AL-MUKALLA: A Houthi religious leader shot dead a cardiologist and his brother and wounded several others for denouncing his sermons at a mosque in the southern Yemeni province of Taiz, residents and officials reported on Monday.

Abdul Basit Al-Baher, a Yemeni army spokesman in Taiz city, told Arab News that Azit Al-Azi Abdul Nour opened fire at a gathering in Maqbanah district when a number of people took exception to his radical preaching.

Ahmed Al-Shameri, a cardiologist, and his brother Hamoud were killed in the shooting and others, including a child, were injured.

“The Houthi preacher angered locals after insulting the prophet’s companions and wives,” Al-Baher said.

He added that locals disconnected electricity from the small mosque where the Houthi was giving his address when he refused to stop speaking and members of the Iran-backed militant group sneaked him out of the building as tensions mounted and residents demanded justice.

Separately, an international rights group said on Monday that Houthis had abducted a group of residents from a small village in Yemen’s Al-Mahwit province for allegedly tearing down and removing images bearing slogans of Iranian and Hezbollah leaders.

Abdurrahman Barman, a Yemeni human rights advocate and director of the American Center for Justice (ACJ), told Arab News that heavily armed Houthis in three military vehicles descended on Al-Oura village in Shibam Kawkaban district and abducted 42 people, including children.

Those seized were accused of taking down pictures of the late Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah from streets and walls of their homes.

The Houthis released the villagers three days later after a tribal mediation in which it was agreed they would attend a local police station when the Eid break was over.

Following interviews with relatives of the captured villagers, the ACJ said that the abductees had been subjected to psychological and physical torture in a bid to force confessions out of them.

“Our children and women are living in great fear at that moment, and some women have fallen ill from the terrible tragedy as the Houthi forces stormed houses and pointed their weapons at people,” one relative reportedly told the organization.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s information minister, Moammar Al- Eryani, on Monday strongly condemned a Houthi drone strike on Sunday on a local market in Al-Durihimi district, south of Hodeidah province, that killed a civilian and wounded several others.

He called on the UN mission responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement in Hodeidah to condemn the shelling of civilian targets which was in breach of the terms of the deal.

In a tweet, Al-Eryani said: “This heinous terrorist crime is a continuation of the crimes and violations committed by the Houthi militia against citizens in liberated areas of Hodeidah, shelling with artillery, mortars, drones, planting mines, IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on public roads, whose victims are civilians, including children and women.”

Without naming the Houthis, Gen. Abhijit Guha, head of the UN mission in Hodeidah, condemned the drone strike.

Gen. Guha urged warring factions on Monday to adhere to their pledges to avoid targeting civilians during military operations.

“I urge the parties to respect the sanctity of human life and protect civilians as per their obligations and undertake steps that will move further toward peace in the governorate and across Yemen,” he said in a statement seen by Arab News.

ANKARA: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that Turkish forces had killed a top Syrian Kurdish commander during an offensive in neighboring Iraq.
The Turkish army last month launched a new ground and air offensive against militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party dubbed Operation Claw Lightning.
Erdogan said the military push had eliminated a Syrian-born “terrorist” who used the nom de guerre Sofi Nurettin.
He said Nurettin had served as the PKK’s top military commander in Syria.
Nurettin “was neutralized by the operation carried out in northern Iraq,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.
The PKK — listed as a terror group by Ankara and much of the international community — has been using Iraq’s northern mountains as a springboard in its decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
The Turkish army regularly conducts cross-border operations and air raids against PKK bases in northern Iraq.
Turkey launched another operation in February against PKK rebels holed up in the northern Iraqi region of Dohuk.
That raid created controversy because it was designed in part to rescue 12 Turkish soldiers and an Iraqi held captive by the PKK in a cave.
Turkey accused the PKK of executing the 13 men before they could be freed.
Erdogan said on Monday that Nurettin bore partial responsibility for the 13 deaths.

CAIRO: Egypt and Sudan affirmed during a meeting in Paris, France that the issues related to the Renaissance Dam are a matter of national security.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereignty Council and Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces Abdel Fattah El-Burhan reviewed the latest developments during the talks.

They said that the two countries would agree to reach a fair and binding legal agreement regarding the process of filling and operating the Renaissance Dam in a way that takes into consideration the common interests of all parties involved.

The talks also focused on developments along the Ethiopia-Sudan border, as well as issues related to crises in the region, and called for cooperation to continue between Egypt and Sudan.

President El-Sisi praised the strong relations between the two countries, expressing Egypt’s aspiration to deepen their ties in a way that contributes to achieving mutual interests, especially at the security, military and economic levels.

El-Sisi affirmed Egypt’s keenness to participate in the International Conference to Support the Sudanese Transition, which has the aim of achieving political and economic stability in Sudan.

