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Yemen’s Hadi Appoints New Head of Shura Council, Attorney General, Cabinet Secretary

President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi chairs a meeting with cabinet ministers, Saba News Agency
President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi chairs a meeting with cabinet ministers, Saba News Agency
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Yemen’s Hadi Appoints New Head of Shura Council, Attorney General, Cabinet Secretary

President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi chairs a meeting with cabinet ministers, Saba News Agency
President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi chairs a meeting with cabinet ministers, Saba News Agency

The Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen announced its rejection of “unilateral” decisions issued recently by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, saying that they undermine the Riyadh Agreement.

A presidential decree released on Friday had appointed a new attorney general and Shura Council head.

Former prime minister Ahmed Ubaid bin Dagher was appointed as the head of the Shura Council and Ahmed Al-Mosai as attorney general.

Each of Abdullah Muhammad Abu Al-Ghaith and Taha Abdullah Jaafar Aman were appointed as deputy heads of the Shura Council.

The appointments came around a month after a new government was formed under the Riyadh Agreement.

Under Saudi sponsorship, the agreement was signed by the former government and the STC.

Hadi’s decision to have a change of leadership at the Shura Council comes as an apparent effort to rebuild Yemeni institutions whose performance was disrupted by the war waged by Iran-backed Houthi militias.

Al-Mosai, the new attorney general, held the post of deputy minister of interior and has worked on sensitive issues such as the war on terror and assassinations.

It is worth noting that Muti' Ahmad Dammaj was assigned the post of Secretary-General to the premiership.

“These decisions (appointments) are a dangerous escalation and a clear and unacceptable departure from what has been agreed upon, and undermining the Riyadh agreement,” the STC spokesman, Ali Al Kathiri, said today, on Twitter.

More so, the Club of Southern Judges criticized Friday's decrees.

The club said the appointment of the new attorney general violated the Yemeni constitution and judicial authority law.

There should have been a proposal by the president of the supreme judicial council for the appointment of the attorney general as the judicial authority law and its procedural amendments state, the club said.

Al-Mosai did not come from the judicial authority but from the ministry of interior, it stressed.

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Arab World

Gaza Health Officials Say Israeli Strike on Police Station Kills 9

Palestinians inspect the damage at a police station that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians inspect the damage at a police station that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026. (AP)
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Gaza Health Officials Say Israeli Strike on Police Station Kills 9

Palestinians inspect the damage at a police station that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026. (AP)
Palestinians inspect the damage at a police station that was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026. (AP)

Gaza health officials said an Israeli strike on the municipal police headquarters in Gaza City killed nine people on Wednesday, with the Israeli military saying it targeted a Hamas commander in that strike and another further south.

Attacks in the Palestinian territory have continued in recent days, despite a renewed push by the United States to advance a long-term Gaza peace plan.

Gaza City's Al-Shifa Hospital reported the arrival of nine bodies, including a woman and a girl, and at least 20 wounded following the strike in Gaza City.

The territory's civil defense agency, which operates as a rescue service under Hamas, confirmed the toll.

The Israeli military said the strike on the police headquarters targeted a Hamas commander who it said had planned to carry out attacks against troops in the territory.

"Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate harm to civilians, including the use of precise munitions and aerial surveillance," it added.

It said it had also struck a commander in Hamas's military wing in the Nuseirat area in the central Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem condemned what he called Israel's "complete disregard for all calls for a ceasefire".

He said US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace, which is tasked with implementing the ceasefire plan agreed last October, "bears responsibility for this escalation due to its failure to fulfill its obligations by pressuring the occupation" to abide by its commitments.

Trump's envoy Jared Kushner had said on Monday that progress towards disarming Hamas and moving forward with the Gaza peace plan could begin within a month following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The sit-down came two weeks after Hamas endorsed the latest stage of Trump's Gaza plan.

Netanyahu, however, has refused to support the roadmap, vowing not to withdraw troops until the Palestinian movement is "genuinely disarmed".

Gaza health officials said Tuesday that an Israeli airstrike killed six people in the port of Gaza City, with the Israeli army saying it had targeted several Hamas commanders.

Arab World

Canadian Official Condemns Israel’s ‘Unlawful Invasion’, Announces New Aid to Lebanon

Canada's Secretary of State for International Development Randeep Sarai speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP)
Canada's Secretary of State for International Development Randeep Sarai speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP)
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Canadian Official Condemns Israel’s ‘Unlawful Invasion’, Announces New Aid to Lebanon

Canada's Secretary of State for International Development Randeep Sarai speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP)
Canada's Secretary of State for International Development Randeep Sarai speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP)

A Canadian government official condemned Israel’s “unlawful invasion” of Lebanon, saying Beirut should govern its own space and have sovereignty over its lands.

