Columbia University expels student protesters, fires union president amid ICE raids

Columbia University issued suspensions, expulsions, and temporary degree revocations to students connected to the April 2024 occupation of Hamilton Hall, as ICE agents reportedly arrested a second Palestinian Columbia student on Friday.

CAPITULATING TO TRUMP'S FUNDING CUT THREAT

By Michael Arria 

 March 14, 2025 10
Mondoweiss 

Columbia University (Scarlet Sappho, Flickr)


On Thursday, Columbia University issued suspensions, expulsions, and temporary degree revocations to a number of students connected to the April 2024 occupation of the school’s Hamilton Hall.

The announcement from the University Judicial Board came on the same day as a campus ICE raid, with Department of Homeland Security agents executing search warrants on two Columbia University residences.

“I am writing heartbroken to inform you that we had federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) in two university residences tonight,” Interim President Dr. Katrina Armstrong told students and staff in an email.

On Friday, DHS officials said they had announced another student protester who allegedly overstaying her Visa. She was identified as Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank.

“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem in a statement. “When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.”

Additionally, the school expelled and fired Grant Miner, President of UAW Local 2710, just one day before contract negotiations were set to begin.

“The shocking move is part of a wave of crackdowns on free speech against students and workers who have spoken out and protested for peace and against the war on Gaza,” said the union in a statement. “As the UAW has emphasized, the assault on First Amendment rights being jointly committed by the federal government and Columbia University are an attack on all workers who dare to protest, speak out, or exercise their freedom of association under the US Constitution.”

Less than a week ago Columbia Graduate Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE agents for his involvement in last spring’s Gaza protests. He is currently being detained in Louisiana, while the Trump administration attempts to deport him in what legal advocates say is an egregious violation of the First Amendment. Just days before the arrest Columbia published a new protocol reversing the school’s previous status as a sanctuary campus status and allowing ICE access to the school without a warrant in some circumstances.

Khalil, and seven other Columbia students, are now suing the university Mahmoud Khalil, to block the school from handing over private disciplinary records to Congress.
Trump crackdown

Khalil’s arrest, and the arrival of ICE agents on college campuses, is part of the Trump administration’s federal crackdown on the U.S. Palestine movement.

“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave,” Trump told a group of pro-Israel donors on the presidential campaign trail.

Shortly after arriving at the White House, Trump issued several executive orders aimed at stifling protest on campus, including one that seeks to cancel the visas of foreign students who participated in them.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” said Trump in a fact sheet released alongside the EO. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

Axios has reported that the State Department will use AI as a tool to revoke the visas of foreign students who appear “pro-Hamas.” Last week scholar Helyeh Doutaghi’s was placed on administrative leave by Yale Law School after an AI-generated article falsely accused her of being a “terrorist” over her connections to Palestine groups.

Thursday also saw the Trump administration send a letter to Columbia detailing a series of steps that the university could take in order to reverse the government’s recent cancellation of roughly $400 million in federal funds.

The demands included a mask ban, action on “anti-Zionist” discrimination, and the suspension of the students involved in the Hamilton Hall occupation. “We expect your immediate compliance,” read the letter.

After Khalil’s arrest, Columbia Journalism School dean, Jelani Cobb reportedly told a group of students to refrain from posting about the Middle East on their social media page. When a Palestinian student questioned the school acquiescing to Trump, Cobb told them, “Nobody can protect you. These are dangerous times.”

“If you were accepted to Columbia University, don’t come here,” tweeted a student. “This school will ruin your life for a McChicken and a nice tweet from Donald Trump.”

Marco Rubio’s diplomatic attack on South Africa is punishment for standing up to Israel

The Trump administration's extraordinary and unprecedented move to effectively expel South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was done for one reason: South Africa had the audacity to hold Israel accountable for the Gaza genocide.

By Ziyad Motala 

 March 15, 2025 

Mondoweiss 

Secretary Marco Rubio attends a meeting with U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammad al-Aiban, the Russian president’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov, and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at Diriyah Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, February 18, 2025. 

(Official State Department photo by Freddie Everett)

In an extraordinary and unprecedented move, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has declared South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool persona non grata, effectively expelling him from the United States. In a post on X, Rubio declared “Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America” and hates the President of the United States. The stated justification? Alleged “anti-American behavior” and “race-baiting”—vague and politically charged accusations likely referring to Rasool’s outspoken defense of South Africa’s land reform policies. Yet the true motive behind this decision is unmistakable: a retaliatory strike against South Africa for its principled decision to bring Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide in Gaza.​

This expulsion is not about diplomacy; it is about punishing a nation that dared to challenge Washington’s unwavering support for Israel.

