Israel UN envoy warns Houthis risk sharing same fate as Hamas, Hezbollah

Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon. (X/@dannydanon)
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon. (X/@dannydanon)
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Updated 30 December 2024

Israel UN envoy warns Houthis risk sharing same fate as Hamas, Hezbollah

Israel UN envoy warns Houthis risk sharing same fate as Hamas, Hezbollah
  • Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians

NEW YORK: Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations issued on Monday what he called a final warning to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants to halt their missile attacks on Israel, saying they otherwise risked the same “miserable fate” as Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria’s Bashar Assad if they persisted.
He also warned Tehran that Israel has the ability to strike any target in the Middle East, including in Iran, adding that Israel would not tolerate attacks by Iranian proxies.
Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli fire in Gaza.
“To the Houthis, perhaps you have not been paying attention to what has happened to the Middle East over the past year. Well, allow me to remind you what has happened to Hamas, to Hezbollah, to Assad, to all those who have attempted to destroy us. Let this be your final warning. This is not a threat. It is a promise. You will share the same miserable fate,” Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon told the UN Security Council.
Speaking before the meeting, Danon told reporters: “Israel will defend its people. If 2,000 kilometers is not enough to separate our children from the terror, let me assure you, it will not be enough to protect their terror from our strengths.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Houthis that Israel was “just getting started” following Israeli strikes on multiple Houthi-linked targets in Yemen, including Sanaa airport, ports on the country’s west coast and two power plants.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack by Israel. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said.
Israel’s elimination of the top leaders of the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah and the destruction of their military structure along with Assad’s collapse represent a succession of monumental wins for Netanyahu.
Briefing the Security Council meeting, Assistant UN Secretary General for the Middle East Khaled Khiari reiterated grave concern about the escalation in violence, calling on the Houthis to halt attacks on Israel and for international and humanitarian law to be respected.
“Further military escalation could jeopardize regional stability with adverse political, security, economic and humanitarian repercussions,” Khiari said.
“Millions in Yemen, Israel and throughout the region, would continue to bear the brunt of escalation with no end.”
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, while condemning Houthi missile attacks on Israel, also criticized Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Yemen, as well those by what he called the “Anglo-Saxon coalition” of US and British warships in the Red Sea, saying they were “clearly not proportional.”


Tunisia opposition figure on hunger strike beaten in prison: family

Tunisia opposition figure on hunger strike beaten in prison: family
Updated 8 sec ago

Tunisia opposition figure on hunger strike beaten in prison: family

Tunisia opposition figure on hunger strike beaten in prison: family
  • Ben Mbarek’s father, leftist activist Ezzedine Hazgui, said at the same press conference that he had met with the prison director, who accused Khemiri of “exaggerating the situation“
  • Hazgui, however, said he was convinced “criminal guards beat my son“

TUNIS: A prominent Tunisian opposition figure on hunger strike for two weeks to protest his incarceration was beaten unconscious in prison by nearly a dozen guards and fellow inmates, his family alleged on Wednesday.
Jawhar Ben Mbarek, co-founder of the National Salvation Front, Tunisia’s main opposition alliance, has been detained since February 2023.
His sister, Dalila Ben Mbarek Msaddek, said in a Facebook video that “six prisoners and five guards” at the Belli prison where Ben Mbarek is being held “beat him until he lost consciousness” on Tuesday.
“The guards ordered the prisoners to assault him,” she said. “They tortured him because he refused to eat.”
The alleged beating took place days after relatives and lawyers warned that Ben Mbarek’s health was in an “alarming” state due to the hunger strike.
His lawyer, Hanen Khemiri, who visited Ben Mbarek earlier in the day, said she had filed a complaint to the public prosecutor alleging “torture.”
Khemiri said in a press conference Wednesday that Ben Mbarek bore the “traces of torture” and was left with a broken rib.
Ben Mbarek’s father, leftist activist Ezzedine Hazgui, said at the same press conference that he had met with the prison director, who accused Khemiri of “exaggerating the situation.”
Hazgui, however, said he was convinced “criminal guards beat my son.”
In April, after more than two years of pre-trial detention, Ben Mbarek was sentenced to 18 years behind bars on charges of “conspiracy against state security” and “belonging to a terrorist group” in a mass trial criticized by rights groups.
His appeal, alongside about 40 other defendants, is scheduled for next week.
Rights groups have warned of a sharp decline in civil liberties in Tunisia since a sweeping power grab by President Kais Saied in July 2021.
Many of the president’s critics are currently behind bars.
Several other opposition figures — including Rached Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Ennahdha party who is also serving hefty prison sentences on similar charges — have launched a hunger strike in solidarity with Ben Mbarek.
Prison authorities have previously denied “the rumors about the deterioration in the health of any detainees, including those claiming to be on hunger strike,” maintaining they were under “continuous medical supervision.”
According to local media reports, the Tunis prosecutor’s office ordered Wednesday that an investigation be opened into three lawyers based on complaints from the prison administration that they had spread “rumors and false information” about the hunger strikes.
Without naming the lawyers accused, the reports cited a judicial source as saying the complaints also concerned the circulation of information regarding prisoners’ health.