strikes

Italy has signed a deal with Albania, where it planned to process up to 36,000 asylum seekers per year.

The European Union’s top court has backed Italian judges who questioned a list of “safe countries” drawn up by Rome, as it prepares to deport migrants to detention centres in Albania.

The hard-right government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni denounced the European Court of Justice’s (ECJ) ruling and said it “weakens policies to combat mass illegal immigration”.

Meloni’s plan to outsource migrant processing to a non-EU country and speed up repatriations of failed asylum seekers has been followed closely by others in the bloc.

The costly scheme has been frozen for months by legal challenges.

Italian magistrates have cited the European court’s decision that EU states cannot designate an entire country as “safe” when certain regions are not.

On Friday, in a long-awaited judgement, the Luxembourg-based ECJ said Italy is free to decide which countries are “safe”, but warned that such a designation should meet strict legal standards and allow applicants and courts to access and challenge the supporting evidence.

In its statement, the ECJ said a Rome court had turned to EU judges, citing the impossibility of accessing such information and thus preventing it from “challenging and reviewing the lawfulness of such a presumption of safety”.

The ECJ also said a country might not be classified “safe” if it does not offer adequate protection to its entire population, agreeing with Italian judges that had raised this issue last year.

Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, had signed a migration deal in November 2023, and last year, Rome opened two centres in Albania, where it planned to process up to 36,000 asylum seekers per year.

The detention facilities have, however, been empty for months, due to the judicial obstacles. Last week, a report found that their construction cost was seven times more than that of an equivalent centre in Italy.

Government’s approach ‘dismantled’?

The European court made its judgement considering a case of two Bangladeshi nationals who were rescued at sea by Italian authorities and taken to Albania, where their asylum claims were rejected based on Italy’s classification of Bangladesh as a “safe” country.

Dario Belluccio, a lawyer who represented one of the Bangladeshi asylum seekers at the ECJ on Friday, said the Albanian migrant camps scheme had been killed off.

“It will not be possible to continue with what the Italian government had envisioned before this decision … Technically, it seems to me that the government’s approach has been completely dismantled,” he told the Reuters news agency.

Meloni’s office complained that the EU judgement allows national judges to dictate policy on migration, “further reduc(ing) the already limited” capacity of parliament and government to take decisions on the matter.

“This is a development that should concern everybody,” it said.

Meanwhile, though the Albanian scheme is stuck in legal limbo, Italy’s overall effort to curb undocumented migration by sea has been successful.

There have been 36,557 such migrant arrivals in the year to date, slightly up from the same period of 2024, but far below the 89,165 recorded over the same time span in 2023.

July 29 (UPI) — A massive magnitude-8.7 earthquake struck near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula Wednesday morning, prompting tsunami warnings to be issued throughout the Pacific, including for much of the U.S. West Coast.

The earthquake struck at about 8:25 a.m., Japanese time, off the Kamchatka Peninsula. The Japan Meteorological Agency rated it a 8.7-magnitude temblor while the U.S. Geological Survey said it was an 8.8-magnitude strike. The U.S. survey said it struck about 74 miles east-southeast of Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula at a depth of 12.8 miles.

If confirmed as an 8.8 magnitude strike, it would be among the 10 largest earthquakes ever recorded and the largest since 2011, when a 9.1-magnitude earthquake struck Japan, resulting in a tsunami that killed more than 18,000 people and destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

United States

A tsunami warning has also been issued for Hawaii, Alaska’s Samalga Pass, and California’s west coast from Cape Mendocino to the Oregon-California border while advisories have been issued for much of the U.S. and Canadian West Coast.

According to the National Weather Service, the tsunami could cause damage all along the coastlines of all Hawaiian islands and “urgent actions should be taken to protect lives and property.”

“A tsunami has been generated that could cause damage along coastlines of all islands in the state of Hawaii,” the NWS said in a statement. “Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property.”

“Destructive” waves are expected to hit Honolulu by 7:17 p.m. HST Tuesday, according to the local department of emergency management.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green has issued an emergency proclamation activating the U.S. National Guard to assist with disaster relief and for the state’s emergency services to take necessary safety actions.

In a press conference, Green said they expect “significant damage” along the coastlines, and that they “we pray that we won’t lose any of our loved ones.”

“God willing these waves will not hurt us, but you have to assume — assume — they will be life threatening,” he said.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center is forecasting waves of 10 feet above tide level are possible to hit the northern Hawaii islands.

