AL-MUKALLA: Four children were killed and two more wounded when a mortar shell fired by the Iran-backed Houthis on Saturday struck a residential area in the city of Taiz, in southern Yemen, residents said.

The six children, belonging to the same family, were playing in front of their house when the shell exploded, Ahmed Mansour, a local medic, told Arab News by telephone.

Residents said the targeted area is not close to the battlefields or military bases under the government’s control, adding that the shell was fired from a Houthi-controlled base east of Taiz.

The shelling is the latest in a series of deadly strikes by the Houthis on residential areas in Taiz that have killed dozens of civilians.

The attack came as local authorities in the central province of Marib announced that the death toll from the Houthi missile strike on the house of a tribal leader in Marib’s Juba district on Thursday evening had risen to 13 civilians. The bodies of seven unidentified civilians have been retrieved from the debris of the house.

The tribal leader, Abdul Latif Al-Qibli Namran, who survived the attack, vowed to fight off the Houthi attacks in Marib province till they are defeated. “We will fight as long as we breathe till victory is achieved,” he said.

Yemen’s Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed, who called Namran to offer his condolences, strongly condemned the Houthi attacks and vowed to make the Houthi militia “pay the price for crimes against civilians and the displaced,” the official news agency SABA said.

Juba has a large concentration of internally displaced people who fled fighting or Houthi repression.

As fighting between the government troops and the Houthis intensified in the district, local aid organizations and officials warned of a big humanitarian crisis as a large number of families are trapped with limited humanitarian assistance.

Local officials said on Saturday that the Houthi had intensified missile and mortar strikes on government-controlled areas in Juba to pave the way for their ground forces to advance.

Separately, the US special envoy for Yemen, Timothy Lenderking, on Saturday accused the Houthi of obstructing peace efforts to end the war and fueling the humanitarian crisis.

“Houthi escalation in Marib is not just an obstacle to peace, it is exacerbating a humanitarian situation already on the brink,” Lenderking said while discussing humanitarian crisis in Yemen with NGOs, according to the US State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

ADEN: At least 12 civilians, including children, were killed Saturday in a car bomb blast near the airport of Aden, the Yemeni government’s interim capital, security officials said.
“Twelve civilians were killed in an explosion” in the vicinity of Aden airport and “there are also serious injuries,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Another security official confirmed the toll.
A spokesman from the Southern Transitional Council (STC) — part of Yemen’s government — said the blast was caused by a car bomb explosion.
“A car bomb was detonated, killing a number of our peaceful citizens, including children, and wounding a number of other civilians,” STC spokesman Ali Al-Kathiri said in a statement.
The explosion comes almost three weeks after six people were killed in a car-bomb attack that targeted Aden’s governor, who survived.
AFP footage on Saturday showed people pulling out a body from a vehicle that had been completely destroyed, as firefighters put out flames nearby.
The internationally recognized government relocated to Aden from the capital Sanaa in 2014, forced out by the Houthis, who are fighting Yemeni government loyalists.
An Arab military coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for Saturday’s blast, which is the deadliest in the area since December last year, when an attack targeting cabinet members ripped through Aden’s airport.
At least 26 people, including three members of the International Committee of the Red Cross, were killed and scores were wounded when explosions rocked the airport at the time, as ministers disembarked from an aircraft.
All cabinet members were reported to be unharmed, in what some ministers charged was a Houthi attack.

CAIRO: Lebanese former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Friday that Iran-backed Hezbollah was responsible for the rift with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

“The responsibility, first and foremost, in this regard lies with Hezbollah, and its professed hostility toward the Arabs and the Arab Gulf states,” Hariri said in a tweet. 

He issued the statement after Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador from Lebanon “for consultation” and ordered the Lebanese envoy in Riyadh to leave within 48 hours on Friday. Saudi Arabia also banned Lebanese products from the Kingdom.

Riyadh’s actions were in response to comments made by Lebanon’s Information Minister George Kordahi about the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. Kordahi, a former newscaster of the Saudi broadcast company MBC, said that the Yemen’s Houthi militia were only defending themselves against aggression.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and several other Arab states formed a coalition in 2015 to help restore Yemen’s legitimate government which was ousted by the Houthis. Since then, the Iran-backed militia had been launching ballistic missiles, rockets and explosive-laden drones against civilian targets in Saudi Arabia.