The Egyptian president also referred to the link between Sudanese national security and that of Egypt and the historical ties that bind the two Nile Valley nations.

He highlighted Egypt’s commitment to supporting the Sudanese government achieve economic stability, eliminate its accumulated debt and reduce its financial burdens.

Egypt will take part in the international initiative to settle Sudan’s debt by using its share with the International Monetary Fund.

El-Sisi praised the steps that Sudan is taking in the direction of structural economic reform.

“These measures reflect a real political will to make the transitional stage successful,” he said, adding that Egypt was ready to apply its experience in economic reform in training Sudanese cadres.

El-Burhan expressed Sudan’s deep appreciation for Egypt’s efforts to support the country during its transitional phase.

“Such efforts are embodied in the president’s keenness to personally participate in the current Paris conference to support Sudan, consolidating the strength of extended ties between the two countries,” said El-Burhan.

He affirmed that there were broad prospects for developing cooperation between the two countries and underlined Sudan’s eagerness to provide a supportive environment to this end.

GAZA CITY: For the seventh day in a row, Israeli warplanes on Sunday bombed various parts of the Gaza Strip, causing widespread destruction and killing dozens of Palestinians, many of them women and children.

In the fiercest wave of bombing, warplanes targeted Al-Wehda Street in the center of Gaza City after midnight, killing 42 Palestinians, including 16 women and 10 children, and wounding about 50 others.

Israeli missiles completely destroyed three homes — two of them belonging to the Al-Kulak family and the other to the Abu Al-Auf family.

Dalal Al-Kulk, 33, and her 2-year-old son were among the survivors of the bombardment. She could not talk after her husband Mohammed and three of her daughters were killed.

Her father Ahmed Al-Maghribi waited outside the destroyed house for the bodies of the three daughters to be removed.

They had remained under the rubble for about 15 hours before they were removed by the Palestinian Civil Defense.

“I can’t describe my feelings of sadness, fear and anger. My daughter is now in shock. Her husband and three of grandchildren are martyrs,” Al-Maghribi said.

“I don’t know how they’ll live the rest of their lives. Our life in Gaza is full of fear, terror. There’s no safety anywhere. Every person here on the street carries his own story, all of them pain and exhaustion.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health on Sunday evening said 192 Palestinians had been killed since the start of the Israeli bombardment, including 58 children and 34 women.

Israeli warplanes targeted a building hundreds of meters from Al-Wehda Street, causing partial destruction and killing at least one of its residents.

Ayah Aloul, 25, was lying in hospital next to her mother. They were injured by the bombing after the death of Aloul’s father.

“I’m very afraid … The bombing began violently in the area where I live. Suddenly I found myself in the street with my mother, and above us was a lot of rubble,” Aloul told Arab News.

“I started with all my strength to lift the rubble off me. I don’t know where all this strength came from,” she added.

“I started running until I found a street with lights on. I started screaming loudly until the neighbors came, and I told them I want to get my mother out from under the rubble, but they insisted that they take me by ambulance to the hospital. I saw my mother in the hospital shortly after.” Referring to her wounds, Aloul said: “I don’t know how I’ll live with my face like this.”

JERUSALEM: Israeli medics say two people are dead and more than 150 injured in a bleacher collapse at a West Bank synagogue.
The bleacher was packed with ultra-Orthodox worshippers and collapsed during prayers at the beginning of a major Jewish holiday.
A spokesman for Magen David Adom told Channel 13 that paramedics had treated over 157 people for injuries and pronounced two dead, a man in his 50s and a 12-year-old boy.
Rescue workers are on the scene, treating the injured and taking people to the hospital. The collapse comes weeks after 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews were killed in a stampede at a religious festival in northern Israel.
Amateur footage showed the collapse occurring during prayers Sunday evening in Givat Zeev, just outside Jerusalem, at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The ultra-Orthodox synagogue was packed with hundreds of people.
The Israeli military said in a statement that it dispatched medics and other search and rescue troops to assist at the scene. Army helicopters were airlifting the injured.
Israeli authorities traded blame at the scene of the disaster.
The mayor of Givat Zeev said the building was unfinished and dangerous, and that the police had ignored previous calls to take action. Jerusalem police chief Doron Turgeman said the disaster was a case of “negligence” and that there would likely be arrests.
Deddi Simhi, head of the Israel Fire and Rescue service, told Israel’s Channel 12 that “this building is not finished. It doesn’t even have a permit for occupancy, and therefore let alone holding events in it.”
Television footage from the scene showed the building was incomplete, with exposed concrete and boards visible.
The accident comes weeks after a stampede at a religious festival in northern Israel that killed 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews.
The stampede triggered renewed criticism over the broad autonomy granted to the country’s politically powerful ultra-Orthodox minority.
Last year, many ultra-Orthodox communities flouted coronavirus safety restrictions, contributing to high outbreak rates in their communities and angering the broader secular public.