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Human Rights Network Documents 18,000 Houthi Abuses in Yemen’s Dhamar

A home destroyed by the Houthis in Yemen's Dhamar. (Social media)
A home destroyed by the Houthis in Yemen's Dhamar. (Social media)
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Human Rights Network Documents 18,000 Houthi Abuses in Yemen’s Dhamar

A home destroyed by the Houthis in Yemen's Dhamar. (Social media)
A home destroyed by the Houthis in Yemen's Dhamar. (Social media)

A Yemeni human rights report revealed on Tuesday that the Iran-backed Houthi militias have committed over 18,000 violations against civilians in the Dhamar governorate during seven years.

The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms said that from December 1, 2014 to October 30, 2021, it documented 18,413 grave Houthi violations ranging from killings, physical assaults, kidnappings, raids, looting of public and private funds and other crimes.

Dhamar is located 100 kilometers south of the Houthi-held capital Sanaa.

The Network stated that during the past seven years, the Houthis committed 474 extrajudicial killings and injured 218 people in the governorate.

It documented 19 assassinations, 1,183 kidnappings, 72 enforced disappearances, 614 arbitrary arrests of travelers, 315 threats and exclusion from public office, nine cases of rape and forced prostitution, 274 cases of physical and psychological torture and 105 physical assaults of civilians.

It accused the militias of carrying out 48 bombings that affected houses, shops and places of worship, in addition to carrying out 1,459 raids and looting and burning of homes, 69 cases of confiscation and looting of private and public property, and 80 cases of appropriation of private lands and sale of state property.

In addition, the report documented 237 Houthi attacks on places of worship and educational and health facilities, and 24 cases of looting of party headquarters and charities.

“The Houthi militias forced more than 2,143 families to flee and they recruited 5,481 child soldiers in Dhamar, mainly orphans,” the Network report revealed, adding that the mentioned violations do not represent all the crimes that were committed by the Houthis in Dhamar.

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Gaza Civil Defense Describes Medic Killings as 'Summary Executions'

A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
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Gaza Civil Defense Describes Medic Killings as 'Summary Executions'

A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP
A video recovered from the phone of one of the slain aid workers, released by the Red Crescent, appeared to contradict the Israeli military's account - AFP

Gaza's civil defense agency on Monday accused the Israeli military of carrying out "summary executions" in the killing of 15 rescue workers last month, rejecting the findings of an internal probe by the army.

The medics and other rescue workers were killed when responding to distress calls near Gaza's southern city of Rafah early on March 23, days into Israel's renewed offensive in the Hamas-run territory, AFP reported.

Among those killed were eight Red Crescent staff members, six from the Gaza civil defense rescue agency and one employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, according to the UN humanitarian agency OCHA and Palestinian rescuers.

"The video filmed by one of the paramedics proves that the Israeli occupation's narrative is false and demonstrates that it carried out summary executions," Mohammed Al-Mughair, a civil defense official, told AFP, accusing Israel of seeking to "circumvent" its obligations under international law.

Following the shooting, the Red Crescent released a video recovered from the phone of one of the victims. It does not show executions, but it does directly contradict the version of events initially put forward by the Israeli military.

In particular, the video shows clearly that the ambulances were travelling with sirens, flashing lights and headlights on. The military had claimed the ambulances were travelling "suspiciously" and without lights.

- Operational failures -

The incident drew international condemnation, including concern about possible war crimes from UN human rights commissioner Volker Turk.

An Israeli military investigation into the incident released on Sunday "found no evidence to support claims of execution" or "indiscriminate fire" by its troops, but admitted to operational failures and said it was firing a field commander.

It said six of those killed were militants, revising an earlier claim that nine of the men were fighters.

The dead, who were buried in sand by Israeli forces, were only recovered several days after the attack from what the UN human rights agency OCHA described as a "mass grave".

The Palestine Red Crescent Society denounced the report as "full of lies".

"It is invalid and unacceptable, as it justifies the killing and shifts responsibility to a personal error in the field command when the truth is quite different," Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Red Crescent, told AFP.

The Israeli investigation said there were three shooting incidents in the area on that day.

In the first, soldiers shot at what they believed to be a Hamas vehicle.

In the second, around an hour later, troops fired "on suspects emerging from a fire truck and ambulances", the military said.

The probe determined that the fire in the first two incidents resulted from an "operational misunderstanding by the troops".

In the third incident, the troops fired at a UN vehicle "due to operational errors in breach of regulations", the military said.