JERUSALEM, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) — Forces in Yemen launched a missile toward central Israel on Monday, triggering sirens in Tel Aviv and other cities, Israel’s military said.
Israel’s air defense systems intercepted the missile, and “sirens sounded due to the possibility of falling shrapnel from the interception,” the military said in a statement.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said no injuries have been reported.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Since November last year, the Houthi group, which controls much of northern Yemen, has been conducting missile and drone attacks on targets in Israel, allegedly to show solidarity with Palestinians amid their conflict with Israelis in the Gaza Strip.
HOUSTON — A teen boy killing four family members was arrested and charged with murder in the U.S. state of New Mexico, authorities said on Sunday.
Diego Leyva, 16, was detained after he called 911 on Saturday morning and told the police that he had killed his family at their residence in Belen, New Mexico, according to the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office.
The suspect has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder for the quadruple homicide of his family, said the police.
When police officers arrived, Leyva walked out of the residence with his hands in the air and was extremely intoxicated, local media reported.
Police then entered the residence and found four victims who appeared to have been shot dead.
It was later identified that the victims, aged from 14 to 42, were all family members of the teen suspect.
TEHRAN – American and British warplanes have once again bombed Yemen, this time the areas of northwestern province of Hajjah.
Yemeni media reported that the warplanes targeted the Bahis area in the Midi district of Hajjah in the early hours of Monday.
So far, there has been no report of damage or casualties from the airstrikes that followed hours after similar multiple attacks on Tuhayta district in Hudaydah Province.
In recent months, various areas of Yemen, especially Hudaydah, have experienced joint aerial attacks by the United States (US) and Britain, largely to pressure the Yemeni army to halt its anti-Israel operations.
Meanwhile, a senior member of the Yemeni Ansarullah movement emphasized in a message that the US is opening the gates of hell to itself by increasing tensions with Yemen.
The US embassy has lined up its mercenaries for war against the Yemeni people with the aim of stopping the operation to support the Gaza Strip, Abdul Rahman Al-Ahnumi wrote in a message on the X social network.
He warned that any escalation of tensions will open the gates of hell to the presence of the US, its interests, oil and mercenaries in the region.
The US and Britain first launched the attacks on Yemen’s Ansarullah positions in January citing a UN Security Council resolution that though it never called for violating Yemen’s sovereignty rather protecting the international maritime route.
Abrams tanks, which are among the heaviest in the world, are a mainstay of the US military. (AFP file photo)
TAIPEI — Taiwan has received 38 advanced Abrams battle tanks from the United States, the defense ministry said Monday, as the island boosts its military capabilities against a potential Chinese attack.
Washington has long been Taipei’s most important ally and biggest arms supplier — angering Beijing, which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory.
The M1A2 tanks — the first batch of 108 ordered in 2019 — arrived in Taiwan late Sunday and were transferred to an army training base in Hsinchu, south of the capital Taipei, the defense ministry said.
Abrams tanks, which are among the heaviest in the world, are a mainstay of the US military.
The M1A2s are the first new tanks to be delivered to Taiwan in 30 years, the semi-official Central News Agency said.
Taiwan’s current tank force consists of around 1,000 Taiwan-made CM 11 Brave Tiger and US-made M60A3 tanks, technology that is increasingly obsolete.
The government previously allocated the equivalent of more than $1.2 billion for the 108 Abrams.
Taiwan faces the constant threat of an invasion by China, which has refused to rule out using force to bring the self-ruled island under its control.
While it has a home-grown defense industry and has been upgrading its equipment, Taiwan relies heavily on US arms sales to bolster its security capabilities.
Taiwan requested the state-of-the-art M1A2 tanks in 2019. The rest of the order is expected to be delivered in 2025 and 2026, an army official said.
While US arms supplies to Taiwan are enshrined into law, a massive backlog caused by Covid-19 supply chain disruptions and US weapons shipments to Ukraine and Israel have slowed deliveries to Taiwan.
The backlog now exceeds $21 billion, according to Washington think tank Cato Institute.
Taiwan would be massively outgunned in terms of troop numbers and firepower in any war with China and in recent years has increased spending on its military.
Taipei allocated a record $19 billion for 2024 and next year’s budget is set to hit a new high, as it seeks to bolster a more agile defense approach.
China has increased military pressure on Taiwan in recent years, regularly deploying fighter jets and warships around the island.
Taiwanese authorities said last week that China had held its biggest maritime drills in years, with around 90 ships deployed from near the southern islands of Japan to the South China Sea.
The vessels simulated attacks on foreign ships and practiced blockading sea routes, a Taiwan security official said previously.
SYDNEY — Two people have died after a vehicle crashed and caught fire west of Sydney late on Sunday night.
Police in the state of New South Wales (NSW) said in a statement on Monday that the vehicle crashed into a tree in the small town of Ooma — about 300 km west of Sydney — shortly before 10:20 p.m. local time on Sunday and caught fire.
Emergency services were deployed to the scene and extinguished the fire but two people in the vehicle at the time of the crash died at the scene.
Seven people died in crashes on NSW roads over the weekend, taking the state’s road death toll for 2024 to 328.
Further north in the state of Queensland, a 22-year-old woman died after a car left the road and hit a pole in the city of Toowoomba – 100 km west of Brisbane – at 11:30 p.m. on Sunday.
The 16-year-old male driver of the vehicle was airlifted to hospital with life-threatening injuries and three other passengers, aged 17, 20 and 20 respectively, were also hospitalized.
CANBERRA — The Australian government has updated its travel advice for Fiji after several tourists were hospitalized with suspected alcohol poisoning.
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) on Sunday night advised travelers to Fiji to be wary of potential methanol poisoning through alcohol.
It comes after seven tourists, including four Australians, were hospitalized after consuming alcohol at a resort bar in Fiji on Saturday night local time.
DFAT’s warning, issued through its Smartraveller service, advised Australians to “be alert to the potential risks around drink spiking and methanol poisoning through consuming alcoholic drinks.”
It urged anyone who suspects drink spiking to seek urgent medical help.
Jason Clare, Australia’s education minister, on Monday described the incident in Fiji as horrific.
“I guess my message for Australians travelling overseas is just be really, really careful with whatever you consume,” he told ABC television.
Incidents in Fiji came after six tourists, including two Australian teenagers, died from suspected methanol poisoning in Laos in November.
This picture taken from northern Israel shows an Israeli Air Force fighter jet flying over the border area with south Lebanon on March 12, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border tensions as fighting continues between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. (AFP)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A Syria war monitor said early Monday that Israeli strikes had targeted military sites in Syria’s coastal Tartus region, calling them “the heaviest strikes” in the area in more than a decade.
“Israeli warplanes launched strikes” targeting a series of sites including air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what it said were “the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012.”
PRAGUE — An explosion in a residential building in the southern Czech town of Znojmo on Sunday afternoon left eight people injured, local rescuers reported.
“We rescued a total of eight people from the building… They were treated and transported to hospitals by emergency services,” the Fire Rescue Service of the South Moravian Region stated on the social media platform X.
Among the injured, one person sustained serious injuries and was airlifted to a hospital by helicopter for urgent medical attention.
The explosion occurred in a building containing nine residential units, causing extensive damage. According to the Czech News Agency, the blast led to the collapse of the front wall from the first floor down to the sidewalk, while the roof and attic were also severely damaged.
Authorities anticipate that the building will require at least partial demolition. In response, the town hall has stepped in to provide emergency accommodation for displaced residents.
Preliminary investigations suggest that a gas leak is the likely cause of the explosion.
Israeli military vehicles ride through Syria close to the ceasefire line between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Syria, as seen from Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, December 15, 2024. REUTERS
JERUSALEM, Dec 15 – Israel agreed on Sunday to double its population on the occupied Golan Heights while saying threats from Syria remained despite the moderate tone of rebel leaders who ousted President Bashar al-Assad a week ago.
“Strengthening the Golan is strengthening the State of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold onto it, cause it to blossom, and settle in it,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Israel captured most of the strategic plateau from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, annexing it in 1981.
In 2019 then-President Donald Trump declared U.S. support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, but the annexation has not been recognised by most countries.
Syria demands Israel withdraw but Israel refuses, citing security concerns. Various peace efforts have failed.
Netanyahu said he spoke with Trump on Saturday about security developments in Syria.
“We have no interest in a conflict with Syria,” Netanyahu said in a statement. Israeli actions in Syria were intended to “thwart the potential threats from Syria and to prevent the takeover of terrorist elements near our border,” he added.
Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that the latest developments in Syria increased the threat to Israel, “despite the moderate image that the rebel leaders claim to present”.
Netanyahu’s office said the government unanimously approved a more than 40-million-shekel ($11 million) plan to encourage demographic growth in the Golan.
It said Netanyahu submitted the plan to the government “in light of the war and the new front facing Syria, and out of a desire to double the population of the Golan”.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates condemned Israel’s decision, with the UAE – which normalised relations with Israel in 2020 – describing it as a “deliberate effort to expand the occupation”.
Some 31,000 Israelis have settled there, said analyst Avraham Levine of the Alma Research and Education Center specialising in Israel’s security challenges on its northern border. Many work in farming, including vineyards, and tourism. The Golan is home to 24,000 Druze, an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam, Levine said. Most identify as Syrian.
AVOIDING ‘NEW CONFRONTATIONS’
Syria’s de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, said on Saturday that Israel was using false pretexts to justify its attacks on Syria, but he was not interested in engaging in new conflicts as his country focuses on rebuilding.
Sharaa – better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani – leads the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that swept Assad from power last Sunday, ending the family’s five-decade iron-fisted rule.
Since then Israel has moved into a demilitarised zone inside Syria that was created after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, including the Syrian side of the strategic Mount Hermon that overlooks Damascus, where its forces took over an abandoned Syrian military post.
Israel, which has said that it does not intend to stay there and calls the incursion into Syrian territory a limited and temporary measure to ensure border security, has also carried out hundreds of strikes on Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles.
It has said it is destroying weapons and military infrastructure to prevent them from being used by rebel groups that drove Assad from power, some of which grew from movements linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.
Several Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, have condemned what they called Israel’s seizure of a buffer zone in the Golan Heights.
“Syria’s war-weary condition, after years of conflict and war, does not allow for new confrontations.
The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction,” Sharaa said in an interview published on the website of Syria TV, a channel that sides with the rebels.
He also said diplomatic solutions were the only way to ensure security and stability and that “uncalculated military adventures” were not wanted.
DOHA — Qatar announced on Sunday that it will resume operations at its embassy in Syria, effective Tuesday, with Khalifa Abdullah Al Mahmoud Al Sharif appointed as the charge d’affaires.
In a statement, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs noted that this move marks the restoration of diplomatic relations with Syria after a 13-year hiatus.
The ministry emphasized that the reopening of the embassy will enhance Qatar’s ongoing humanitarian efforts, including its airlift of relief supplies to support the Syrian people during the transitional phase and address urgent humanitarian needs.
Qatar announced on Wednesday to reopen its embassy in Damascus, days after a militant coalition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ousted former President Bashar al-Assad last week.
Qatar closed its embassy in Damascus in 2011 following the outbreak of anti-government protests in Syria.