The Hawaii Department of Transport said the Coast Guard has ordered all vessels to follow their procedures to leave port for all islands.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom‘s office said he has been briefed on the situation, while urging residents to stay alert and follow local emergency guidance.

Officials have also closed all beaches, harbors and piers in California’s Huntington Beach, though no evacuations orders have yet been given.

For Samalga Pass, it said that a tsunami with “significant inundation is possible or is already occurring.”

“STAY STRONG AND STAY SAFE!” U.S. President Donald Trump said in a statement to his Truth Social platform.

JAPAN

The Japan Meteorological Agency is warning of tsunamis as high as 3 meters, or nearly 9 feet, from northeastern Hokkaido southward to Wakayama Prefecture.

Tsunami warnings order the immediate evacuation from coastal regions and riverside areas to safer, higher ground.

Tsunami advisories have been issued for the rest of the southeastern coast of the country.

Japan Safe Travel, a division of the Asian nation’s tourism organization, is warning that tsunamis are expected to strike the country between 1 and 3 meters starting at about 10 a.m. local time until at least 1:30 p.m.

According to Japan’s fire and disaster management agency, evacuation orders have been issued for 112 cities and towns, affecting more than 1.9 million people.

TEPCO, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, said in a statement that all workers at the Fukushima nuclear plant, which is under decommission, have been evacuated.

The Japanese government said it has established a prime minister’s liaison office to respond to the earthquake and tsunami.

RUSSIA

Russia’s emergencies ministry said in a statement that tsunami waves have already hit its far east coast, flooding the port town of Severo-Kurilsk and the Alaid fish processing plant.

“Residents have been evacuated,” it said.

Valery Limarenk, governor of Sakhalin oblast, also confirmed on Telegram that the tsunami had struck, saying “residents of the settlement remain safe on higher ground until the threat of additional waves is fully lifted.”

In Kamchatka, off where the quake struck, responders are inspecting buildings. It said the facade of one kindergarten that was under renovation collapsed.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has also warned of waves of up to 10 feet hitting parts of Russia and Ecuador.

South and Central America

The Integrated Tsunami Alert System of Mexico and Central America issued a tsunami alert from Mexico’s Ensenada to Panama, saying waves of up to 3 feet are possible.

This is a developing story.

A HUGE earthquake has struck the coast of Russia – strong enough to cause tsunamis, with warnings issued for the Pacific Islands.

The magnitude 8.7 earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka on Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

3

3

It occurred about 84 miles off Kamchatska at around 7.24pm EST (12:30am BST).

The quake was shallow and strong enough to cause waves or a tsunami.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake was at a depth of 19.3 km (12 miles).

A tsunami with a wave height of 3-4 metres was recorded in Kamchatka, Russia’s regional minister for emergency situations warned.

Vladimir Solodov, Governor of the Kamchatka Territory, told people to stay away from the coast due to the earthquake being the “strongest in decades”.

No injuries have been reported so far, but a nursery has been damaged.

Locals in the small town of Severo-Kurilsk are being evacuated.

“Today’s earthquake was serious and the strongest in decades of tremors,” Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app.

Shortly after the quake hit, another struck the Kamchatka Peninsula with a magnitude of 5.51.

Tsunami warnings have been issued for Alaska, Hawaii, Russia and Japan as a result.

The Japan Weather Agency said it expected a tsunami of one meter (3.28 feet) to reach large coastal areas starting at around 10am local time.

Authorities warned people not to go into the sea and stay away from the coast.

The U.S. Tsunami Warning System also issued a warning of “hazardous tsunami waves” within the next three hours along some coasts of Russia and Japan.

It comes after The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre warned of a tsunami threat to Russia following three earthquakes last week – with the strongest having a magnitude of 7.4.

The largest quake up until now hit around 89 miles east of east of the Russian city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – 12 miles below the seabed.

A slightly smaller earthquake of 6.7 struck just minutes earlier, along with a third 5.0 magnitude quake.

There were fears Hawaii would also be impacted – but an island-wide tsunami warning was later withdrawn.

Alerts were also issued for Guam and American Samoa.

The USGS had warned of possible “hazardous tsunami waves” within 300 kilometres of the epicentre in the Pacific.

And residents in Russia had been urged to get to higher ground.

