‘Houthis killed nearly 10K civilians, including 903 children’

November 23, 2016

Jeddah, Nov 23: Yemen’s Houthi rebels and supporters of deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh were responsible for the killings of 9,646 civilians — 8,146 men, 597 women and 903 children — from Jan. 1, 2015 to Sept. 30, 2016 in 16 Yemeni provinces.

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This has been revealed by the Yemeni alliance that monitors human rights violations in Yemen (Yemeni Observer) in a new report.

The alliance reported that a total of 9,646 civilians were killed — 8,146 men, 597 women and 903 children — in 17 Yemeni provinces. It said 24,320 civilians sustained injuries — 18,521 men, 3,092 women and 2,707 children.

The total of number of people detained was 12,780, mostly young activists, politicians and media persons, in addition to a number of laborers and children.

The number of violations against public property was 3,811 — committed against educational and health facilities and services, in addition to archaeological sites and places of worship.

Attacks on private properties — headquarters, apartment complexes, factories, farms, shops, and transportation means — numbered 25,934.

The alliance reported the killings of 298 civilians, including 22 children and 53 women, during the third quarter of this year, with the death toll of civilians in the first and second quarters of this year reaching 1,146 civilians, including 373 children and 68 women.

The number of injured civilians in the third quarter of this year was 394, among them 42 children and 98 women, while the number of civilian casualties during the first and second quarters was 4,044, including 369 civilians and 1,067 women.

The Yemeni alliance reported the arrest of 942 people by the Houthis during the third quarter of this year, against 3,380 people arrested during the first and second quarters of the year.

The number of attacks on properties in the third quarter of this year amounted to 82, while 346 attacks targeted private properties.

A total of 949 attacks were carried out against public properties and 2,673 targeted private properties during the first and second quarters of this year.

The death toll of civilians in 2015 was 8,202, including 508 children and 476 women.
The number of wounded stood at 19,882, including 2296 children and 1927 women, while 8,458 arrests were made.

The repeated violations affirm the Houthi-Saleh disregard for international and humanitarian laws.

Shami Al-Daheri, a military analyst and strategic expert, said the Houthis are led by Iran, and follow its orders.

“They are moving in Yemen, Iraq and Syria following Tehran’s orders. If the country sees there is pressure on its supporters in Iraq, it issues orders to the Houthis in Yemen to carry out more criminal acts, in order to divert attention and ease the pressure on its proxies in these countries.”

Meanwhile, renewed clashes between Yemeni government forces and rebels killed more than 40 people Tuesday, military officials said, a day after a fragile 48-hour cease-fire expired without halting the violence.

Forces loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi repelled an attack by Shiite Houthis and their allies on the western outskirts of Taiz city, the officials said.

The attack that began late Monday targeted the Al-Dhabab area, which provides pro-Hadi forces with their only access to the flashpoint city of 300,000 people that is surrounded by insurgents.

Warplanes from the Saudi-led Arab coalition took part in operations to repel the attack, officials said.

In northwest Yemen, fighting around the coastal town of Midi cost the lives of 18 rebels and four soldiers, a loyalist commander on the ground, Abdel Ghani Chebli, told AFP.

Rebel sniper fire on Monday night killed three soldiers as the Houthis tried to advance on Midi’s harbor, which is controlled by pro-Hadi forces.

In the southern city of Aden, an airport security officer, Col. Abdel Rahim Samahi, was gunned down outside his home in an attack, a security official said Tuesday.

The Daesh group said it killed Samahi, the Site Intelligence Group reported.

Separately, civilians in Taiz are trapped by intense fighting, with dead bodies lying in the streets and 200 people wounded in the past three days, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday.

Houthi fighters and government forces backed by a Saudi-led military coalition are battling for control of Taiz, the country’s third largest city with an estimated pre-war population of 300,000.

“Sniper fire and indiscriminate shelling has trapped civilians. Dead bodies are in the streets and people are unable to attend to their most basic needs. The situation is desperate,” Alexandre Faite, head of the ICRC in Yemen, said in a statement.

Some 200 people have been wounded over the past 72 hours, the aid agency said.
“Many patients are suffering from blast injuries. Many have had to have limbs amputated,” it said.

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News Network
November 24,2025

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Israel has launched a new act of aggression on a residential neighborhood in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, killing and injuring about two dozen civilians.

The Israeli regime's military said in a statement that its forces carried out a so-called precise strike in a residential apartment in Dahiyeh in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday.

The aggression targeted residential areas, killing at least five people and injuring more than 28 people, Lebanon's Health Ministry said. 

Hezbollah announced the martyrdom of senior Hezbollah commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai and four resistance fighters.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun condemned the airstrike, calling it a clear demonstration of Tel Aviv’s disregard for repeated international calls to halt violations on Lebanese soil.

“Israel refuses to implement international resolutions and all efforts aimed at ending the escalation and restoring stability,” Aoun said, urging the international community to take action to prevent further aggression.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement also condemned the attack, holding the international community accountable. 

“The international community bears responsibility and continues to provide cover for these attacks as long as it does not restrain the occupiers,” said Ali Abu Shahin, a member of the group’s political bureau.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that the Israeli army carried out a strike “in the heart of Beirut."

Netanyahu reportedly approved the operation following recommendations from top Israeli security officials.

Two senior US officials commented on the Israeli strike.

The first official said that Israel did not notify Americans in advance about the attack. "We were informed immediately after the strike was carried out."

