«They will not go unanswered or unpunished» the raids by the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom launched during the night between Thursday and Friday on a dozen Houthi bases in Yemen. This is the promise of the military spokesman of the country's rebels, General Yahya Saree, after the string of air strikes, 73, launched on military targets such as logistics hubs, airfields and weapons depots. At least 5 people were killed and 6 injured. “The aggression will not dissuade us from our position of support for the Palestinian people,” said another spokesperson, Muhammad Abdul Salam, assuring: “We will continue to target ships headed towards Israel until the aggression against Gaza ends.” . From now on, he informs the Houthi Supreme Political Council, all US and British interests will be “legitimate objectives”.
Hamas was among the first to condemn the Anglo-American attacks, threatening that “the aggression will have consequences”. Moscow followed suit, defining the raids as “illegitimate” as well as “extremely wrong”. After Iran, Turkish President Erdogan was also critical, accusing London and Washington of a “disproportionate use of force”. Tens of thousands of protesters poured into one of the largest squares in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, to express their anger, while the internationally recognized government pointed the finger at the Houthis: «They are responsible for dragging the Country in the arena of a military conflict.”
The United Kingdom rejected the accusations in a note in which the government defined the operation as “legal, necessary and proportionate” to deter Houthi actions against ships in the Red Sea, which, according to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, did not they could continue “with impunity, putting innocent lives at risk, destroying the global economy and destabilizing the region.”
The West is united in supporting action in Yemen: from Paris to Oslo, up to Berlin. Italy also said that it had been informed of the attack by the United States “several hours in advance” but that it did not take part in it. «It is right to defend freedom of navigation», said Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, «but we cannot take part in war actions, even if they are actions to protect international maritime traffic, without authorization from parliament. The constitution does not allow it.”
Meanwhile, the European Union has moved and announced the start of the process to establish a naval mission in the Red Sea, in which Spain has already announced that it does not want to participate, despite respecting the decisions of other countries and constantly working to peace. The fear is that of an escalation in the Red Sea which the United States, according to local media, attempted to avoid by warning the Houthis before carrying out air strikes on their sites.
But a new incident has been reported in waters 166 km southeast of the port city of Aden, Yemen, where a missile was fired at a ship, missing it and sinking about 400 meters away.
At the International Court of Justice, meanwhile, Israel defended itself from the charge of genocide in the proceedings brought by South Africa. “If there were acts of genocide, they were perpetrated against Israel,” one of the lawyers said, recalling the acts of “massacre, mutilation, rape and kidnapping on a large scale” carried out by Hamas on October 7. South Africa presented «a profoundly distorted factual and legal framework. The entire case is based on a deliberately decontextualized and manipulative description of the reality of the current hostilities”, added the lawyer, while the Israeli Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, stated that Pretoria “has not presented any evidence against Israel but only indications of a moral war without equal.”
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