Yemen's Houthis Strike Saudi Aramco, Other Global Events Unfold
The Houthi movement announced on Wednesday that it had targeted Aramco facilities in the Saudi city of Yanbu and an airbase in Khamis Mushait, southern Saudi Arabia. The group stated these strikes were in retaliation for raids they attributed to Riyadh that had hit Yemen. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led military coalition accused the Yemeni Houthis of attempting to target the holy city of Mecca with a drone, an accusation that sparked widespread condemnation across the Islamic world and escalated tensions in the ongoing Yemeni conflict. Houthi political bureau member Hesham al-Assad dismissed the coalition's claim as a "lie" previously used and no longer credible.
In international affairs, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed Beijing's readiness to defend Iran's "legitimate interests" during a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Beijing, urging both Tehran and Washington to exercise "rationality." Amazon announced that several of its data centers in the UAE and Bahrain, damaged by drone strikes in March, cannot be restarted. In Lebanon, President Joseph Aoun called for Arab, European, and US support for the Lebanese army to maintain its deployment in the south, while affirming the state's determination to control weapons without clashing with Hezbollah.
In Gaza, the civil defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal reported that the death toll from the collapse of a damaged residential building in western Gaza City had risen to over 20 martyrs. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi reiterated his country's rejection of any plan to displace Palestinians, following Israeli military statements about readiness to eliminate Hamas and implement a "migration plan" in Gaza. Sisi emphasized Egypt's firm stance against the displacement of the Palestinian people or any attempt to liquidate the Palestinian cause during a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Elsewhere, Amnesty International accused Iranian authorities of committing "crimes against humanity" during the 2022 protests in a report released on Wednesday, the fourth anniversary of the movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed Canada become the first "partner member" of the EU. A special court in The Hague sentenced former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi to 25 years in prison for war crimes. In Ukraine, at least five people were killed by a Russian drone strike on a bus near the front line. The US Justice Department charged five individuals suspected of being Russian intelligence agents with conspiracy to carry out attacks and assassinations globally. In Sudan, at least sixty workers died in the collapse of a gold mine in West Kordofan state, with many others still missing. Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appeared before the International Criminal Court to face charges related to his "war on drugs." Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg rejected calls to pause or slow down AI development, citing market mechanisms and legal risks as sufficient controls.
