Hadi Holds Meeting at Joint Command HQ in Riyadh

President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi during his meeting at the Joint Command HQ. Saba
President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi during his meeting at the Joint Command HQ. Saba
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Hadi Holds Meeting at Joint Command HQ in Riyadh

President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi during his meeting at the Joint Command HQ. Saba
President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi during his meeting at the Joint Command HQ. Saba

Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi stressed Thursday the importance of continuing military operations against Houthi militias across the country.

The President’s comments came during a visit to the headquarters of the Joint Command in the Saudi Ministry of Defense.

Hadi and his Vice President (Lt. Gen.) Ali Mohsen Saleh were received by Commander of Joint Forces Lt. Gen. Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Abdulaziz. They later convened a session with senior commanders at the Joint Command to discuss the latest developments in combat operations in the battlefields of Marib, al-Jawf and Sanaa governorates.

From there, they followed up, via video conference, with the commanders in the battlefields represented by the Minister of Defense, Mohammed Ali al-Maqdashi, the Governor of Marib, Commander of Joint Operations Maj. General Sagheer bin Aziz and Commander of Coalition Forces in Marib Maj. Gen. Abdulhameed al-Muzayani.

The Saba news agency said Hadi praised the significant role of the Kingdom in support of Yemen, its security and stability.

“The Saudi-led Arab Coalition is a genuine partner to Yemen in times of peace and war. The Coalition's efforts are deeply appreciated by all Yemeni peoples,” he said.

Meanwhile, the 26 September newspaper quoted Yemeni Army spokesman Brigadier General Abdo Majli as mocking alleged Houthi victories in Nahm, al-Jawf, Sarwah, Bayda’, Taiz and Dhale.

He said the Yemeni Army made an advance in those areas.

“In the Nahm district, east of the capital Sanaa, the National Army managed to regain control of a number of Houthi-controlled areas,” Majli said.

Following battles in Akabat, located between the governorates of Jawf and Marib, the spokesman said the Army was able to take control of positions and force Houthis to flee.

Separately, Yemen's Information Minister said Thursday that alleged Houthi claims of victory in certain areas are an “honest announcement on the demise of the political process in Yemen.”

Muammar al-Eryani said the militias insist on going ahead with their coup plot financed by Iran.



ICC Rejects Israeli Bid to Halt Gaza War Investigation

Tents of internally displaced Palestinian families seen among the ruins of destroyed buildings in Al-Zaitun neighborhood during a rainy day in the east of Gaza City on, 12 December 2025, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. (EPA)
Tents of internally displaced Palestinian families seen among the ruins of destroyed buildings in Al-Zaitun neighborhood during a rainy day in the east of Gaza City on, 12 December 2025, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. (EPA)
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ICC Rejects Israeli Bid to Halt Gaza War Investigation

Tents of internally displaced Palestinian families seen among the ruins of destroyed buildings in Al-Zaitun neighborhood during a rainy day in the east of Gaza City on, 12 December 2025, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. (EPA)
Tents of internally displaced Palestinian families seen among the ruins of destroyed buildings in Al-Zaitun neighborhood during a rainy day in the east of Gaza City on, 12 December 2025, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. (EPA)

Appeals judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday rejected one in a series of legal challenges brought by Israel against the court's probe into its conduct of the Gaza war.

On appeal, judges refused to overturn a lower court decision that the prosecution's investigation into alleged crimes under its jurisdiction could include events following the deadly attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, 2023.

The ruling means the investigation continues and the arrest warrants issued last year for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant remain in place.

Israel rejects the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza, where it has waged a military campaign it says is aimed at eliminating Hamas following the October 7 attacks.

The ICC initially also issued a warrant for Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, but withdrew that later following credible reports of his death.

A ceasefire agreement in the conflict took effect on October 10, but the war destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure, and living conditions are dire.

According to Gaza health officials, whose data is frequently cited with confidence by the United Nations, some 67,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza.

This ruling focuses on only one of several Israeli legal challenges against the ICC investigations and the arrest warrants for its officials. There is no timeline for the court to rule on the various other challenges to its jurisdiction in this case.


Gaza Struggles to Pull Bodies From Rubble as Storms Rock Damaged Buildings

A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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Gaza Struggles to Pull Bodies From Rubble as Storms Rock Damaged Buildings

A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A general view of a residential building damaged during the war, in Gaza City, December 14, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Authorities in Gaza warned on Monday that more war-damaged buildings may collapse because of heavy rain in the devastated Palestinian enclave and said the weather was making it hard to recover bodies still under the rubble.

Two buildings collapsed in Gaza on Friday, killing at least 12 people according to local health authorities, amid a storm that has also washed away and flooded tents, and led to deaths from exposure.

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in October after two years of intense bombardment and military operations, but humanitarian agencies say there is still very little aid getting into Gaza, where nearly the entire population is homeless.

Gaza Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal called on the international community to provide mobile homes and caravans for displaced Palestinians rather than tents.

"If people are not protected today we will witness more victims, more killing of people, children, women, entire families inside these buildings," he said.

Mohammad Nassar and his family were living in a six-storey building that was badly damaged by Israeli strikes earlier in the war, and then collapsed on Friday.

His family had struggled to find alternative accommodation and had been flooded out while living in a tent during a previous bout of bad weather. Nassar went out to buy some necessities on Friday and returned to a scene of carnage with rescue workers struggling to pull bodies from the rubble.

"I saw my son's hand sticking out from under the ground. It was the scene that affected me the most. My son under the ground and we are unable to get him out," Nassar said. His son, 15, died, as did a daughter, aged 18.

Gaza authorities are meanwhile still digging to recover around 9,000 bodies they estimate remain buried in rubble from Israeli bombing during the war, but they lack the machinery needed to expedite the work, spokesman Ismail al-Thawabta said.

On Monday, rescue workers retrieved the remains of around 20 people from a multi-storey building bombed in December 2023 where around 60 people, including 30 children, were believed to be sheltering.


Mother of Jailed French Journalist Asks Algerian President for Pardon

This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP
This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP
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Mother of Jailed French Journalist Asks Algerian President for Pardon

This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP
This undated handout photograph, courtesy of the Gleizes family, released on June 30, 2025, shows Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist, at an unknown location. © So Press/RSF via AFP

The mother of jailed French journalist Christophe Gleizes wrote a letter to Algeria's president requesting he pardon her son from his seven-year sentence on terror-related charges.

Gleizes, a sportswriter, was convicted of "glorifying terrorism" in June.

"I respectfully ask you to consider granting Christophe a pardon, so that he may regain his freedom and his family," Sylvie Godard wrote in the letter, which was dated December 10 and seen by AFP on Monday.

Gleizes's lawyers are also seeking a new trial with the country's highest court.

Gleizes was arrested in May 2024 while travelling to northeastern Algeria's Kabylia region to write about the country's most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie.

In 2021, he met the head of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group designated a terrorist organization by Algiers.

At this month's appeal hearing, Gleizes said he did not know the MAK had been listed as a terrorist organization, and asked the court's forgiveness for his "journalistic mistakes".

An Algerian appeals court upheld his sentence this month, a decision his mother called "incomprehensible".

"Nowhere in any of his writings will you find any trace of statements hostile to Algeria and its people," she wrote in her letter to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Gleizes is currently France's only journalist imprisoned abroad, according to rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), and French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to work towards his release.

Gleizes's jailing comes at a time of diplomatic friction between Paris and Algiers after France last year officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region, where Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front.