3

Israeli forces have killed at least 63 people across Gaza, hours after the military announced it would begin “pausing” attacks for 10 hours daily in some areas to allow humanitarian aid to pass through.

On Sunday, the Israeli army said it would temporarily halt military activity each day from 10am to 8pm (07:00-17:00 GMT) in parts of central and northern Gaza, including al-Mawasi, Deir el-Balah and Gaza City. It also pledged to open designated aid corridors for food and medical convoys between 6am and 11pm.

But hours into the first day of the “humanitarian pauses”, Israeli air raids resumed.

“There was an air strike on Gaza City, and this is one of the areas that was designated as a safe area, and where the Israeli forces are going to halt their military operations,” Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary reported from Deir el-Balah.

“According to Palestinians in that area, a bakery was targeted.”

The bombardment comes as global outcry grows over the worsening humanitarian disaster in Gaza inflicted by Israel.

Famine deaths rise

Gaza’s Ministry of Health reported that six more Palestinians, including two children, died from hunger-related causes in the past 24 hours, pushing the number of starvation deaths to 133 since October 2023.

Among the dead was five-month-old Zainab Abu Haleeb, who succumbed to malnutrition at Nasser Hospital.

“Three months inside the hospital, and this is what I get in return, that she is dead,” said her mother, Israa Abu Haleeb, as the child’s father cradled her small body wrapped in a white shroud.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Sunday that one in three Gaza residents has gone days without eating, and nearly 500,000 people are suffering from “famine-like conditions”. The World Health Organization also warned last week that more than 20 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women are malnourished.

Falestine Ahmed, a mother in Gaza, told Al Jazeera she lost one-third of her body weight.

“I used to weigh 57kg [126 pounds], now I weigh 42kg [93 pounds], and both my son and I have been diagnosed with severe malnutrition,” she said. “We barely have any food at home, and even when it’s available, it’s far too expensive for us to afford.”

Israel has authorised new corridors for aid, while the United Arab Emirates and Jordan have airdropped supplies into the territory. However, deliveries have been fraught with danger and are far too few.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported that one aid drop injured nearly a dozen people. “Eleven people were reported with injuries as one of these pallets fell directly on tents in that displacement site near al-Rasheed Road.”

Despite the mounting evidence of extreme hunger, Israel continues to deny that famine exists in Gaza. The Israeli military insists it is working to improve humanitarian access.

But scenes of desperation contradict official claims. “I’ve come all this way, risking my life for my children. They haven’t eaten for a week,” said Smoud Wahdan, a mother searching for flour, speaking to Al Jazeera. “At the very least, I’ve been looking for a piece of bread for my children.”

Another displaced mother, Tahani, said that her cancer-stricken child was among those suffering. “I came to get flour, to look for food to feed my children. I wish God’s followers would wake up and see all these people. They are dying.”

Aid groups overwhelmed

Liz Allcock, the head of protection for Medical Aid for Palestinians, told Al Jazeera that she has never seen Gaza in such a state. “The scale of starvation and the number of people you see walking around who are literally skin and bones [is shocking]… Money really has no value here when there is nothing to buy,” she said.

“All of Gazan society – no matter who they are – is suffering from critical food shortages,” she added, warning that one-quarter of the population is at risk of acute malnutrition.

The United Nations says aid deliveries can only succeed if Israel approves the rapid movement of convoys through its checkpoints.

UN aid chief Tom Fletcher noted that while some restrictions appeared to have eased, the scale of the crisis required far more action.

“This is progress, but vast amounts of aid are needed to stave off famine and a catastrophic health crisis,” he said.

Diplomatic pressure builds

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday that he discussed the Gaza situation with his Turkish and Egyptian counterparts and plans to co-host a conference in New York City next week focused on securing a two-state solution.

“We cannot accept that people, including large numbers of children, die of hunger,” he said.

Macron confirmed that France would soon recognise Palestinian statehood, joining more than 140 UN member states.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in an interview that Israel’s blockade of aid amounts to a violation of “humanity and morality”.

“Quite clearly, it is a breach of international law to stop food being delivered, which was a decision that Israel made in March,” he told ABC News. However, he added that Australia was not ready to recognise Palestinian statehood “imminently”.

In the United States, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that ceasefire talks led by President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, are making “a lot of progress”.

