Saudis 'intercept' Houthi missile near Yemen border

Agencies

January 5, 2018

Saudi Arabia says it has intercepted a ballistic missile fired towards the country by Yemen's Houthi rebels.

The Saudi statement came just hours after the Yemeni group claimed to have launched the attack.

State-owned TV channel Al Ekhbariya reported on Friday that Saudi defence forces intercepted the missile over Najran, a region straddling the kingdom's southern border with Yemen, before it could hit its intended target.

Al Masirah, a TV network run by the Houthi rebels, said the group claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter, saying it had a "successful launch of a short range ballistic missile at a military target in Saudi Arabia".

It said the the rebels fired a Qaher-2M missile of Soviet origin towards a military installation in Najran. The missile has a range of up to 400km.

Saudi retaliation

Al Masirah also said that within hours of the missile attack, the Saudi coalition bombing Yemen retaliated with several air raids on Saada, an impoverished Houthi stronghold.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the network's claims.

Saudi Arabia, supported by the US and other countries, have launched more than 15,000 air attacks against Houthi targets since March 2015, while dozens of missiles have been fired into the kingdom from Yemen.

Last month, the Houthis said that one of their missiles hit a military target inside Saudi Arabia, without specifying the location.

Saudi officials, however, said they intercepted the missile.

The Saudi-led coalition has previously accused Iran of helping arm the Houthis, accusing Iran of "flagrant military aggression" and "manufacturing and smuggling [missiles] to the Houthi militias in Yemen for the purpose of attacking the Kingdom, its people, and vital interests".

Iran has repeatedly rejected allegations of arming the Houthis, calling them "malicious, irresponsible, destructive and provocative".

The war in Yemen, the region's poorest country, started in 2014 after Houthi rebels seized control of the capital Sanaa and began pushing south towards the country's third-biggest city, Aden.

Concerned by the rise of the Houthi rebels, believed to be backed by Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran, the kingdom and a coalition of Sunni Arab states launched an intervention in 2015 in the form of a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's government.

Since then, more than 10,000 people have been killed and at least 40,000 wounded, mostly from Saudi-led air attacks.

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UN condemns Israeli regime’s ‘organized torture’ against Palestinians

News Network

November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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