Houthis now seek to de-escalate tension with US over Red Sea attacks

Houthi fighters attend a rally of support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the US strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP)
Houthi fighters attend a rally of support for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and against the US strikes on Yemen outside Sanaa on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 23 January 2024
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Houthis now seek to de-escalate tension with US over Red Sea attacks

 Houthis now seek to de-escalate tension with US over Red Sea attacks
  • Houthi military spokesperson Yahiya Sarae said the US and UK militaries launched on Monday 18 airstrikes, including 12 in the capital Sanaa and Sanaa province, three in Hodeidah, two in Taiz, and one in Al-Bayda

AL-MUKALLA: An official with Yemen’s Houthi militia has said that they want to de-escalate tensions with the US over their Red Sea assaults, even as US and UK troops continue to bombard military targets in regions under their control.

Hussein Al-Ezzi, the Houthis’ deputy foreign minister, said on X that the Iran-backed militia has not targeted American or British commercial ships sailing through the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab, or the Gulf of Aden, instead focusing solely on Israel-bound ships to ease tensions with the US.

“Sanaa’s regulations continue to apply solely to ships bound for occupied Palestinian ports. We have not yet incorporated American and British ships heading to other locations due to our goal to minimize the escalation,” Al-Ezzi said.

Al-Ezzi’s remarks contradict inflammatory statements made by militia leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi and other senior militia leaders about their desire to fight the US, Israel, and the UK, as well as threats to strike their ships in the Red Sea and their regional interests.

The Houthi conciliatory remark comes as the US Central Command announced on Tuesday that its forces, along with the British Armed Forces, carried out night strikes on eight targets in Yemeni areas controlled by the Houthis, including missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, radars, and deeply buried weapons storage facilities.

“These strikes are intended to degrade Houthi capability to continue their reckless and unlawful attacks on US and UK ships as well as international commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden,” the US Central Command said on X.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahiya Sarae said the US and UK militaries launched on Monday 18 airstrikes, including 12 in the capital Sanaa and Sanaa province, three in Hodeidah, two in Taiz, and one in Al-Bayda. “The attacks would not go unpunished,” Sarae said.

At the same time, ballistic missiles and explosives-laden drones have continued to land in civilian areas after missing their objectives in international seas off Yemen’s coast.

On Tuesday, a Houthi missile ripped through a workshop for fixing washing machines and refrigerators in the government-controlled town of Bayhan in the southern province of Shabwa, causing a big explosion and a fire that destroyed the building and frightened people.

Residents in Yemen’s Dhale, Lahj, Abyan, and other areas have recently reported witnessing Houthi missiles and drones strike their villages and houses before reaching their intended targets.

Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Parliament on Tuesday that his government does not desire a fight with the Houthis but would not hesitate to take greater military action if the Yemeni group continued to assault ships.

“We are not seeking a confrontation. We urge the Houthis and those who enable them to stop these illegal and unacceptable attacks … But, if necessary, the United Kingdom will not hesitate to respond again in self-defense,” he said.

UK Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron said that in addition to the British Royal Navy’s strikes, the country would impose penalties on the Houthis and use other forms of pressure to get them to cease their assaults in the Red Sea. “What the Houthis are doing is unacceptable, it’s illegal and it’s threatening the freedom of navigation,” Cameron told Sky News.

Since November, the Houthis have seized a commercial ship and targeted dozens of commercial and naval ships in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and Bab Al-Mandab, enforcing their ban on Israel-linked vessels. The Houthis claim they want to push Israel to break its embargo on Gaza.