“We’re optimistic and hopeful that any day now, we will have a ceasefire agreement,” Rubio told Fox News, suggesting that half of the remaining Israeli captives may be released soon.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that 88 Palestinians were killed and 374 wounded in Israeli attacks over the past 24 hours alone.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October, at least 59,821 Palestinians have been killed and more than 144,000 injured.

Despite talk of pauses and diplomacy, the violence continues to escalate.

Three Israeli strikes hit homes and a tent in Gaza City on Tuesday, killing at least 21 people, mostly women and children. The attacks come as the besieged territory faces extreme hunger and ongoing bombardment.

July 19 (UPI) — A driver plowed through a crowd in East Hollywood in California early Saturday, injuring 30 people, authorities said.

The driver had been thrown out of a club before getting in his car and crashing into the crowd, police told KABC-TV and KTLA-TV.

The driver, who may have lost consciousness behind the wheel, was pulled out of the car, beaten by bystanders and shot in the melee, said police, who are seeking a suspect in the shooting.

The crash was reported just before 2 a.m. along Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman Lyndsey Lantc told the City News Service.

At least seven people were critically injured and six were serious condition, police said.

The crowd, outside The Vermont music venue, included clubgoers, valets and food vendors at a nearby taco stand, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.

“They were all standing in line going into a nightclub,” LAFD Capt. Adam Van Gerpen said. “There was a taco truck out there so they were getting some food, waiting to go in. And there also is a valet line there. The valet podium was taken out, the taco truck was taken out and then a large number of people were impacted by the vehicle.”

A law enforcement source told KLTLA that the driver was removed from the nightclub for being disruptive, attempted to re-enter the club and was then turned away again. The man got into his hatchback, drove off, made a U-turn and then drove onto the sidewalk.

Of those injured, 23 people were taken to a hospital and 12 were treated at the scene, according to the fire department.

Police said they are investigating the cause and motive of the crash.

Washington, DC – New media reports in the United States, citing intelligence assessments, have cast doubt over President Donald Trump’s assertion that Washington’s military strikes last month “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear programme.

The Washington Post and NBC News reported that US officials were saying that only one of the three Iranian nuclear sites – the Fordow facility – targeted by the US has been destroyed.

The Post’s report, released on Friday, also raised questions on whether the centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the deepest level of Fordow were destroyed or moved before the attack.

“We definitely can’t say it was obliterated,” an unidentified official told the newspaper, referring to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Trump has insisted that the US strikes were a “spectacular” success, lashing out at any reports questioning the level of damage they inflicted on Iran’s nuclear programme.

An initial US intelligence assessment, leaked to several media outlets after the attack last month, said the strikes failed to destroy key components of Iran’s nuclear programme and only delayed its work by months.

But the Pentagon said earlier in July that the attacks degraded the Iranian programme by one to two years.

While the strikes on Fordow – initially thought to be the most guarded facility, buried inside a mountain – initially took centre stage, the NBC News and Washington Post reports suggested that the facilities in Natanz and Isfahan also had deep tunnels.

‘Impenetrable’

The US military did not use enormous bunker-busting bombs against the Isfahan site and targeted surface infrastructure instead.

A congressional aide familiar with intelligence briefings told the Post that the Pentagon had assessed that the underground facilities at Isfahan were “pretty much impenetrable”.

The Pentagon responded to both reports by reiterating that all three sites were “completely and totally obliterated”.

Israel, which started the war by attacking Iran without direct provocation last month, has backed the US administration’s assessment, while threatening further strikes against Tehran if it resumes its nuclear programme.

For its part, Tehran has not provided details about the state of its nuclear sites.

Some Iranian officials have said that the facilities sustained significant damage from US and Israeli attacks. But Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said after the war that Trump had “exaggerated” the impact of the strikes.

The location and state of Iran’s highly enriched uranium also remain unknown.

Iran’s nuclear agency and regulators in neighbouring states have said they did not detect a spike in radioactivity after the bombings, suggesting the strikes did not result in uranium contamination.

But Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, did not rule out that the uranium containers may have been damaged in the attacks.

“We don’t know where this material could be or if part of it could have been under the attack during those 12 days,” Grossi told CBS News last month.

According to Grossi, Iran could resume uranium enrichment in a “matter of months”.

The war

Israel launched a massive attack against Iran on June 13, killing several top military officials, as well as nuclear scientists.

The bombing campaign targeted military sites, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings across the country, killing hundreds of civilians.

