Israel attacks several targets in Yemen. Asma al-Assad is said to be seriously ill. All developments in the news blog.
10:25 p.m.: Israel’s attorney general is calling for an investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, according to local media reports. The background is the suspicion that Sara Netanyahu is said to have obstructed justice and influenced witnesses, as several Israeli media reports, citing the office of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Specifically, it concerns allegations that, among other things, Sara Netanyahu is said to have ordered demonstrators to be sent to the house of an important witness in the criminal trial against her husband in order to harass the woman. According to Israeli media, the witness filed a complaint against Netanyahu’s wife. She is also said to have tried to intimidate prosecutors in this way.
A television report by the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 recently published text messages between Sara Netanyahu and one of her husband’s advisors, who died last year, from which the allegations are said to emerge.
A corruption trial has been ongoing against the Prime Minister for more than four years. He is charged with fraud, breach of trust and bribery. Among other things, he is accused of having granted the telecommunications giant Bezeq benefits as communications minister. He is also said to have accepted luxury gifts from billionaire friends.
10:06 p.m.: The director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says he narrowly escaped Israeli air strikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa. “As we were about to take our flight from Sanaa about two hours ago, the airport was bombed from the air,” Ghebreyesus wrote on Platform X. A member of the crew of his plane was injured. In addition, at least two people are said to have been killed at the airport. “The air traffic control tower, the departure hall – just a few meters away from us – and the runway were damaged.” He and his team will have to wait until the damage to the airport is repaired before they can take off.
Ghebreyesus claims to have negotiated the release of UN employees in Sanaa. The health and humanitarian situation in Yemen should also be assessed. “Our heartfelt condolences to the families whose loved ones lost their lives in the attack,” the WHO chief’s message ends.
8:45 p.m.: According to official figures, at least four people were killed in Israeli attacks in Yemen. A spokesman for the Houthi-controlled Ministry of Health told the German Press Agency that more than 40 people were also injured.
8:27 p.m.: According to activists, security forces of the new leadership in Syria have arrested a general who is said to be responsible for numerous death sentences in the notorious Saidnaya prison. General Mohammed Kanjo Hassan, the head of military justice under the rule of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad, was caught with 20 companions in the town of Chirbet al-Maasa, explains the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Hassan is “responsible for numerous death sentences,” it continues. Hassan is the highest-ranking member of the former Syrian authorities to be arrested since Assad’s fall.
According to the Observatory, Hassan’s arrest had initially failed the day before. Three representatives of the former government and 14 security forces of the new government were killed in fighting during the attempted capture of the Assad general.
According to the Association of Prisoners and Missing Persons of Saidnaya Prison (ADMSP), Hassan headed the Syrian military court from 2011 to 2014 – the first three years of the civil war, which began with the suppression of pro-democracy protests under ruler Assad. He was later promoted to head of the nationwide military justice system. Hassan sentenced “thousands of people” to death, said ADMSP co-founder Diab Serrija. The group estimates the fortune that Hassan extorted from prisoners’ relatives for providing information about them at around $150 million (around €143 million).