This expulsion is not about diplomacy; it is about punishing a nation that dared to challenge Washington’s unwavering support for Israel. By targeting Rasool, the Trump administration seeks to send a chilling message: any government that pursues legal accountability for Israeli actions will face political and economic consequences. It is a brazen act of diplomatic retribution, undermining the very international legal institutions that the United States claims to uphold.

This act is not only an abuse of power but also a chilling indication of how Donald Trump’s second term is shaping up—a regime that has discarded even the pretense of respect for diplomacy, international law, and basic norms of governance.

A precedent that undermines U.S. credibility

Historically, declaring an ambassador persona non grata is an extreme step reserved for cases of espionage, criminal conduct, or clear threats to national security. It is almost never used against diplomats simply for expressing policy views that differ from those of Washington.


Rubio’s decision to expel Rasool not only weaponizes the State Department against foreign governments that do not toe the Trump administration’s line.

Rubio’s decision to expel Rasool not only weaponizes the State Department against foreign governments that do not toe the Trump administration’s line, but it also sends a chilling message: any country that challenges U.S. policy, whether through legal avenues like the ICJ or by advocating for its own domestic reforms, will be punished.

What makes this particularly egregious is that South Africa is not a rogue state. It is a constitutional democracy and a longtime advocate for international justice, playing a pivotal role in the anti-apartheid struggle and the establishment of institutions like the ICC. By expelling its ambassador, Rubio and Trump are making it clear that they have no interest in engaging with the world on anything other than their own terms.
Punishing South Africa for standing up to Israel

Let’s be clear—this expulsion has nothing to do with so-called “race-baiting” or South Africa’s land policies, no matter how desperately the Trump administration clings to that excuse. The notion that a government long committed to reconciliation and constitutional democracy is somehow oppressing white South Africans is as laughable as it is cynical. Rasool has been targeted for one reason alone: his government had the audacity to hold Israel accountable at the ICJ for its military assault on Gaza, a move that has sent Washington into a fit of diplomatic retaliation.

President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have openly demonstrated unwavering support for Israel’s most extreme policies, effectively dismantling any remaining U.S. commitment to Palestinian rights. During Trump’s second term, the administration has taken a series of aggressive measures that have further entrenched Israel’s occupation and undermined the prospects for Palestinian self-determination.

The administration has cut all remaining aid to Palestinian refugees and pressured allied nations to do the same, severely limiting humanitarian assistance and exacerbating the suffering of displaced Palestinians. It has also provided full backing for Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, disregarding international law and emboldening settlement activities that have further displaced Palestinian communities. In addition, the administration has openly declared its intention to expel Palestinians from Gaza, exploring proposals to relocate them to third countries, while intimating support for Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. These moves have effectively foreclosed any possibility of a two-state solution and reinforced an irreversible status quo in which Palestinian rights are systematically eroded.

South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is one of the most significant legal challenges to U.S. backed impunity in decades. Rather than responding with diplomacy, Trump and Rubio have chosen the path of authoritarian bullying, expelling a respected ambassador in an attempt to intimidate any other nation that might dare to follow South Africa’s lead.

Trump’s lawless second term

If this were an isolated incident, it would still be outrageous. However, it is merely one addition to the long list of lawless, authoritarian actions that have defined President Trump’s return to power. In his first two months back in office, President Trump has pardoned January 6 rioters, installed loyalists in the Department of Justice, deployed federal troops against protests, rolled back environmental protections, allegedly weaponized the IRS against political opponents, and pushed for draconian abortion laws, solidifying his administration’s authoritarian trajectory.

Now, with Rubio at the helm of the State Department, Trump’s second-term foreign policy is revealing itself as even more reckless than his first. Instead of engaging in diplomacy, his administration is now openly engaging in diplomatic thuggery—expelling ambassadors not for wrongdoing, but for daring to challenge U.S. hegemony.

This move will not be forgotten, and it will not go unchallenged. South Africa has every right to retaliate by expelling U.S. diplomats or taking further legal action against the Trump administration. Other nations—especially those that claim to support international law—must speak out against this abuse of power.

Rubio and Trump are sending a clear message: America’s diplomatic corps is not a vehicle for engagement but a tool of intimidation. If the world does not push back now, there is no telling how far Trump’s authoritarian second term will go.

