AL-MUKALLA: A mortar shell fired by the Iran-backed Houthis into residential areas in Yemen’s city of Taiz seriously injured three children on Sunday, less than a day after the Houthis killed two servicemen and injured one in another strike in Yemen’s southern province of Lahj. 

Three children who live close to an old airfield west of Taiz were reportedly shepherding their sheep when a Houthi mortar bomb fired from the city’s outskirts struck the ground, seriously wounding them.

JERICHO, Palestinian Territories: Israelis on Sunday shot dead a Palestinian who, according to the army and medics, had rammed his car into soldiers in the occupied West Bank.
The incident near the city of Jericho comes amid mounting violence across Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
“An assailant accelerated his vehicle toward IDF (Israeli army) soldiers who were at a bus station adjacent to the Nabi Musa Junction,” the army said, before he continued and drove at other soldiers nearby.

BAGHDAD: A gas tanker exploded in Baghdad on Saturday night killing at least nine people and injuring 13 others, security forces said, adding that it was an accident.
“Nine civilians were killed and 13 injured” when the tanker exploded, the commander of security forces in Baghdad, Ahmad Salim, said in a statement.
“The explosion is an accident and not an act of terrorism,” he added.
A medical source told AFP 12 were killed. Another medical source had previously told AFP there were “eight dead and 20 injured.”

RAMALLAH: A decision by President Mahmoud Abbas to form a Supreme Judicial Council headed by himself has caused anger among Palestinian human rights institutions and opposition political parties.

Human rights experts told Arab News that Abbas was exploiting the absence of the Palestinian Legislative Council to dish out legislation that served the interests of influential groups both within the Palestinian Authority and businesses.

KHARTOUM: Some 3,000 protesters in Khartoum on Saturday rejected UN mediation efforts between civilian and military leaders as “foreign interference” and called for religious rule in Sudan, an AFP correspondent said.

A military coup led by army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan last year derailed a fragile transition to civilian rule after the 2019 ouster of long-time autocrat Omar Bashir.