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Houthis Suffer Major Losses in Battles Raging in Yemen’s Nihm District

Remains of the missile fired by the Houthis at a mosque in Marib. - Reuters
Remains of the missile fired by the Houthis at a mosque in Marib. - Reuters
    Sanaa, Taiz – Asharq Al-Awsat
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Houthis Suffer Major Losses in Battles Raging in Yemen’s Nihm District

Remains of the missile fired by the Houthis at a mosque in Marib. - Reuters
Remains of the missile fired by the Houthis at a mosque in Marib. - Reuters

The Nihm District battlefront, east of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, has been witnessing nonstop fierce fighting pitting the internationally-recognized government forces, backed by the Saudi-led Arab Coalition, against Iran-aligned Houthi militias.

Houthis, according to local military sources, have incurred hundreds of deaths and injuries.

In an attempt to cover up losses suffered in Nihm, Houthis continued to strike civilian targets in Marib. Their latest rocket attack on Wednesday resulted in the death of a Yemeni woman and the injury of six other civilians.

Military sources also reported on government forces successfully liberating large swathes of mountainous terrain in Nihm District after achieving victory in battles that spanned over 60 km northeast the district.

“The national army has liberated a mountainous ring in the right front of Nihm,” the government forces' media center said last Monday.

The army forces continue advancing as Houthi fighters retreat and flee the fighting field, the center added, displaying footage for some of the battles fought by government troops in Nihm.

Yemeni and Saudi media also reported about Abdul Khaleq Al Houthi, a senior Houthi official, being injured during an Arab Coalition airstrike in Nihm on Tuesday evening.

Medical sources in Houthi-held Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that Houthis raised the alarm in all public hospitals so that they remain prepared for receiving those injured and the bodies of those killed in battles.

This coincided with Houthi leaders looking in Sanaa neighborhoods for fresh recruits to replenish their depleted ranks at battlefronts.

Since the beginning of this week, battles have not been limited to Nihm, as other frontlines have also seen visibly agitated fighting.

Government military sources said on Monday that a number of Houthi fighters have been killed as they tried to infiltrate government sites in the central governorate of Baydha.

“Houthi fighters, including commander Habeeb Saleh Moharam al-Qahtani, were killed and others injured when they tried to infiltrate into sites near al-Wahbia in al-Sawadia district,” Saba quoted a military source as saying.

“Other Houthi fighters were killed or wounded in clashes with army forces in the two districts of Nati'e and Malajim,” it added.

Last Saturday, scores of Houthi fighters were killed and injured in attempted infiltration in Fadhha of Malajim district, east of Baydha.

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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
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An Israeli Strike that Killed 3 Lebanese Journalists Was Most Likely Deliberate

A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)
A destroyed journalists car is seen at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a compound housing journalists, killing three media staffers from two different news agencies according to Lebanon's state-run National News Agency, in Hasbaya village, southeast Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. (AP)

An Israeli airstrike that killed three journalists and wounded others in Lebanon last month was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians and an apparent war crime, an international human rights group said Monday.
The Oct. 25 airstrike killed three journalists as they slept at a guesthouse in southeast Lebanon in one of the deadliest attacks on the media since the Israel-Hezbollah war began 13 months ago.
Eleven other journalists have been killed and eight wounded since then, Lebanon's Health Minister Firass Abiad said.
More than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon, and women and children accounted for more than 900 of the dead, according to the Health Ministry. More than 1 million people have been displaced since Israeli ground troops invaded while Hezbollah has been firing thousands of rockets, drones and missiles into Israel - and drawing fierce Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Human Rights Watch determined that Israeli forces carried out the Oct. 25 attack using an air-dropped bomb equipped with a US produced Joint Direct Attack Munition, or JDAM, guidance kit.
The group said the US government should suspend weapons transfers to Israel because of the military´s repeated "unlawful attacks on civilians, for which US officials may be complicit in war crimes."
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the report.
The Biden administration said in May that Israel’s use of US-provided weapons in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but that wartime conditions prevented US officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.
The journalists killed in the airstrike in the southeastern town of Hasbaya were camera operator Ghassan Najjar and broadcast technician Mohammed Rida of the Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, and camera operator Wissam Qassim, who worked for Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV.
Human Rights Watch said a munition struck the single-story building and detonated upon hitting the floor.
"Israel’s use of US arms to unlawfully attack and kill journalists away from any military target is a terrible mark on the United States as well as Israel," said Richard Weir, the senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Weir added that "the Israeli military’s previous deadly attacks on journalists without any consequences give little hope for accountability in this or future violations against the media."
Human Rights Watch said that it found remnants at the site and reviewed photographs of pieces collected by the resort owner and determined that they were consistent with a JDAM guidance kit assembled and sold by the US company Boeing.

The JDAM is affixed to air-dropped bombs and allows them to be guided to a target by using satellite coordinates, making the weapon accurate to within several meters, the group said.
In November 2023, two journalists for Al-Mayadeen TV were killed in a drone strike at their reporting spot. A month earlier, Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and seriously wounded other journalists from France´s international news agency Agence France-Presse and Qatar´s Al-Jazeera TV on a hilltop not far from the Israeli border.