Opinion


Keir Starmer, slashing UK aid is morally bankrupt and will only strengthen the hand of dictators and despots

By cutting UK aid, Keir Starmer isn't just catering to Donald Trump, he's threatening lives and making the world a more dangerous place, says HRW

 Yasmine Ahmed.

Yasmine Ahmed
14 Mar, 2025
The New Arab 

With a diminished position on the global stage and waning soft power, the UK and its allies lose their ability to push back against authoritarian trends, writes Yasmine Ahmed [photo credit: Getty Images]


The UK Labour government was elected on a manifesto that it was “committed to restoring development spending at the level of 0.7 percent of gross national income as soon as fiscal circumstances allow.” Yet, just eight months into its tenure, the government has u-turned on this commitment, slashing the aid budget to just 0.3 percent by 2027, a projected reduction in cash terms of approximately 4.5 billion pounds.

I have heard firsthand from human rights defenders what aid cuts could mean. The leader of an organisation that ensures access to reproductive health for the most marginalised people in Nairobi, Kenya, told me it is girls, like her 11-year-old sister, whose lives will be in danger. Her sister, a victim of sexual abuse, died as a result of not having access to accurate information on reproductive health and safe abortion care.

Despite the UK Government’s commitments to protect women and girls globally, they are the ones who most likely will bear the brunt of these cuts, if the 2020 cuts are anything to go by.

By 2021, it is reported that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office had reduced its spending on sexual and reproductive health and rights by a third, halved its spending on family planning and cut spending on reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health by 37 percent.

I am not sure words exist that can do justice to the scale of the suffering this decision will create, the lives that will be lost, and the hardships and insecurity it will generate. It is an unconscionable betrayal of the world’s most marginalised people and a shameful retreat from the world stage. It is commendable that the former development minister, Anneliese Dodds, resigned on principle over the extent and impact of the cuts.

Trump's Gaza AI video and the revenge of America's Loser Class

United States     Alex Foley

According to the United Nations, more than 300 million people require humanitarian assistance; more than 120 million people have been displaced; and two million people teeter on the brink of famine as the World Food Programme warns that “Acute food insecurity is set to increase in both magnitude and severity across 22 countries and territories.”

The UN Secretary-General warned that the US aid cuts will be "devastating for vulnerable people around the world ... from Gaza to Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine and beyond.” The UK’s reduction will only compound this.

In Sudan alone, a total of 24.6 million people are acutely food insecure and famine is spreading across the country.

Relatively recently, the UK announced a doubling of aid to Sudan and further aid for Gaza but it is not clear whether this spending will be ring-fenced going forward.

In attempting to justify the cuts, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that the decision was not one he was happy to make, but “the defence and security of the British people must always come first." His justification betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the role aid can play in reinforcing Britain’s security, both at home and abroad.
Here lies the remains of the UK's soft power

Put simply, Britain benefits from the stability that UKAID fosters overseas.

That stability might be delivered through providing education to children and young people, including those vulnerable to recruitment by extremist groups, improving government accountability by supporting civil society groups in fragile or conflict-affected countries, or through programmes aimed at promoting social cohesion across ethnic, or religious divides. Investing in stability also reduces the likelihood that instability will cross borders, either in the form of terrorism or forced migration.

Starmer’s decision seems all the more short-sighted and political as these measures have been taken without a risk assessment and while knowing the efficacy of aid in promoting stability.

Painted as a zero-sum game between aid and defence, the discussion around this topic has failed to acknowledge the important role aid plays in exerting soft power, nor has it expended much energy examining alternative fundraising options available to Starmer.

Placed in this context, the evisceration of the aid budget feels like a political choice, more geared towards currying favour in the White House, which is itself slashing aid, and avoiding criticism in the right-wing media, than a genuine attempt at protecting and promoting British interests.


The decision to downgrade the UK as an aid superpower will invariably have longer-term security implications. As the US and UK, two countries that are among the top international aid donors, signal their retreat, who do we think is likely to fill the void?

The European Commission, France and the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland have also decided to reduce future overseas development spending while Germany, another international aid giant, is yet to decide which course it will take.

