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Huthi media in Yemen reported Wednesday at least 17 strikes in Saada and Amran, blaming the United States for the attacks.The rebels’ Ansarollah website said US warplanes carried out “aggressive air raids… causing material damage to citizens’ property”, but gave no details of casualties.Washington on March 15 announced a military offensive against the Iranian-backed Huthis, promising to use overwhelming force until the group stopped firing on vessels in the key shipping routes of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.That day saw a wave of US air strikes that officials said killed senior Huthi leaders, and which the rebels’ health ministry said killed 53 people.Since then, Huthi-held parts of Yemen have witnessed near-daily attacks that the group has blamed on the United States, with the rebels announcing the targeting of US military ships and Israel.The Huthis began targeting shipping vessels after the start of the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with Palestinians, but paused their campaign when a ceasefire took effect in Gaza in January.Earlier this month, they threatened to renew attacks in the vital maritime trade route over Israel’s aid blockade on the Palestinian territory, triggering the first US strikes on Yemen since President Donald Trump took office in January.Last week, Trump threatened to annihilate the Huthis and warned Tehran against continuing to aid the group.

Syria slammed Israeli attacks as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty after a deadly bombardment Tuesday in the country’s south, where Israel’s military said it had responded to incoming fire.The violence near the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights followed Israeli air strikes in central Syria, the latest in a string of attacks on military sites since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime president Bashar al-Assad.The Syrian foreign ministry in a statement condemned “the continued Israeli aggression on Syrian territory, which saw a dangerous escalation in the village of Kuwayya” in the southern Daraa province.It said “heavy artillery and air bombardment targeted residential and farming areas, leading to the death of six civilians”, raising an earlier toll provided by local authorities. “This escalation comes in the context of a series of violations that started with Israeli forces’ penetrating into Quneitra and Daraa provinces, in an ongoing aggression on Syrian territory, in flagrant violation of national sovereignty and international law,” the ministry said.Earlier Tuesday, the Israeli military said that its troops “identified several terrorists who opened fire toward them in southern Syria”, without providing a specific location.”The troops returned fire in response and the IAF (air force) struck the terrorists,” it added in a statement.Daraa governor Anwar al-Zoabi said in a statement that “Israeli occupation army violations and repeated attacks on Syrian territory pushed a group of residents to clash with a military force that tried to penetrate” Kuwayya, northwest of Daraa city.The situation “led to an escalation” by Israeli forces “with artillery shelling and drone bombardment”, said the statement posted on Telegram.Provincial authorities said some 350 families had fled to shelters in a nearby village.- ‘Dangerous’ -The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor that relies on a network of sources inside Syria, has reported near-daily Israeli military incursions into southern Syria beyond the demarcation line in recent months.The foreign ministry in neighbouring Jordan condemned Tuesday’s incursion and bombardment as “a dangerous escalation” that risked fuelling “further conflict and tension in the region”.Qatar’s foreign ministry in a statement also slammed the attack, calling it “a brazen violation of international law”.Saudi Arabia also denounced the strikes, and accused Israel of undermining “the security and stability of Syria and the region through their blatant and repeated violations of relevant international laws”.Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites since Assad’s fall in December, saying it wants to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.On Tuesday the Israeli military said it had “struck military capabilities that remained at the Syrian military bases of Tadmur and T4”, referring to a base in Palmyra and another 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the city.On Friday, the military carried out strikes on the same bases.Israel has also deployed troops to the Golan Heights buffer zone, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded the demilitarisation of southern Syria, which borders the Israeli-annexed Golan.United Nations special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen told the Security Council on Tuesday that he was “concerned by Israeli statements on the intention to stay in Syria” and demands for the full demilitarisation of the south.At an Arab summit in Cairo in early March, Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa called on the international community to pressure Israel to “immediately” withdraw its troops from southern Syria, calling it a “direct threat” to peace in the region.

