A ceasefire agreement in Gaza between Hamas and Israel will not prevent Yemen’s Houthis from responding to Israel’s bombing of the port of Hudaydah, a group leader said yesterday.
“Any agreement to stop the aggression, lift the siege on Gaza, and release Palestinian prisoners from the Israeli occupation’s prisons is welcome. However, [the agreement] will not prevent a response from Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran against Israel,” a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, Hazam Al-Assad, said on X.
He stressed the inevitability of a response to Israel, saying “the response is coming… coming… coming and will be decisive.”
READ: Hudaydah air strikes by Israel a ‘possible war crime’, says HRW
Last Thursday, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi stressed that the Axis of Resistance’s response to Israel’s bombing of the port and its assassination of Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, is “inevitable,” stressing that “the response is coming and … cannot be reversed at all.”
“It is a practical necessity to deter the enemy…and inevitable,” he said, considering that delaying the response makes it “more painful”.
On 20 July, Israel launched air strikes on fuel tanks in the port of Hudaydah, killing six people and injuring 84 others, in addition to causing widespread destruction, according to officials.
In a report released today, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said the attack could amount to a “war crime”. It added the the attacks were “apparently unlawful indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians that could have a long-term impact on millions of Yemenis who rely on the port for food and humanitarian aid.”
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