Iran responded with barrages of missiles against Israel that left widespread destruction and claimed the lives of at least 29 people.

The US joined the Israeli campaign on June 22, striking the three nuclear sites. Iran retaliated with a missile attack against an air base housing US troops in Qatar.

Initially, Trump said the Iranian attack was thwarted, but after satellite images showed damage at the base, the Pentagon acknowledged that one of the missiles was not intercepted.

“One Iranian ballistic missile impacted Al Udeid Air Base June 23 while the remainder of the missiles were intercepted by US and Qatari air defence systems,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told Al Jazeera in an email last week.

“The impact did minimal damage to equipment and structures on the base. There were no injuries.”

After a ceasefire was reached to end the 12-day war, both the US and Iran expressed willingness to engage in diplomacy to resolve the nuclear file. But talks have not materialised.

Iran and the US were periodically holding nuclear talks before Israel launched its war in June.

EU-Iran talks

During his first term in 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

The agreement saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting international sanctions against its economy.

In recent days, European officials have suggested that they could impose “snap-back” sanctions against Iran as part of the deal that has long been violated by the US.

Tehran, which started enriching uranium beyond the limits set by the JCPOA after the US withdrawal, insists that Washington was the party that nixed the agreement, stressing that the deal acknowledges Iran’s enrichment rights.

I had a joint teleconference with E3 FMs & EU HR last night, in which I made the following points clear:

It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal -coordinated by EU in 2015- not Iran; and it was US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a… pic.twitter.com/NFQdK2HZD4

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 18, 2025

On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he held talks with the top diplomats of France, the United Kingdom and Germany – known as the E3 – as well as the European Union’s high representative.

Araghchi said Europeans should put aside “worn-out policies of threat and pressure”.

“It was the US that withdrew from a two-year negotiated deal – coordinated by EU in 2015 – not Iran; and it was US that left the negotiation table in June this year and chose a military option instead, not Iran,” the Iranian foreign minister said in a social media post.

“Any new round of talks is only possible when the other side is ready for a fair, balanced, and mutually beneficial nuclear deal.”

Tehran denies seeking a nuclear bomb. Israel, meanwhile, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.

Israel has attacked Syrian government forces in a wave of deadly air strikes, at the same time as violence has gripped the southern province of Suwayda. In the spotlight is Syria’s Druze minority, also present in Israel. What does the fighting spell for Syria’s future?

Fans of System of a Down desperately hoping the Armenian American alt-metal band will one day release a full-length follow-up to their chart-topping 2005 companion albums “Mezmerize” and “Hypnotize” can at least seek some solace in the latest offering from band co-founder Daron Malakian. “Addicted to the Violence,” the third album from his solo project Daron Malakian and Scars on Broadway, may lack System frontman Serj Tankian’s mellifluous singing, iconoclastic rants and feral screams, but its eclectic structure, melodic earworms, fetching vocal harmonies and poignant themes are sonically and structurally similar to System of a Down — and with good reason.

“All of my songs can work for either Scars or System because they come from my style and have my signature,” Malakian says from his home in Glendale. “When I wrote for System, I didn’t bring guitar riffs to the band. Like with [System’s 2002 breakthrough single] ‘Aerials.’ That was a complete song. I wrote it from beginning to end before I showed it to them.”

Malakian — who tackled vocals, guitar and bass — assembled “Addicted to the Violence” (out Friday) during the last five years, using songs he’d written over roughly two decades. The oldest track, “Satan Hussein,” which starts with a rapid-fire guitar line and features a serrated verse and a storming chorus, dates to the early 2000s, when System’s second album, “Toxicity,” was rocketing toward six-times platinum status (which it achieved nine months after release).

With Scars, Malakian isn’t chasing ghosts and he’s not tied to a schedule. He’s more interested in spontaneity than continuity, and artistry takes precedence over cohesion. None of the tracks on the band’s sporadically released three albums — 2008’s self-titled debut, 2018’s “Dictator,” and “Addicted to the Violence”— follow a linear or chronological path. Instead, each includes an eclectic variety of songs chosen almost at random.

“It’s almost like I spin the wheel and wherever the arrow lands, that’s where I start,” he explains. “I end up with a bunch of songs from different periods in my life that come from different moods. It’s totally selfish. Everything starts as something I write for myself and play for myself. I never listen to something I’ve done and say, ‘Oh, everybody’s gonna love this.’ For me, a song is more like my new toy. At some point, I finish playing with it and I go, ‘OK, I’m ready to share this with other kids now.’”