The second senior official said that the "US knew for several days that Israel was planning to escalate its strikes in Lebanon, but did not know in advance the timing, location, or target of the strike."

Speaking from the site of the Israeli strike, Lebanese MP Ali Ammar condemned the attack as part of a broader campaign of aggression that has targeted "all of Lebanon since the Washington-sponsored ceasefire."

He stated that "any attack on Lebanon is a violation of red lines; this aggression is part and parcel of the entity that targets Lebanon's dignity, sovereignty, and security of citizens."

Ammar went on to say the resistance is responding with "utmost wisdom, patience, and will confront the enemy at the appropriate time."

"Unfortunately, the enemy is emboldened to commit its aggression by voices within Lebanon that have turned themselves into tools that support its aggression," he added.

The Israeli attack on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital is the latest blatant violation of the ceasefire Israel signed with Hezbollah in November 2024, which was intended to end hostilities that had escalated into full-scale war.

An Israeli strike on the Ain al-Hilweh camp near Sidon in southern Lebanon late Tuesday killed at least 14 people. It wounded several others, including young students, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The military claimed the attack targeted “a Hamas training compound” used to plan and carry out attacks against the regime -- a claim that has frequently been made without evidence.

Hamas rejected the allegations as “a blatant lie aimed at justifying the massacre,” stating it had “no military installations in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon” and that the targeted site was merely “an open sports field.”

According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 4,000 people and displaced more than 1.2 million residents across the country since October 2023.

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News Network
November 24,2025

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Israeli forces have pushed over the Syrian frontier, erecting a checkpoint and stopping vehicles in the southwestern city of Quneitra, in yet another breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

The violation took place on Sunday, when the troops made their way across the border, setting up the outpost near the Ain al-Bayda junction in northern Quneitra, Syrian outlets reported.

According to the al-Ikhbariya paper, an Israeli detachment positioned itself at the junction, halting cars and conducting searches.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that three Israeli military vehicles then moved further into the northern countryside, deploying between the town of Jubata al-Khashab and the villages of Ofaniya and Ain al-Bayda. The agency added that a separate Israeli unit mounted a new incursion in the central region, approaching the villages of Umm Batina and al-Ajraf.

Residents said such activities have surged in recent months, pointing to Israeli advances onto farmland, leveling of extensive forested areas, arrests, and spread of mobile checkpoints.

The Israeli regime began markedly increasing its military aggression against Syria last year.

The escalation coincided with increasingly ferocious onslaughts throughout the country by the so-called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Takfiri terrorist group, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad had confined to northwestern Syria. The HTS, however, managed to overthrow the government as the Israeli attacks would pummel the country’s civilian and defensive infrastructure.

Various reports have shown that, during the escalation, the regime conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes on the Syrian territory and over 400 ground raids into the south.

Following the collapse of the Assad government, Tel Aviv also widened its grip over the occupied Golan Heights by taking control of a demilitarized buffer zone, in defiance of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Earlier this month, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the buffer zone, prompting expressions of alarm on the part of the United Nations.

The United States, the regime’s biggest ally, has, meanwhile, been fraternizing the HTS head Abu Mohammed al-Jolani amid the widely reported prospect of rapprochement with Tel Aviv.

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News Network
November 28,2025

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Several Syrians were killed and more than two dozen others injured in Israeli strikes on the outskirts of Damascus, amid intensified incursions by the occupying regime since the fall of former president Bashar al-Assad and the rise of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rule.

Syrian state TV reported that the casualties occurred during an overnight Israeli assault involving helicopters and drones on the town of Beit Jinn in the Damascus countryside. The attack followed an Israeli military unit’s entry into the town, where they were surrounded by local residents, leading to gunfire and direct confrontations.

According to the report, “The occupation army’s helicopters and artillery shelled Beit Jinn, located at the foothills of Mount Hermon, resulting in 13 martyrs and 25 injured civilians.” The broadcaster did not specify the full extent of damage.

Al-Ikhbariyah Syria confirmed that the shelling coincided with Israeli soldiers entering Beit Jinn, while artillery pounded surrounding areas. The broadcaster stated that the escalation began after local residents clashed with an Israeli patrol that had infiltrated the southern town and “kidnapped” three young men.

Following a two-hour exchange of heavy fire, Israeli forces withdrew and repositioned on the hill of Butt al-Warda at the town’s outskirts.

Israeli media acknowledged that six soldiers were wounded in the clashes—three of them seriously—describing the confrontation as a “sudden ambush” that forced the deployment of reserve units and air support to secure an exit route. No further details were provided.

The aggression has fueled renewed displacement from Beit Jinn, with residents fleeing to nearby villages amid increasingly frequent Israeli attacks.

The raid came just a day after Israeli troops carried out another ground incursion into Umm al-Luqas village in Quneitra province. According to SANA, an Israeli unit in four vehicles entered the village, raided several homes, and later withdrew.

Syria condemned the repeated incursions as violations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreement and UN resolutions, urging the international community to enforce compliance and pressure Israel to halt its operations and withdraw fully.

Israel has expanded its attacks across Syrian territory following the collapse of the Assad government last year. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly instructed his forces to push deeper into Syrian territory and seize strategic positions.

Meanwhile, critics say the HTS-led interim government’s inaction and growing normalization gestures toward Israel have emboldened Tel Aviv to intensify its military operations. HTS, formerly linked to al-Qaeda, seized control of Damascus last December, formally ending Assad’s rule.

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