With this vacuum, countries will not only become more susceptible to division and conflict, but also the influence of states that are actively hostile to human rights, like Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

We have already seen how Trump’s cuts to aid have severed a critical lifeline for civil society actors and independent media in countries like Armenia and Moldova, countries already straining under the influence of Russia’s election meddling and misinformation campaigns. And in Georgia, where activists are fighting the dramatic rise of authoritarianism, and Russia itself and Belarus, where the abusive governments are attempting to eviscerate all forms of dissent. Crushing dissent often comes accompanied by attacks on women’s rights too.

Britain should not abandon those on the front line of fighting the rise of authoritarianism in Europe and beyond. Even if Starmer identifies this threat and maintains funding to some of these programmes, this whack-a-mole approach to aid inevitably leads to neglected areas, such as the Sahel and the Gulf of Aden, becoming more vulnerable to instability.
Related

Britain needs to end its two-tier treatment of Gaza vs. Ukraine
Yasmine Ahmed

China, which continues to increase its global influence, undermine the rules-based order and promote its own norms via its “Belt and Road Initiative” and the Global Security Initiative” — which dilute human rights — is likely to be seen as an ever more attractive option in the void left by the US, UK and other democratic governments. With a diminished position on the global stage and waning soft power, the UK and its allies lose their ability to push back against these trends.

Leaving aside the massive human cost of this unconscionable decision, which aid groups warn could result in hundreds of thousands of deaths, Starmer’s approach is prioritising short-term gains over longer-term objectives. Weakening the basic rights of so many people will inevitably severely undermine British interests.

As one member of parliament put it in 2021, cutting aid is “not in the national interest” and “will increase costs and have a big impact on our economy.”

That member of parliament was Keir Starmer. He should heed his own advice.

Yasmine Ahmed is UK Director at Human Rights Watch
Follow her on X: @YasmineAhmed001

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.

HIV doctors urge US to reverse 

'catastrophic' funding cuts

AFP , Saturday 15 Mar 2025

Hundreds of HIV doctors and researchers have called on the Trump administration to reverse its sweeping aid funding cuts, saying they are "doing catastrophic harm" to the global fight against AIDS.

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The United States has historically been the world's largest donor of humanitarian assistance, but President Donald Trump has slashed international aid since returning to the White House less than two months ago.

The cuts have had a huge impact on global efforts to combat HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and other health scourges, putting millions of lives at risk, humanitarian organisations have warned.

An open letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed by hundreds of high-profile HIV doctors, researchers and public health experts called on the government to change course.

"Unless reversed, the dismantling of the US-supported AIDS response will cause the deaths of an estimated six million people in the next four years, decades of progress will be reversed, and the world will face growing HIV epidemics across the globe," said the letter, dated Thursday.

On Monday, Rubio announced that 83 percent of all contracts under the vast US humanitarian agency USAID have been terminated.

This meant an anti-HIV initiative called PEPFAR, which is one world's most successful public health efforts and has saved an estimated 26 million lives over the two decades, has been "virtually eliminated", the letter said.

The cuts also immediately halted medical trials across the world, "leaving study participants stranded," the letter said.

Research institutions have been stripped of funding, staff and political independence, it added. The prestigious US university Johns Hopkins announced on Thursday it would lay off more than 2,000 employees because of the USAID cuts.

Even if US courts eventually find these decisions illegal, "the human suffering and loss of lives happening now cannot be reversed," the letter said.

Among the signatories was French scientist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who won the 2008 medicine Nobel prize for her work identifying the HIV virus in 1983.

The US government has said the funding cuts were aimed at reducing spending, while Trump's billionaire advisor Elon Musk has boasted of putting USAID "through the woodchipper".

The letter was published as researchers gathered for the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco.

Protests were held across the US last week calling for people to "Stand Up for Science".

Trumponomics’ Exorbitant Burden

Raghuram Rajan

Friday 14 Mar 2025

Ahram Online

'Apple reaps large profit margins selling the superbly designed iPhone (and its software content) to the world, while Foxconn gets tiny margins manufacturing iPhones in China and India. Even though the overall trade numbers may reflect a large deficit, the US is far from being a victim.'Share

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A prominent economist once told me that macroeconomic policy debates are all about the prime mover to which other variables respond. The implication, he explained, is that “You can invert policy prescriptions simply by claiming a different forcing variable.” A paper by Stephen Miran, published just before he was nominated to chair US President Donald Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, does precisely this. Since his views likely reflect those of the administration, they surely warrant close attention.