US President Donald Trump downplayed a growing scandal Tuesday after a journalist was accidentally added to a group chat about air strikes on Yemen, denying any classified information was shared and defending a top aide over the breach.Trump said he would “look into” the use of the Signal app as he put on a united front at a meeting with US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who inadvertently included The Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg in the conversation of top national security officials.As Democrats scented blood for perhaps the first time since the Republican returned to power in January, Trump doubled down by attacking Goldberg as a “sleazebag” and said “nobody gives a damn” about the story rocking Washington.Journalist Goldberg said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent information in the Signal chat about targets, weapons and timing ahead of the strikes on March 15. Goldberg also revealed highly critical comments by top US officials about European allies. “There was no classified information,” Trump told reporters when asked about the chat, saying that the commercial app Signal was used by “a lot of people in government.”Waltz said US technical and legal experts were looking into the breach but insisted he had “never met, don’t know, never communicated” with the journalist.He later told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that he took “full responsibility” for the breach, saying: “I built the group; my job is to make sure everything’s coordinated.”Waltz suggested the leak was the result of him mistakenly saving Goldberg’s number under another name.”Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number?” he said.Trump meanwhile said in an interview with Newsmax later on Tuesday that someone who “worked for Mike Waltz at a lower level” may have had Goldberg’s number and somehow been responsible for him ending up in the chat.- ‘Sloppy, careless, incompetent’ -The comments came as part of an aggressive Trump administration pushback against the scandal. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe — who were both reported to be in the chat — endured a stormy Senate Intelligence Committee hearing over the leak.”There was no classified material that was shared,” Gabbard, who has previously caused controversy with comments sympathetic to Russia and Syria, told the panel.Ratcliffe confirmed he was involved in the Signal group but said the communications were “entirely permissible and lawful.”Hegseth, a former Fox News host with no experience running a huge organization like the Pentagon, had said Monday that “nobody was texting war plans.”But Democrats on the committee called on Waltz and Hegseth to resign.Senator Mark Warner blasted what he called “sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior.”Other White House officials also went on the attack against the Democratic narrative.”Don’t let enemies of America get away with these lies,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said on X, describing the row as a “witch hunt.”Trump has repeatedly used the same term to dismiss an investigation into whether his 2016 election campaign colluded with Moscow.- ‘Freeloading’ -The Atlantic’s bombshell report has sparked concerns over the use of a commercial app instead of secure government communications — and about whether US adversaries may have been able to hack in.Trump’s special Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin when he was included in the group, CBS News reported.The report also revealed potentially embarrassing details of what top White House officials think about key allies.Trump said he agreed with Pentagon chief Hegseth’s reported comments in the chat that European nations were “freeloading” off the United States.”Yeah I think they’ve been freeloading,” Trump told reporters. “The European Union’s been absolutely terrible to us on trade.”In the chat, a user identified as JD Vance, the US vice president, opposed the strikes saying that “I just hate bailing Europe out again” as countries there were more affected by Huthi attacks on shipping than the United States.A user identified as Hegseth replies: “I fully share your loathing of European freeloading. It’s PATHETIC.”The Huthi rebels, who have controlled much of Yemen for more than a decade, are part of the “axis of resistance” of pro-Iran groups staunchly opposed to Israel and the US.They have launched scores of drone and missile attacks at ships passing Yemen in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, saying they were carried out in solidarity with Palestinians.

Israeli police released Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal on Tuesday, after detaining him a day earlier for “hurling rocks” following what activists described as an attack by settlers in the occupied West Bank.Basel Adra, who worked with Ballal on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land”, posted a photo of Ballal on X after his release with blood stains on his shirt.”After I won the Oscar, I did not expect to be exposed to such attacks,” Ballal said in a video by AFPTV.”It was a very strong attack and the goal was to kill.”According to the Israeli military, three Palestinians were apprehended on Monday for “hurling rocks” during a confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians in the southern West Bank village of Susya.”Following this, a violent confrontation broke out, involving mutual rock hurling between Palestinians and Israelis,” the military statement said.The village is located near Masafer Yatta, a grouping of hamlets south of Hebron city where “No Other Land” is set.The best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards tells the story of forced displacement of Palestinians by Israeli troops and settlers in Masafer Yatta — an area Israel had declared a restricted military zone in the 1980s.A police spokesperson confirmed Ballal had been detained, while a later statement from the force said three people had been released on bail.The statement said they were being investigated “on suspicion of rock hurling, property damage and endangering regional security”.- ‘Hitting me all over’ -Ballal said he had been attacked by a settler.”He was hitting me all over my body and there was also a soldier with him hitting me.”Yuval Abraham, who co-directed “No Other Land”, said Ballal has injuries to the “head and stomach, bleeding”.Activists from the anti-occupation group Center for Jewish Nonviolence said they witnessed the violence in Susya while there in an effort to deter settler violence.”This type of violence is happening on a regular basis,” said Jenna, an American activist who declined to share her full name out of security concerns.She said that before Israeli forces arrived, a group of 15 to 20 settlers attacked the activists as well as Ballal’s house in the village.Foreign activists regularly stay in Masafer Yatta’s communities to accompany Palestinians as they tend to their crops or shepherd their sheep, and document instances of settler violence.Rights groups have said that since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza — a separate Palestinian territory — there has been a spike in attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.Occupied by Israel since 1967, the West Bank is home to around three million Palestinians, as well as nearly half a million Israelis who live in settlements that are illegal under international law.