Whether by happenstance or subconscious inspiration, “Addicted to the Violence” is a turbulent, inadvertently prescient album for unstable times — a barbed, off-kilter amalgam of metal, alt-rock, pop, Cali-punk, prog, Mediterranean folk, alt-country and psychedelia — sometimes within the same song. Lyrically, Malakian addresses school shootings, authoritarianism, media manipulation, infidelity, addiction and stream-of-consciousness ramblings as dizzying as an hour of random, rapid-fire channel surfing.

Is writing music your way of making sense out of a nonsensical world?

I like to think of it as bringing worlds together that, in other cases, may not belong together. But when they come out through me, they mutate and turn into this thing that makes sense. In that way, music is like my therapist. Even if I write a song and nobody ever hears it, it’s healthy for me to make and it helps me work stuff out. When I write a song, sometimes it affects me deeply and I’ll cry or I’ll get hyped up and excited. It’s almost like I’m communicating with somebody, but I’m not talking to anyone. It’s just me in this intimate moment.

Is it strange to take these personal, intimate and therapeutic moments and turn them into songs that go out for the masses to interpret and absorb?

I want people to make up their own meanings for the songs, even if they’re completely different than mine. I don’t even like to talk about what inspired the songs because it doesn’t matter. No one needs to know what I was thinking because they don’t know my life. They don’t know me. They know the guy on stage, but they don’t know the personal struggles I’ve been through and they don’t need to.

Was there anything about “Addicted to the Violence” that you wanted to do differently than “Dictator”?

Different songs on the album have synthesizer and that’s a color I’ve never used before in System or Scars. Every painting you make shouldn’t have the same colors. Sometimes I’m like, “Will that work with the rest of the songs? That color is really different.” But I’m not afraid to use it.

[Warning: Video includes profanity.]

“Shame Game” has a psychedelic vibe that’s kinda like a hybrid of Strawberry Alarm Clock and Blue Oyster Cult, while the title track has a prog rock vibe redolent of Styx, Rush and Mars Volta.

I love all that stuff. I spend more time listening to music than playing guitar. It’s how I practice music. I take in these inspirations and it all comes out later when I write without me realizing it.

In 2020, System released the songs “Protect the Land” and “Genocidal Humanoidz,” which you originally planned to use for Scars on Broadway.

At that time, I hadn’t recorded “Genocidal Humanoidz” yet, but I had finished “Protect the Land,” and my vocals on the song are the tracks I was going to use for my album. Serj just came in and sang his parts over it.

Why did you offer those songs to System when every time you tried to work on an album with them after 2010, you hit a creative impasse?

Because [the second Nagorno-Karabakh War] was going on in Artsakh at that time between [the Armenian breakaway state Artsakh and Azerbaijan], and we decided we needed to say something. We all got on the phone and I said, “Hey, I got this song ‘Protect the Land,’ and it’s about this exact topic.” So, I pulled it off the Scars record and shared it with System.

You released the eponymous Scars on Broadway album in 2008, almost exactly two years after System went on a four-year hiatus. Did you form Scars out of a need to stay creative?

At the time, I knew that if I wanted to keep releasing music, I needed a new outlet, so Scars was something that had to happen or I would have just been sitting around all these years and nobody would have heard from me.

You played a few shows with Scars before your first album came out in 2008, but you abruptly canceled the supporting tour and only released one more Scars song before 2018.

That was a really strange time. I wanted to move forward with my music, but we had worked so hard to get to the point we got to in System, and not everyone was in the same boat when it came to how we wanted to move forward. I just wasn’t ready to do a tour with Scars.

Was it like trying to start a new relationship after a bad breakup?

I might have rushed into that second marriage too quick. I had [System drummer] John [Dolmayan] playing with me, and I think that was [a sign that] I was still holding onto System of a Down. That created a lot of anxiety.

A few years later, you announced that you were working on a new Scars album and planned to release it in 2013. Why did it take until 2018 for you to put out “Dictator”?

I was writing songs and thinking they were amazing, but in my head I was conflicted about where the songs were going to go. “Should I take them to Scars? Is that premature? Would System want to do something with them?” I underwent this constant struggle because Serj and I always had this creative disagreement. I finally moved past that and did the second album, but it took a while.