The traditional view of why the United States runs chronic trade deficits is that it overspends, owing largely to its fiscal deficits (the forcing variable). But the true forcing variable, Miran argues, is the rest of the world’s hunger for US financial assets, especially Treasuries. Foreigners want ever more US Treasuries for their foreign-exchange reserves and for financial transactions, and the US has had to run large fiscal deficits to meet this exorbitant demand. The resulting capital inflows keep the dollar too strong for US exporters to compete, leading to persistent trade deficits.

The argument is unpersuasive, for several reasons. First, consider the timing. The US started running a steady trade deficit in the mid-1970s. It began running a steady fiscal deficit around the same time, with the exception of the late 1990s, when capital-gains taxes and private consumption soared because of the dot-com boom, temporarily shifting the locus of US overspending from government to households.

While foreigners have been buying US financial assets for a long time, and US entities have been repaying the compliment, the “forcing” effect of dollar accumulation by foreign central banks really took off only after the Asian financial crisis of 1997, when East Asian economies, seared by the harsh conditions imposed on them by the International Monetary Fund, built reserves to protect against sudden stops in financing. Again, the timing is off.

Moreover, the US does not run a uniform trade deficit. Rather, it has a trade deficit in goods and a net surplus in services (nearly $300 billion in 2024). When economists encounter that kind of pattern, they see orthodox comparative advantage at work, which benefits the United States. Apple reaps large profit margins selling the superbly designed iPhone (and its software content) to the world, while Foxconn gets tiny margins manufacturing iPhones in China and India. Even though the overall trade numbers may reflect a large deficit, the US is far from being a victim.

Another problem is that any excess demand for US Treasuries from the rest of the world should show up in a huge excess premium for US bonds. Yet Miran complains that US bond interest rates don’t reflect such a premium, giving the US little benefit from producing high-demand financial assets. This seems strange. Why would such demand hold up the dollar but not push down US bond rates?

The simpler explanation is that the US Congress spends as it wishes, relying on the rest of the world to buy Treasuries to fund what domestic revenues cannot cover. Has there ever been a member of Congress who says the US should run deficits to accommodate the world’s need for Treasuries? If excess demand for US financial assets was really such a problem, the US Congress could simply run smaller deficits, have foreigners scramble over one other to buy the smaller issuance of Treasuries, and thus orchestrate lower US interest rates (and higher US production).

Moreover, if creating reserve assets is such an exorbitant burden, why not allow other countries to shoulder it? Far from entertaining this possibility, Trump recently threatened the BRICS group of major emerging economies for even daring to contemplate separate non-dollar payment arrangements. While admitting that the US does need foreign money to fund its fiscal deficit (perhaps a tacit recognition that the fiscal deficit really is the primary forcing variable), Miran suggests another reason to have foreigners buy US financial assets and use its financial system: Doing so gives the US more ways to punish foreign countries that step out of line including, alarmingly, imposing a selective tax on Treasury interest payments.

If the US does not want to give up its exorbitant burden, could import tariffs help US manufacturers overcome an overvalued dollar? As Miran points out, tariffs will partly be offset by a stronger dollar, as was the case in 2018-19, when the US imposed sweeping tariffs on China. But a stronger dollar will hurt US exports, and if the dollar prices of imported products do not change much, it is hard to see how US manufacturers will become more competitive.

Thus, Miran sets his sights on a concerted dollar depreciation, supported with interventions by non-US central banks who will be “persuaded” under the threat of tariffs or a withdrawal of US defense support. But even if such interventions were effective, foreign central banks would have to sell US Treasuries and buy domestic bonds, which would make the US fiscal deficit harder to finance.

Miran should be commended for trying to explain why the US is turning against the system it built. To be sure, the US fiscal deficit is not the only forcing variable. Chinese underconsumption also contributes to global trade imbalances. Moreover, the US has lower tariffs than some of its trading partners, some of them subsidize business more than the US does, and some have shown scant respect for intellectual property rights. But these issues are best addressed through negotiations (perhaps supported by implicit threats).

It is not clear where the Trump administration’s current path of “shock and awe” is supposed to lead. The claim that the dollar’s attractiveness is an exorbitant burden rather than an exorbitant privilege is unpersuasive, especially when those making such arguments are so reluctant to give up the burden. Markets are unnerved by the punishment that the administration, convinced that the US is a victim, is willing to inflict on close allies. If such behavior reduces the attractiveness of the dollar, perhaps it really will become an exorbitant burden. But that is not a future that any American should want.

