Israeli military says it will strike Yemeni ports, issues evacuation warning
In a statement, the military's Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee identified those places as the ports of Hodeidah, Ras Isa and Salif, as well as the Hodeidah power station.
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Arab News
10 hours ago
- Arab News
Israeli soldier describes alleged arbitrary killings of civilians in Gaza
LONDON: An Israeli army reservist has claimed that civilians in Gaza were frequently shot without warning or threat during his service, describing what he called shifting and often arbitrary rules of engagement that, at times, led to the killing of unarmed people. In a rare on-camera interview with Sky News, the soldier, who served three tours of duty in Gaza with the Israeli military, said troops were often instructed to shoot anyone entering areas considered to be off limits, regardless of whether they posed a threat or not. 'We have a territory that we are in, and the commands are: everyone that comes inside needs to die,' he told Sky News. 'If they're inside, they're dangerous, you need to kill them. No matter who it is.' 'Some Israeli commanders can decide to do war crimes.' An IDF soldier, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said his conscience won't let him stay silent about arbitrary killing of civilians in — Sky News (@SkyNews) July 7, 2025 Speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, the reservist from the Israeli military's 252nd Division said he was twice stationed at the Netzarim corridor, a narrow military-controlled strip carved through central Gaza early in the war to divide the territory and tighten Israeli control. He described how his unit marked invisible boundaries near civilian areas, sometimes while occupying homes belonging to displaced Palestinians. Local residents, he said, were expected to understand these lines without explanation or risk being shot. 'There's an imaginary line that they tell us all the Gazan people know. But how can they know?' he said. 'It might be like a teenager riding his bicycle.' The soldier said the decision to open fire on civilians frequently depended on the 'mood of the commander,' with criteria for engagement varying from day to day, adding: 'They might be shot, they might be captured, it really depends on the day.' He recalled one incident in which a man was shot for crossing the boundary, followed by another who was detained for approaching the body, only for the rules to change again hours later, with orders to shoot anyone crossing the line. The soldier alleged that commanders were able to set their own rules of engagement, sometimes with deadly consequences. 'Every commander can choose for himself what he does. So it's kind of like the Wild West,' he said. 'Some commanders can really decide to do war crimes and bad things and don't face the consequences of that.' He also described a pervasive culture among troops that viewed all Gazans as legitimate targets in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel and led to more than 250 taken hostage. 'They'd say: 'Yeah, but these people didn't do anything to prevent October 7, and they probably had fun when this was happening to us. So they deserve to die',' he said. 'People don't feel mercy for them. I think the core of it, that in their mind, these people aren't innocent,' he added. In Israel, where military service is a social rite of passage and the military is widely seen as a unifying national institution, public criticism of the armed forces is rare. The soldier told Sky News he feared being branded a traitor but felt compelled to speak out. 'I kind of feel like I took part in something bad, and I need to counter it with something good that I do, by speaking out,' he said. 'I am very troubled about what I took and still am taking part of, as a soldier and citizen in this country.' He added: 'I think a lot of people, if they knew exactly what's happening, it wouldn't go down very well for them, and they wouldn't agree with it.' When asked about the allegations, the Israeli military told Sky News that it 'operates in strict accordance with its rules of engagement and international law, taking feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.' According to the statement: 'The IDF operates against military targets and objectives, and does not target civilians or civilian objects.' The military said complaints or reports of alleged violations are 'transferred to the relevant authorities responsible for examining exceptional incidents that occurred during the war.' It also highlighted steps it says it takes to minimise civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation notices and regular updates about combat zones.