 

 


Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached

Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached
Updated 7 sec ago
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Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached

Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached
  • Israeli PM said he will convene his security cabinet on Friday, then the government will approve the ceasefire agreement
  • Meanwhile, Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 72 people since the ceasefire deal was announced

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that a deal to return hostages held in the Gaza Strip has been reached. The announcement early came a day after Netanyahu’s office said there were last minute snags in talks to free hostages in return for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Netanyahu said he will convene his security Cabinet on Friday and then the government to approve the ceasefire agreement.
On Thursday, Netanyahu's office said the Cabinet won’t meet to approve the agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of dozens of hostages until Hamas backs down, accusing the group of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt to gain further concessions.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 72 people since the ceasefire deal was announced, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight as people were celebrating the ceasefire deal. In previous conflicts, both sides have stepped up military operations in the final hours before ceasefires go into effect as a way to project strength.
Under the deal expected to begin Sunday, 33 hostages are set to be released over the next six weeks, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The remainder, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase that will be negotiated during the first. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 46,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were militants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.


Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached

Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached
Updated 17 January 2025
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Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached

Netanyahu says deal to return hostages from Gaza reached
  • Security Cabinet to meet on Friday, says Israeli prime minister

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that a deal to return hostages held in the Gaza Strip has been reached. The announcement early came a day after Netanyahu’s office said there were last minute snags in talks to free hostages in return for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Netanyahu said he will convene his security Cabinet on Friday and then the government to approve the ceasefire agreement.
On Thursday, Netanyahu's office said the Cabinet won’t meet to approve the agreement for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of dozens of hostages until Hamas backs down, accusing the group of reneging on parts of the agreement in an attempt to gain further concessions.
Meanwhile, Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed at least 72 people since the ceasefire deal was announced, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Palestinians in Gaza reported heavy Israeli bombardment overnight as people were celebrating the ceasefire deal. In previous conflicts, both sides have stepped up military operations in the final hours before ceasefires go into effect as a way to project strength.
Under the deal expected to begin Sunday, 33 hostages are set to be released over the next six weeks, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. The remainder, including male soldiers, are to be released in a second phase that will be negotiated during the first. Hamas has said it will not release the remaining captives without a lasting ceasefire and a full Israeli withdrawal.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 46,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Health Ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were militants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.


Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’

Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’
Updated 17 January 2025
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Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’

Sudan government denounces US sanctions as ‘immoral’
  • Washington had slapped sanctions on Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using food deprivation as a weapon of war
  • US earlier imposed sanctions on Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, accusing his group of committing genocide

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army-aligned foreign ministry rejected as “immoral” US sanctions declared on Thursday against army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, saying that they “lack the most basic foundations of justice and transparency.”
In a statement, it said the sanctions “express only confusion and a weak sense of justice,” after 21 months of war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, in which the foreign ministry said Burhan was “defending the Sudanese people against a genocidal plot.”
On Thursday, the US treasury department announced sanctions against Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals and using food deprivation as a weapon of war.
It came a week after the US slapped sanctions on RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, accusing his group of committing genocide.
Sudan’s foreign ministry on Thursday said the US’s “flawed decision cannot be justified by claiming neutrality,” saying it amounts to “support of those committing genocide.”

12 million people uprooted

Since April 2023, the war between the army and the RSF has killed tens of thousands, uprooted more than 12 million people and pushed hundreds of thousands into famine.
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.

“Taken together, these sanctions underscore the US view that neither man is fit to govern a future, peaceful Sudan,” outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement in which he voiced regret at his failure to end the brutal war.
The United States previously had steered clear of sanctions on the two leaders so as to preserve diplomacy with them.
But Blinken, who leaves office on Monday, said the army had repeatedly failed to join peace initiatives, although he hoped President-elect Donald Trump would keeping trying on Sudan.
“It is for me, yes, another real regret that when it comes to Sudan, we haven’t been able on our watch to get to that day of success,” Blinken said at a farewell news conference.
There have been “some improvements in getting humanitarian assistance in through our diplomacy, but not an end to the conflict, not an end to the abuses, not an end to the suffering of people,” he said.
The war erupted over a failure to integrate the army and the RSF, with joint US and Saudi diplomacy succeeding only in limited humanitarian agreements including on the entry of aid.
More than 24.6 million people — around half of Sudan’s population — face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to a recent review by the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Genocide in Darfur