Randeep Sarai, Canada’s secretary of state for international development, visited Lebanon to announce new humanitarian aid to the crisis-hit country, where the UN says some 360,000 people remain displaced as a result of the latest conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group.

“We have been working actively, I think, through diplomatic channels to do whatever possible to stop that and to allow Lebanese communities that are from those areas to be able to move back," Sarai said in an interview with The Associated Press late Tuesday.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war started when Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel on March 2, two days after the US and Israel began attacks on Iran. The war has killed over 4,000 people, caused wide destruction in southern Lebanon and at one point displaced over 1 million people.

Israel launched a ground invasion and is now occupying dozens of towns and villages in southern Lebanon, many of which have been almost completely demolished. Israeli officials have said they will not pull out from Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed.

Canada has criticized Israel's military actions in Gaza and Lebanon. It lists Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and has condemned its attacks on Israel.

During his visit, Sarai announced that Canada is launching three new programs in Lebanon to support vulnerable families and women, raising the total of its assistance to the nation so far this year to more than 71 million Canadian dollars ($50.23 million).

Canada, which is home to a large Lebanese diaspora, has given Lebanon about 800 million Canadian dollars ($575 million) in assistance over the past 10 years, including nearly $38 million in funding in March to provide basic necessities such as food, medical and health services, Sarai said.

“Our commitment is long-term, and we’re there for Lebanon,” said Sarai, who visited shelters housing people displaced by the war and Syrian refugees during his visit.

Sarai also met President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, who both took their posts last year promising to reinstate state authority over all parts of Lebanon and to implement reforms to fight corruption. The country is still struggling with an economic crisis that began in late 2019 rooted in decades of corruption.

“There’s a lot of optimism and I hope Lebanon will be able to deliver on these,” said Sarai about the pledged reforms. “The world is really watching and supportive of this government, and optimistic that they will achieve those goals."

Sarai said Canada is trying to help create a safe environment in Syria with access to food, drinking water and schools, so that more refugees can return.

“We’ll do whatever we can to make sure that environment is safe when they do decide to go back,” he said.

At one point during Syria's nearly 14-year civil war, Lebanon hosted an estimated 1.5 million refugees.

Some half-million Syrians have returned since former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted in December 2024, according to Lebanon’s social affairs minister.

Arab World

Israel Opens Criminal Probes Over Killings of Hind Rajab and Gaza Rescue Workers, Military Says

Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)
Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)
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Israel Opens Criminal Probes Over Killings of Hind Rajab and Gaza Rescue Workers, Military Says

Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)
Hind Rajab. (Family handout/AFP/Getty Images)

Israel's military will open internal investigations over its troops' killings in Gaza of Palestinian girl Hind Rajab in January 2024 and 15 emergency and aid workers in March 2025, it said on Wednesday, although rights groups said such probes rarely lead to convictions.

The military said the investigation decisions followed probes by its Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism. It released decisions regarding five incidents involving the deaths of Palestinians. They included an examination ‌of the killings ‌of seven aid workers with the World ‌Central ⁠Kitchen charity in ⁠April 2024. On that incident, the military said there was "no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct that would justify the opening of a criminal investigation."

"For more than a thousand days, the Israeli army has been conducting intensive combat across numerous fronts, carrying out a wide range of military missions ⁠in an exceptionally complex operational reality," the Israeli ‌military said.

"As part of the military's ‌obligations under international law and Israeli domestic law, the army ‌examines exceptional incidents that occurred during combat," the military said.

Israeli ‌rights groups say that criminal misconduct investigations into Israeli troops over the killing of Palestinians rarely lead to convictions.

"Nearly zero indictments are served relative to the number of complaints of soldiers and ‌commanders who commit offenses. In rare cases when commanders or soldiers are convicted, they receive ridiculously ⁠lenient ⁠sentences compared with the severity of the offense," a spokesperson for the Israeli rights organization Yesh Din said.

During Israel's offensive in response to an October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, Hind Rajab was pinned down in a car for hours, begging Palestinian medics over a mobile phone to send help, while her aunt, uncle and three cousins already lay dead.

When an ambulance finally arrived, contact with the girl and the rescuers themselves was lost. Twelve days later, the bodies of the girl, her relatives and two ambulance workers were recovered from the area.