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IDF Downs Houthi Missile Fired From Yemen

Houthi policemen ride on the back of a patrol pick-up truck during the funeral of Houthi terrorists killed by recent US-led strikes, in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
JNS.org — The Israeli military overnight Thursday downed a missile fired by Houthi terrorists in Yemen that triggered air-raid sirens in central Israel, including in Jerusalem, the greater Tel Aviv area, and parts of Judea.
The missile was intercepted in Israeli airspace, according to the Israel Defense Forces, which was probing reports of debris falling in the city of Modi’in, located between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
There were no immediate reports of direct injuries or damage.
However, Magen David Adom emergency medics treated numerous people who were hurt while rushing to shelter, as well as others suffering from acute anxiety.
Flights in and out of Ben-Gurion International Airport were halted for about 30 minutes due to the Houthi attack, with two planes diverting to Larnaca in Cyprus.
Hours later, the military said that the Air Force had intercepted a drone launched from Yemen.
The unmanned aerial vehicle was downed before crossing into Israeli territory; thus no alerts were activated in accordance with policy.
On Monday night, the Israeli Air Force intercepted a missile fired by Houthi terrorists in Yemen at central Israel, in what was the seventh such nighttime attack over the past two weeks.
The missile was downed before crossing into Israeli territory, according to the military. Air-raid sirens were nevertheless activated due to fears of falling fragments from the interception.
Last Friday night, the IDF intercepted a Houthi missile that triggered air-raid sirens across the Jerusalem, Judea and Dead Sea areas. It was the first time sirens sounded in the capital since the Iranian attack on Oct. 1.
The previous night, sirens blared in the greater Tel Aviv area as the IDF intercepted another Houthi missile fired from Yemen. A US THAAD anti-missile battery assisted in the interception, in the first such instance since the system was deployed to Israel in October.
Houthi terrorists have launched more than 200 missiles and 170 drones at Israel in support of Hamas since the terrorist invasion of the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, 2023.
On Dec. 26, the Israeli Air Force conducted strikes on the western coast of and deep inside Yemen, including at Sanaa International Airport in the Houthi-controlled capital. The targets included the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations, in addition to terrorist infrastructure in the Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Kanatib ports.
“These military targets were used by the Houthi terrorist regime to smuggle Iranian weapons into the region and for the entry of senior Iranian officials. This is a further example of the Houthis’ exploitation of civilian infrastructure for military purposes,” the IDF said.
Speaking from IAF headquarters after the strike on the second night of Chanukah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is engaged in a modern-day Maccabean struggle.
“We are determined to cut off this terrorist arm of Iran’s axis of evil,” the prime minister said. “We will persist in this until we complete the task.”
The post IDF Downs Houthi Missile Fired From Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30

A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.