 

Raghuram G. Rajan, a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the co-author (with Rohit Lamba) of Breaking the Mold: India’s Untraveled Path to Prosperity (Princeton University Press, May 2024).

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025.

'Most scared I've been': US strikes sow panic in Yemeni capital Sanaa

AFP , Sunday 16 Mar 2025

Yemenis on Sunday recounted their panic and terror as the first US attacks under President Donald Trump hit Sanaa, killing dozens and wounding more than 100.

A photo circulating on X shows US President Donald Trump watching American airstrikes on Yemen live from the White House.

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A resident described a "horrific explosion" that shook the capital late Saturday during suhoor, the night-time meal in Ramadan.

"The house shook, the windows shattered, and my family and I were terrified," father-of-two Ahmed, who did not want to give his full name, told AFP.

"I've been living in Sanaa for 10 years, hearing shelling throughout the war. By God, I've never experienced anything like this before."
 

The Houthi rebels, who control much of the Arabian Peninsula's poorest country, have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since 2015.

The US strikes came after Yemen's Houthi group warned on Tuesday they were "resuming the ban on the passage of all Israeli ships" on the vital Red Sea shipping lane after Israel failed to meet the four-day deadline the group set on Friday to lift its blockade on humanitarian aid delivery to Gaza.
 

"This is the most scared I've been since the beginning of the war," said Malik, 43, who has three children.

"Yesterday's shelling in Al-Jiraf (northern Sanaa) was absolutely terrifying: six strikes in a row.

"My children were screaming and crying in my arms. It's the first time I've ever said the Shahada," he said, referring to the prayer that is recited before death.

"I was waiting for one of these missiles to hit our house."

Victims are 'always civilians'
 

Attacks on Sanaa, Saada in northwest Yemen, and other areas killed 31 and wounded 101, according to the Houthi health ministry.

Footage from the group's Al Masirah TV showed children and a woman among those being treated in a hospital emergency room, including a dazed girl with blackened legs wrapped in bandages.

Screengrab from footage courtesy Al Masirah TV

Late on Saturday, a plume of white smoke had risen over Sanaa after explosions rocked the northern district of the capital.

Mohammad Albasha, a US-based consultant, said the area targeted in Sanaa was home to senior Houthi leaders and considered their stronghold in the capital.

"This is the point of no return, and from now on, it's gloves off between the Houthis and CENTCOM," he said, referring to the regional US military command.

Since October 2023, Houthi rebels have attacked Israel and ships linked to Tel Aviv to pressure Israel to end its war on Gaza, which has killed nearly 48,000 Palestinians. The attacks triggered reprisals from US and British warplanes, with regular strikes on Yemen since the war began.

Amal, 29, who lives with her mother in Sanaa, said Saturday's attacks were "terrifying... windows were shattered and the walls of the house shook".

But she added: "We've witnessed hundreds of raids, most of them in the same areas.

"Several military operations against the Houthis have been announced, but they've only added more casualties, most of them civilians.

"The homes and locations of the leaders are well-known, but the victims are always civilians."

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

Yemen's Houthi leader calls for 'million-strong' rally after deadly US strikes

AFP , Sunday 16 Mar 2025

The leader of Yemen's Houthi rebels on Sunday called for a "million-strong" march of defiance after deadly US strikes hit the capital, Sanaa, and other areas.

File Photo: Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi addresses Shia Muslims with a speech broadcast on a giant screen in Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa. AFPShare

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Houthi urged major rallies on Monday, the anniversary of a celebrated military victory by the Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century.

"I call on our dear people to go out tomorrow on the anniversary of the Battle of Badr in a million-strong march in Sanaa and the rest of the governorates," Abdulmalik al-Houthi said in a televised address.

Houthis vowed to target American cargo ships in the Red Sea after deadly US attacks struck the country.

The first US strikes on Yemen under President Donald Trump killed 31 people and wounded more than 100, according to the Houthi health ministry spokesperson Anis al-Asbahi .

They followed Houthi threats to renew attacks on Israeli shipping in the Red Sea following a pause since January, when the Gaza war ceasefire began.

"America will now be subject to the embargo as long as it continues its aggression," al-Houthi said.

"We will confront escalation with escalation, and we will respond to the American enemy by targeting its aircraft carrier and warships and banning its ships," he added.

"If the American aggression against our country continues, we will move to additional escalatory options."

Houthi attacks on cargo vessels during the Gaza war have disrupted the vital Red Sea route, which normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic.