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Yemen's Houthis Launched Drones towards Israel's Ashkelon

A Houthis-made mock drone on display in front of a billboard featuring a portrait of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, at a square in Sana'a, Yemen, 22 October 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
A Houthis-made mock drone on display in front of a billboard featuring a portrait of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, at a square in Sana'a, Yemen, 22 October 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
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Yemen's Houthis Launched Drones towards Israel's Ashkelon

A Houthis-made mock drone on display in front of a billboard featuring a portrait of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, at a square in Sana'a, Yemen, 22 October 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
A Houthis-made mock drone on display in front of a billboard featuring a portrait of late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, at a square in Sana'a, Yemen, 22 October 2024. EPA/YAHYA ARHAB

Yemen's Houthis launched drones towards an industrial zone in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, the militant group's military spokesperson said on Tuesday.
The Yemeni militants, who have been attacking ships crossing the Red Sea since November of last year, say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and in support of Lebanon against Israeli strikes, Reuters said.
The Israeli military said on Tuesday morning that sirens sounded in Ashkelon after a drone crossed into Israeli territory but fell in an open space in the area.
Israel condemns the Houthis as terrorists following the instructions of its arch-foe Iran.
The group, which controls the capital Sanaa and the most populous areas of Yemen, is part of Iran's self-proclaimed "Axis of Resistance" against Israel and US influence in the Middle East.
The Axis also includes the Palestinian group Hamas, that ignited a year-long war with Israel on Oct.7, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, along with various Shi'ite armed groups in Iraq and Syria.

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French-Algerian Author Boualem Sansal Handed Five-year Sentence

A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
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French-Algerian Author Boualem Sansal Handed Five-year Sentence

A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)
A banner in support of detained Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, is displayed on a bridge in Beziers, southern France on March 26, 2025. (Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP)

A court in Algeria on Thursday sentenced an award-winning French-Algerian writer to five years in prison. The case against 76-year-old Boualem Sansal has become a flashpoint in growing tensions between the Algerian and French governments.

Sansal was arrested in November and stood trial for undermining Algeria's territorial integrity.

A court in Dar El Beida, near Algiers, sentenced "the defendant in his presence to a five-year prison term" with a fine of 500,000 Algerian dinars ($3,730).

Last week, prosecutors at an Algiers court requested a 10-year prison sentence for the novelist whose work has remained available in Algeria despite his criticism of the government.

Though Sansal was relatively unknown in France before his arrest, the trial has sparked a wave of support from French intellectuals and officials.

French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed the accusations against Sansal as "not serious", but had expressed confidence in Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's "clarity of vision" on the matter.

Macron has repeatedly called for the writer's release, citing his fragile state of health due to cancer.

Sansal's French lawyer, Francois Zimeray, condemned the decision in a post on X as "a sentence that betrays the very meaning of the word justice.

"His age and his health make every day he spends in jail even more inhuman. I appeal to the Algerian presidence: justice has failed, let humanity at least prevail."

According to his French publisher, Sansal is 80 years old.

France's Foreign Ministry said later Thursday that it was disappointed in the verdict and called for a “rapid, humanitarian and dignified” resolution to the case.