In a matter of days, US President Donald Trump has extended a hand to Iran and bombed Tehran’s allies in Yemen. His administration has both demanded that Iran dismantle its nuclear program and offered more flexibility.Trump has for years dangled force as a means to get his way in negotiations. But on Iran, some observers see less a strategy than mixed messaging, with a real debate on how the norms-breaking president will handle a US adversary of nearly half a century.”There is a lot of contradiction within the Trump administration on Iran,” said one Western diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the issue. “Sooner or later, it will have to come to a head.”Trump said on March 7 that he had written a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offering talks on Iran’s contested nuclear program, but also warning of potential military action if he refuses — a threat also made by Israel.Trump, who in his first term ripped up a 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by predecessor Barack Obama, returned to office saying he would resume his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions but openly said he was doing so reluctantly out of deference to hawkish advisors.Steve Witkoff, a friend of Trump who has quickly become his roving global envoy, hinted at compromise with Iran in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, the conservative pundit and critic of military interventionism who dissuaded Trump from military action against Iran in his first term.Witkoff said Trump was proposing a “verification program” to show Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon — in line with Obama’s deal, which was backed by European allies.Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, quickly said the goal remained “full dismantlement.” Iran insists it is not seeking a nuclear bomb, but US intelligence believes it could build one quickly if it decided to do so.- Trump surrounded by hawks -Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, which supports peaceful resolutions, said a maximalist position of ending the nuclear program was a non-starter with Iran.”The Iranians are never going to negotiate with a gun to their heads,” he said.Both Witkoff and the president himself are “not ideologically opposed to a mutually beneficial deal” with Iran, but no one else in the administration appears to agree, Vaez said.While Trump is the chief decision-maker, he has not shown he is focused on Iran, and Witkoff is spread thin as he also negotiates on Gaza and Ukraine, Vaez said.Khamenei already will struggle to accept negotiations with Trump due to his past track record, including ordering the killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020.Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, voiced more optimism about diplomacy. He said Iran could even seek a deal of the sort Trump relishes, such as agreeing to buy US products after years of sanctions.”If Iran was smart, they would take this opportunity and say, well, here’s an American president who really doesn’t seem that heavily involved in this issue,” Vatanka said.”He just wants to be able to say that he got a better deal than Obama did in 2015.”- Play for time? -Trump’s outreach comes at a weak point for the Islamic republic after Israel decimated two of its allies — Hamas, the Palestinian militants who attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Iran’s main regional ally, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, fell in December after an offensive led by Sunni Islamists.Trump in recent days has unleashed major attacks on Yemen’s Iranian-linked Huthi insurgents who have been attacking Black Sea shipping in avowed solidarity with the Palestinians.Hanging over diplomacy is the prospect of military action by Israel, which already struck hard at Iran’s air defenses last year.Israel has sought to join forces on Iran with Gulf Arab nations, although Israel’s renewed Gaza offensive could jeopardize any open alliance.Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that a “credible American and Israeli military threat is instrumental” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, including in leveraging a strong agreement.”There is a great amount of cognizance within folks in the administration that Tehran is trying to play the administration to stall for time, and that there needs to be some real benchmarks if diplomacy is going to be an option here,” he said.