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Houthi Missile Explodes Over Central Israel
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi addresses followers via a video link at the al-Shaab Mosque, formerly al-Saleh Mosque, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 6, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
JNS.org – Israeli air defenses on Sunday morning intercepted fragments of a surface-to-surface missile launched from Yemen that exploded over central Israel.
The attack triggered sirens in central Israel and the Tel Aviv area at around 6:30 a.m.
According to the Magen David Adom emergency service, five individuals suffered light injuries while running for shelters. They were treated on the scene before being referred to hospitals, according to MDA.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the attack was launched from Yemen, after correcting an initial report that a missile had been launched from the east.
“The explosive sounds heard in the last few minutes are from the interceptors. The result of the interception is under review,” according to the IDF.
In July, a Houthi drone killed a man in central Tel Aviv, in response to which Israel struck Yemen’s Hodeidah port. The Iranian terror proxy has launched dozens of drones and missiles at Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023.
Hazam al-Assad, a member of the Houthi militia’s political bureau, tweeted on Sunday morning, hours after the attack, that “whether you are in underground shelters or out of them, you must listen carefully this afternoon to what this great leader, who speaks the truth and acts with integrity, will say,” along with a picture of Houthi leader Abd al-Malek Badr al-Din al-Houthi.
He claimed that the missile was “very powerful and hypersonic,” and had ” bypassed all defenses and hit a military area in Lod near Ben Gurion Airport.”
Fragments of an IDF interceptor hit a train station in Modi’in, causing damage, with images from the scene showing shattered glass and damage to an escalator. No injuries were reported.
Other interceptor fragments reportedly fell in an agricultural field near Lod, a city just under 10 miles southeast of Tel Aviv. Four firefighting teams were working to control a blaze that broke out near Moshav Kfar Daniel as a result, which posed no immediate danger to nearby homes.
The Israeli security establishment’s initial assessment is that the missile disintegrated in the air, according to Channel 12 News. Based on the initial investigation, it appears that Israel’s Arrow defense system intercepted one of the fragments while the Iron Dome system shot down others.
The interceptor fragments fell in open areas, except for the shrapnel that hit the train station. The fragments of the Houthi missile itself landed in an open area in the Ben Shemen area.
Ben Gurion Airport was operating on a regular schedule Sunday, with 62,000 passengers expected to pass through Israel on 375 flights.
On Friday, the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza said it had fired two rockets toward Tel Aviv. The IDF said that one of the projectiles fell in the sea, and the other did not cross into Israeli territory. Residents of the Gush Dan region of central Israel reported a loud explosion.
Hamas said it had launched “two M90 rockets” toward Tel Aviv, with a source from the terror group telling the Hezbollah-aligned Lebanese news site Al Mayadeen that the rockets were launched from Khan Yunis, where the IDF is currently operating.
The post Houthi Missile Explodes Over Central Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism
Pope Francis waves after delivering his traditional Christmas Day Urbi et Orbi speech to the city and the world from the main balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, December 25, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Pope Francis on Saturday again condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, a day after an Israeli government minister publicly denounced the pontiff for suggesting the global community should study whether the military offensive there constitutes a genocide of the Palestinian people.
Francis opened his annual Christmas address to the Catholic cardinals who lead the Vatican’s various departments with what appeared to be a reference to Israeli airstrikes on Friday that killed at least 25 Palestinians in Gaza.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” said the pope. “This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to say this because it touches the heart.”
The pope, as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Roman Catholic Church, is usually careful about taking sides in conflicts, but he has recently been more outspoken about Israel’s military campaign against Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
In book excerpts published last month, the pontiff said some international experts said that “what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide.”
Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli sharply criticized those comments in an unusual open letter published by Italian newspaper Il Foglio on Friday. Chikli said the pope’s remarks amounted to a “trivialization” of the term genocide.
Francis also said on Saturday that the Catholic bishop of Jerusalem, known as a patriarch, had tried to enter the Gaza Strip on Friday to visit Catholics there, but was denied entry.
The patriarch’s office told Reuters it was not able to comment on the pope’s remarks about the patriarch being denied entry.
Israeli officials were not immediately reachable for comment on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The post Pope Calls Gaza Airstrikes ‘Cruelty’ After Israeli Minister’s Criticism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile
Iranian-backed Yemeni terrorist leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – The Israeli military said on Saturday that while the investigation into the failure to intercept the missile that hit Tel Aviv early in the morning was still ongoing, some lessons were already being implemented. The ballistic missile, fired by Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, landed at a playground in a residential area, leading to 16 people sustaining injuries from glass shards.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said that “some of the conclusions have already been implemented, in regards of both interception and early warning.”
The spokesperson added that “no further details regarding aerial defense activities and the alert system can be disclosed due to operational security considerations.”
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as “acts of solidarity” with Palestinians in Gaza.
The post IDF Pledges to Implement Lessons from Failure to Intercept Houthi Missile first appeared on Algemeiner.com.