The United States last week said that the RSF has committed genocide in Darfur through systematic killings and rapes of the ethnically African people there.
The atrocities are an echo of the scorched-earth campaign by the RSF’s militia predecessor, the Janjaweed, also accused of genocide two decades ago in Darfur.
The US special envoy on Sudan, Tom Perriello, pointed to actions taken last time in Darfur — “naming and shaming” of perpetrators, a “tremendous global activism” and the prospect of African Union intervention.
“Most of those tools are either off the table completely or seriously diluted right now,” Perriello said at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Perriello, a former Democratic congressman who also leaves office Monday, said the United States was also no longer the same “major bank for the world” that can spell dire economic consequences through sanctions.
US options are “much weaker in a world where people can go to other countries and get billion-dollar checks without having any conversations about human rights and democracy,” he said.
Perriello also voiced shock that regional power South Africa welcomed RSF leader Dagalo on a visit and that there was not “much of an outcry from South African civil society.”
But he said African powers increasingly focused on domestic issues and “want to be seen as economic powerhouses of the future, not necessarily the moral police.”
The Sudan conflict has brought in a series of foreign players, with the United Arab Emirates facing repeated charges of arming the RSF.
Perriello saluted the role of Egypt, saying he was surprised to work so closely but that Cairo exerted pressure on the Sudanese army in the interest of decreasing refugee flows.
 


US says Gaza ceasefire to start as planned despite ‘loose end’

US says Gaza ceasefire to start as planned despite ‘loose end’
Updated 17 January 2025
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US says Gaza ceasefire to start as planned despite ‘loose end’

US says Gaza ceasefire to start as planned despite ‘loose end’
  • A US official earlier said the sole remaining dispute was over the identities of some prisoners Hamas wanted released
  • Media say Netanyahu’s cabinet to vote on deal on Friday or Saturday

DOHA/CAIRO/JERUSALEM: The Gaza Strip ceasefire should begin on Sunday as planned, despite the need for negotiators to tie up a “loose end” at the last minute, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.
With longstanding divisions apparent among ministers, Israel delayed cabinet meetings to ratify the ceasefire with Hamas, and media reports said voting could occur Friday or even Saturday, although the deal is expected to be approved.
Israel blamed the militant group for the hold-up, even as Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza in some of the most intense strikes for months. Palestinian authorities said at least 86 people were killed in the day since the truce was unveiled.
Hamas senior official Izzat el-Reshiq said the group remained committed to the ceasefire deal, which is scheduled to take effect from Sunday to halt 15 months of bloodshed
“It’s not exactly surprising that in a process and negotiation that has been this challenging and this fraught, you may get a loose end,” Blinken told a press conference in Washington. “We’re tying up that loose end as we speak.”
A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the parties were making good progress in ironing out the last-minute obstacles. “I think we’re going to be okay,” the official told Reuters.
Earlier the official said the sole remaining dispute was over the identities of some prisoners Hamas wanted released. Envoys of President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump were in Doha with Egyptian and Qatari mediators working to resolve it, the official said.
Inside Gaza, joy over the truce gave way to sorrow and anger at the intensified bombardment that followed the announcement.
Tamer Abu Shaaban’s voice cracked as he stood over the tiny body of his young neice wrapped in a white shroud on the tile floor of a Gaza City morgue. She had been hit in the back with shrapnel from a missile as she played in the yard of a school where the family was sheltering, he said.
“Is this the truce they are talking about? What did this young girl, this child, do to deserve this? What did she do to deserve this? Is she fighting you, Israel?” he asked.