The dispute is the latest challenge to Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s cabinet which is already in political paralysis over a row around the Beirut port blast probe.

The rift risks widening to more Gulf states with Bahrain also asking Lebanon’s ambassador to leave shortly after the Saudi decision.

Mikati, in a phone call with Kordahi on Friday evening, asked him to put the national interest first and “take the right decision to fix Arab relations with Lebanon,” a statement by his office said.

Sources with knowledge of the matter had told Reuters the Saudi escalation was piling pressure on Kordahi to resign in order to avert further consequences.

Mikati earlier reiterated his government’s commitment to good relations with Saudi Arabia and called for Arab partners to put the latest crisis behind them but stopped short of announcing concrete action to remedy the crisis.

“We also appeal brotherly Arab leaders to work and help to overcome this crisis in order to preserve Arab cohesion,” the statement said.

Kordahi has said the show was recorded nearly a month before he took office and he would not resign over the incident, earning praises from the Hezbollah.

Mikati has been hoping to improve ties with Gulf Arab states which have been strained for years because of the influence wielded in Beirut by the Iran-backed Shiite group Hezbollah.

“The control of the terrorist Hezbollah on the decision-making of the Lebanese state made Lebanon an arena for implementing projects for countries that don’t wish Lebanon and its people well,” a Riyadh statement carried by SPA said.

In April, Saudi Arabia banned all fruit and vegetable imports from Lebanon blaming an increase in drug smuggling. 

The ban added to the economic woes of Lebanon, already in the throes of one of the modern times’ deepest financial crises. 

WEST BANK: Tourists are being offered a new glimpse at one of the largest ancient mosaics in the Middle East, after renovations undertaken by the Palestinian Authority were unveiled this week.
The 930-square-meter stone mosaic, with intricate geometric patterns, is part of what is known as Hisham’s Palace. It was built during the reign of the Umayyads, the first hereditary Muslim dynasty, which ruled from Damascus. The palace was the winter resort of Caliph Hisham ibn Abd Al-Malik, who ruled from 724 to 743.
It is situated near the desert oasis city of Jericho — one of the world’s oldest — in what is now the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israel, which controls access to the territory, plans to welcome tourists from Nov. 1 as it lifts COVID-19 restrictions. The Palestinians hope the new project will attract both local and foreign travelers.
The $18 million project, which included the construction of a large dome to protect the mosaic from the elements, was partly funded by the Japanese government. Tourists can now view the mosaic from a new walkway suspended above it.
The project was originally supposed to be completed in 2018 but was delayed, in part because of the challenge of anchoring the dome without disturbing the archaeological remains.
Abdel Raheem Zahran, a local tourist who came with his children on Thursday, said he had been to the site seven years earlier, but it was “not as developed.”
“The dome that they made is great, you don’t have the sun beating down on you, ” he said.

SANAA: A child was among 13 people killed when a missile fired by Yemeni rebels struck a tribal leader’s home south of the strategic city of Marib, military and medical sources said on Friday.
“A Houthi ballistic missile hit the house of Sheikh Abdul Latif Al-Qibli in Al-Jawba on Thursday evening during a meeting with tribal leaders fighting on the government’s side,” a government military official said.
“Thirteen people, including a child, were killed,” he added. The death toll was confirmed by a medical source in the area.
As well as the child, Thursday evening’s missile strike also killed four tribal leaders, said the military official.
At least 11 houses were damaged and 16 civilians were wounded in the attack, according to the officials.
Yemen’s Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani said on Twitter that at least 12 people were killed, including two sons of Al-Qibli, whose fate was unknown. The Houthi “militia continues to systematically and deliberately bombard villages and homes … in order to inflict max casualties among civilians” forcing hundreds of families and displaced to flee, he wrote.
The Arab coalition backing Yemen’s government has been conducting a fierce air campaign since Oct. 11 to prevent the rebels from reaching Marib city.
Since then, about 2,000 Houthi fighters have been killed in Al-Jawba, about 50 km south of Marib, and two other districts, according to the coalition.
Fierce fighting has gripped Al-Jawba district in recent days.
Earlier this month, the Houthi rebels advanced in the district of Abdiya, south of the city of Marib.
The Houthis “are committing genocide” in Abdiya, preventing food, medicine and other basic needs from reaching the district, said Marib provincial Gov. Sheikh Sultan Al-Aradah.