Arab News
11 hours ago
- Arab News
On the radio and online, Palestinians keep up with Israel's West Bank roadblocks
RAWABI: Radio presenter Hiba Eriqat broadcasts an unusual kind of traffic reports to her Palestinian listeners grappling with ever-increasing Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks across the occupied West Bank. 'Deir Sharaf: traffic, Qalandia: open, Container: closed,' Eriqat reads out from drivers' live reports, enumerating checkpoints to let listeners know which of the West Bank's hundreds of checkpoints and gates are open, busy with traffic, or closed by the Israeli military. 'My mission is to help Palestinian citizens get home safely,' she told AFP in the radio studio in the city of Rawabi between her thrice-hourly broadcasts. 'Covering traffic in the West Bank is completely different from covering traffic anywhere else in the world.' The West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has long been dotted with checkpoints, but obstacles to Palestinians' movement in the territory have proliferated since the 2023 start of the war in Gaza — a separate territory. In the West Bank, a territory roughly the size of the US state of Delaware, there are hundreds of new checkpoints and gates, but Israeli authorities do not provide updates about their status. 'The army might suddenly close a checkpoint, and the traffic jam would last an hour. Or they might just show up and then withdraw seconds later, and the checkpoint is cleared,' Eriqat said. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in early 2025 there were 849 obstacles restricting the movement of Palestinians in the West Bank, including checkpoints, road gates, earth walls, trenches and roadblocks. Updates on WhatsApp groups To navigate, Palestinians often rely on minute-by-minute updates from drivers on WhatsApp and Telegram groups, some of which were created by Basma Radio to feed Eriqat's broadcasts. 'We turned to taxi drivers, truck drivers, private companies and even ordinary people,' said Eriqat, to create the West Bank's only traffic report of its kind. The updates were launched in October 2023 — the same month the Gaza war broke out — and are now broadcast by other Palestinian radio stations too. A Telegram group run by Basma Radio now has some 16,000 members. Fatima Barqawi, who runs news programs at the station, said the team had created 'contact networks with people on the roads,' also receiving regular updates from Palestinians who live near checkpoints and can see the traffic from their window. Beyond the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities, the traffic reports sometimes feature warnings about roads blocked by Israeli settlers, whose attacks against Palestinians have also risen throughout the war. It is a constantly shifting roadscape, Eriqat said, complicating even what otherwise should have been a quick drive to work, home or to see family and friends. 'You might tell people the checkpoint is open now, but three minutes later, it's jammed again. And it's not a regular jam — it could last six or seven hours,' she said. Safe journey 'not guaranteed' Maen, a 28-year-old video editor, used to tune in to Basma Radio to plan his weekly commute from Ramallah to his hometown of Bethlehem, but now prefers checking what other drivers have to say. 'I often call a friend who has Telegram while I'm on the road' and ask for updates from checkpoints, said Mazen, who asked to use his first name only for security reasons. He has deleted Telegram from his own phone after hearing about Palestinians getting into trouble with soldiers at checkpoints over the use of the messaging app. But in a sign of its popularity, one group in which drivers share their updates has 320,000 members — more than one-tenth of the West Bank's population. Rami, an NGO worker living in Ramallah who also declined to give his full name, said he listened to the radio traffic reports but mainly relied on Telegram groups. Yet a safe journey is far from guaranteed. Rami told AFP he recently had to stop on the way to his hometown of Nablus. 'I pulled over, checked the news and saw that 100 settlers had gathered at a settlement's road junction and started throwing stones at Palestinian cars,' recognizable by their green license plates, he said. And passing through a military checkpoint often 'depends on the soldier's mood,' said Eriqat. 'That's the difficult part.'
Al Arabiya
a day ago
- Al Arabiya
Israel says it carried wave of strikes on Houthi areas in Yemen
Israel said early Monday that it carried out a wave of strikes on the Yemeni port city of Hodeida and other areas held by the Houthi militia. Two missiles were launched from Yemen towards Israel just hours later, the Israeli army said on Telegram, as it worked to intercept them. Israel 'struck and destroyed terror infrastructure belonging to the Houthi terrorist regime. Among the targets were the ports of Hodeida, Ras Isa, and Salif,' its army said in a statement. It said the strikes were 'in response to the repeated attacks by the Houthi terrorist regime against the State of Israel'. The Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah television station had on Sunday reported that the 'Israeli enemy is targeting the port of Hodeida,' also reporting strikes on the ports of Ras Isa and Salif and the Ras Al-Kathib power station. The attacks came around half an hour after an Israeli army spokesman warned of strikes at the sites on social media. Israel has carried out several strikes in Yemen including on ports and the airport in the capital Sanaa in response to repeated attacks by the Iran-backed group. Among the targets Israel claims to have struck was the Galaxy Leader cargo ship, which the Houthis captured in November 2023 and which the Israelis say has been outfitted with a radar system to track shipping in the Red Sea. Yemen's Houthis have been launching missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023. The Houthis, who say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians, renewed their assault in March after Israel resumed its military campaign in Gaza at the end of a two-month ceasefire in the Palestinian territory. They have also attacked shipping vessels they deem to be linked to Israel in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November 2023. They broadened their campaign to target ships tied to the United States and Britain after the two countries began military strikes aimed at securing the waterway in January 2024. In May, the Houthis cemented a ceasefire with the United States that ended weeks of intense US strikes against it, but vowed to continue targeting Israeli ships.