The ceasefire accord emerged on Wednesday after mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the US to stop the war that began with deadly Hamas attacks on Israel and saw Israeli forces kill tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastate Gaza.
The deal outlines a six-week initial ceasefire with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces. Dozens of hostages taken by Hamas would be freed in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel.
It paves the way for a surge in humanitarian aid for Gaza, where the majority of the population has been displaced, facing hunger, sickness and cold. Rows of aid trucks were lined up in the Egyptian border town of El-Arish waiting to cross into Gaza, once the border is reopened.
Peace could also have wider benefits across the Middle East, including ending disruption to global trade from Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement which has attacked ships in the Red Sea. The movement’s leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi said his group would monitor the ceasefire and continue attacks if it is breached.

Meeting revealed
Israel’s acceptance of the deal will not be official until it is approved by the security cabinet and government. A vote had been expected on Thursday, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delayed the meeting, accusing Hamas of making last-minute demands.
“The Israeli cabinet will not convene until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all elements of the agreement,” Netanyahu’s office said.
Israeli media outlets reported the cabinet was expected to vote on Friday or Saturday, but the prime minister’s office declined to comment on the timing.
Hard-liners in Netanyahu’s government were still hoping to stop the deal, though a majority of ministers were expected to back it and ensure its approval.
Hard-line National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Thursday he would resign from the government if it ratifies the Gaza deal.
But opposition leader Yair Lapid told the prime minister in a post on X that he would “get every safety net you need to make the hostage deal,” suggesting opposition lawmakers would support the government to ensure the return of hostages.
In Jerusalem, some Israelis marched through the streets carrying mock coffins in protest at the ceasefire, blocking roads and scuffling with police. Other protesters blocked traffic until security forces dispersed them.
The agreement leaves the fate of most of the remaining 98 Israeli hostages still in Gaza unresolved for now. The list of 33 due to go free in the first phase includes women, children, elderly, sick and wounded.
Palestinians said they were desperate for the bombing to stop as soon as possible.
“We lose homes every hour. We demand for this joy not to go away, the joy that was drawn on our faces — don’t waste it by delaying the implementation of the truce until Sunday,” said Mahmoud Abu Wardeh.
Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas-led gunmen burst into Israeli border-area communities on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 soldiers and civilians and abducting over 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
If successful, the ceasefire would halt fighting that has razed much of heavily urbanized Gaza, killed over 46,000 people, and displaced most of the tiny enclave’s pre-war population of 2.3 million, according to Gaza authorities.


Libya oil chief Farhat Bengdara quits for ‘urgent’ health reasons

Libya oil chief Farhat Bengdara quits for ‘urgent’ health reasons
Updated 17 January 2025
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Libya oil chief Farhat Bengdara quits for ‘urgent’ health reasons

Libya oil chief Farhat Bengdara quits for ‘urgent’ health reasons
  • Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah had accepted Farhat Bengdara’s resignation
  • Libya has Africa’s most abundant hydrocarbon reserves but is struggling to recover from years of conflict since 2011

TRIPOLI: The chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation, Farhat Bengdara, has resigned for “urgent” health reasons, the NOC said in a statement on Thursday.
It said Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah had accepted Bengdara’s resignation, “which he submitted due to urgent health circumstances that prevented him from optimally performing his duties and responsibilities.”
The statement said NOC board member Masoud Suleman had been appointed acting chairman.
Libya has Africa’s most abundant hydrocarbon reserves but is struggling to recover from years of conflict after the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that overthrew longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
There have been frequent blockades of oil installations, often because of social demands or political disputes.
After a complaint filed by an employee facing dismissal, a Libyan court in November ruled that Bengdara’s position as NOC chairman was invalid because he was also a citizen of the United Arab Emirates.
Under Libyan law, senior positions in public office are open to those with Libyan nationality only.
Bengdara, a former central bank chief under Qaddafi, also worked in banking in the UAE and became head of the NOC in 2022.
Oil production in Libya had hovered for a decade at around 1.2 million barrels per day, but rose to 1.4 million barrels per day in early December.
Pre-uprising output was between 1.5 million and 1.6 million barrels per day.