barrel as fears grow over Red Sea disruption to trade

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Experts warn of economic impact of sustained shipping attacks and Middle East tensions

Oil prices have hit $80 (£62.83) as fears grew about the economic impact of disruption to international trade through the Red Sea and escalating tensions in the Middle East.

Raising concerns about a possible inflation shock for the world economy, Brent crude prices jumped by about 4% to a high of $80.75 a barrel on Friday, while US West Texas Intermediate crude also increased after US and UK airstrikes against Houthi rebel sites in Yemen.

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Middle East crisis live: US and UK airstrikes in Yemen will not go without ‘punishment or retaliation’, say Houthis

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Group’s military spokesperson says they will continue to block passage of ships in Red Sea

Lebanon’s powerful armed group Hezbollah has also reacted on Friday to the airstrikes and condemned them.

Reuters says that the group has released a statement saying:

The American aggression confirms once again that the US is a full partner in the tragedies and massacres committed by the Zionist enemy in Gaza and the region

We strongly condemn the military attacks carried out this morning by the United States and the United Kingdom on several cities in Yemen ….

We consider it a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a breach of international laws, regulations, and rights.

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Hezbollah and Iran condemn US and UK strikes against Houthis

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Tehran-backed Lebanese group says ‘aggression confirms that US is a full partner’ in Israel’s actions in Gaza

The Iran-backed Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah has condemned the US and UK’s overnight strikes against Yemen’s Houthis, as countries across the Middle East express fears over the latest escalation of the conflict in the region.

Although anxiety was widespread, most vocal were countries and militant groups backed by Tehran, which accused the US and the UK of destabilising the region.

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Ten countries involved in air strikes on Yemen’s Houthis – as it happened

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This blog is now closed

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) authority has posted to social media that it has received a report of a vessel being boarded off the coast of Oman.

While the exact circumstances remain unclear, UKMTO reports “hearing unknown voices over the phone along with the masters voice” and says it is “unable to make further contact with vessel at this time”.

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Most want to flee ‘pressure cooker’ of southern Gaza, UN refugee deputy says

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Deputy leader of UN agency for Palestinian refugees says situation in territory is ‘full-time emergency’

Southern Gaza is turning into a “pressure cooker”, where the majority of people – faced with dwindling food, inadequate water sanitation, overcrowding and a crumbling hospital service – want to flee, the deputy director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees has said.

Scott Anderson of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), who is engaged in daily negotiations to gain Israeli permissions for aid convoys to enter and move around Gaza, said it was in “a full-time emergency” and just six of the 21 planned convoys to the north of the territory had been granted access since January despite a UN security council resolution in December calling for relief to be stepped up.

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Israel shows ‘chilling’ intent to commit genocide in Gaza, South Africa tells UN court

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Case opens in The Hague with judges shown pictures and video as evidence of alleged genocide

Israel has shown “chilling” and “incontrovertible” intent to commit genocide in Gaza, with full knowledge of how many civilians it is killing, the UN international court of justice in The Hague has heard, at the opening of a case Israel has described as baseless.

South Africa, which has brought the case, alleged “grave violence and genocidal acts” by Israel on the first morning of the two-day hearing, amid a febrile atmosphere outside the court in The Hague. It called on the judges to order an immediate ceasefire.

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Hearings to begin at The Hague in case claiming Israel’s Gaza war is genocide

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International Court of Justice will hear complaint brought by South Africa, which is asking for urgent ‘provisional measures’

A legal hearing into the war in Gaza opens in The Hague on Thursday as the international court of justice (ICJ) hears arguments alleging that Israel is committing genocide in the territory.

South Africa, which has brought the case, is asking the UN court to act urgently “to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights of the Palestinian people under the genocide convention, which continues to be violated with impunity”.

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Red Sea crisis: UN security council demands immediate end to Houthi attacks

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Resolution calling for cessation of attacks on shipping vessels by Yemen’s Houthis adopted despite abstentions from Russia and China

The UN security council has called for an immediate end to attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea, adopting a resolution despite abstentions from Russia and China.

The resolution also called on the Houthis to release the Galaxy Leader, a Japanese-operated vehicle carrier linked to an Israeli businessman that the group commandeered on 19 November, along with its 25 crew.

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