Saudis, UAE, Yemen ask UN to pressure Houthis

Arab News

February 2, 2019

Jeddah, Feb 2: Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen on Thursday asked the UN Security Council to increase pressure on Houthi militias to respect a cease-fire deal. In a letter, the three governments accused the militias of violating the agreement in the port city of Hodeidah 970 times since it came into force on Dec. 18, 2018.

They asked the council to “impress upon the Houthis, and their Iranian backers, that they will be held responsible if their continued failure to comply... leads to the collapse of the Stockholm agreement.”

Yemen’s coalition-backed government and Houthi leaders agreed to the cease-fire and a redeployment of forces from Hodeidah during UN-brokered talks in Sweden last month.

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres separately on Thursday to discuss problems in implementing the Stockholm deal.

“We understand that we need to exercise patience, but it can’t be infinite,” Gargash said. “We do not want to launch an offensive. What we want is for the UN and the international community to exert influence.”

The council also met behind closed doors to hear a report from UN envoy Martin Griffiths, after a fresh round of diplomatic talks with both sides.

A Yemeni army spokesman, Brig. Abdo Majali, said that the militias had violated the cease-fire in Hodeidah more than 760 times in the two weeks after it went into effect alone, including bombing residential neighborhoods, hospitals and schools.

He also accused Iran of complicity, saying it supported the militias by providing them with illegal munitions and land mines, later planted in populated areas.

Extensive air raid

Houthi commander Abdullah Jahaf, meanwhile, was killed in a coalition airstrike in the northwestern province of Hajjah, Al Arabiya reported on Friday.

The coalition also attacked a site east of the capital Sanaa on Thursday, which the Houthis had used to store drones, coalition spokesman Col. Turki Al-Maliki said.

The operation came after extensive intelligence gathering revealed a network of Houthi operational infrastructure, he explained, including workshops and launch sites, and came in the wake of a drone being shot down in Saudi airspace on Wednesday.

Military operation

The Yemeni army, with support from the Arab coalition, launched a new operation on Thursday to retake strategic sites taken by Houthi militias in Kataf in Saada province.

In a statement to the Yemeni News Agency, a Yemeni army spokesman said that troops from the 82nd Infantry Brigade had retaken the strategic Jabal Al-Qahar mountains, as well as the villages of Rafqua, Al-Halfa’, Al-Akimi, and Al-Markib, that had previously witnessed large scale displacement of local residents.

He added that a number of Houthi militants, including two senior commanders, had been killed, while three more had been captured.

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Syrian Town erupts after Israeli forces enter Beit Jinn; heavy casualties reported

News Network

November 28,2025

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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