“Everything we’ve experienced has brought us to where we are now. And now is all we’ve got because the past is gone and the future isn’t here yet. So, the most important thing is the present,” Malakian said.

(Travis Shinn)

System of a Down played nine concerts in South America this spring, and you have six stadium gigs scheduled in North America for August and September. Is there any chance a new System album will follow?

I’m not so sure I even want to make another System of a Down record at this point in my life. I’m getting along with the guys really well right now. Serj and I love each other and we enjoy being onstage together. So, maybe it’s best for us to keep playing concerts as System and doing our own things outside of that.

The cover art for “Addicted to the Violence” — a silhouette of a woman against a blood-red background holding an oversize bullet over her head, and standing in front of a row of opium poppies — is the work of your father, Iraqi-born artist Vartan Malakian. Was he a major inspiration for you?

My approach to art and everything I know about it comes from my dad, and the way we approach what we do is very similar. We both do it for ourselves. He has never promoted himself or done an art exhibition. The only things most people have seen from him are the album covers. But ever since I was born, he was doing art in the house, and he’s never cared if anyone was looking at it.

Do you seek his approval?

No, I don’t. He usually is very supportive of what I do, but my dad’s a complicated guy. I admire him a lot and wish I could even be half of the artist that he is. And if he and my mom didn’t move to this country, I would not have been in System of a Down. I would have ended up as a soldier during Desert Storm and the Second Gulf War. That’s my alternative life. It’s crazy.

Have you been to Iraq?

When I was 14 years old, I went there for two months to visit relatives and it was a complete culture shock. I’m a kid that grew up in Hollywood, and I went to Baghdad wearing a Metallica shirt and I was a total smart aleck. Everywhere we went, I saw pictures and statues of Saddam Hussein. I turned to my cousin and said, “What if I walked up to one of the statues and said, ‘Hey Saddam, go f— yourself?’” Just me saying that made him nervous and scared. Talking like that was seriously dangerous and I had no idea. That was a definite learning experience of what I could have been. And it inspired me later to write “Satan Hussein.”

You had a glimpse of life under an authoritarian regime. Do you have strong feelings about the Trump administration and the way the president has, at times, acted like a dictator?

I don’t hate the guy and I don’t love the guy. I’m not on the right, I’m not on the left. There are some things both sides do that I agree with, but I don’t talk about that stuff in interviews because when it comes to politics, I’m not on a team. I don’t like the division in this country, and I think if you’re too far right or you’re too far left, you end up in the same place.

Is “Addicted to the Violence,” and especially the song “Killing Spree,” a commentary on political violence in our country?

Not just political violence, it’s all violence. “Killing Spree” is ridiculous. It’s heavy. It’s dark. But if you listen to the way I sing, there is an absolutely absurd delivery, almost like I’m having fun with it. I’m not celebrating the violence, but the delivery is done the way a crazy person would celebrate it. So, it’s from the viewpoint of a killer, the viewpoint of a victim, and my own viewpoint. I saw a video on social media of these kids standing around in the street, and one of them gets wiped out by the back end of a car and flies into the air. These kids are recording it and some of them are laughing like’s it’s funny. I don’t want to say that’s right or wrong, but from what I’m seeing, a lot of people have become desensitized to violence.

You’re releasing “Addicted to the Violence” about six weeks before the final six System of a Down dates of 2025. Have you figured out how to compartmentalize what you do with System of a Down and Scars on Broadway?

There was a time that I couldn’t juggle the two very well, but now I feel more confident and very comfortable with where System and Scars are. I love playing with System, and I want to do more shows with Scars. I couldn’t tell you how either band will evolve. Only time will tell what happens and I’m fine with that as long as it happens in a natural way. Everything we’ve experienced has brought us to where we are now. And now is all we’ve got because the past is gone and the future isn’t here yet. So, the most important thing is the present.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has said that protecting the country’s Druze citizens and their rights is a priority, as he announced that local leaders will take control of security in the city of Suwayda in a bid to end sectarian violence in the south and in the wake of deadly Israeli strikes in Damascus.

The Syrian leader made the statements in a televised speech on Thursday, addressing days of fierce clashes between Druze armed groups, Bedouin tribes and government forces in the predominantly Druze city of Suwayda that have killed more than 360 people, according to UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Israel, which sees the Druze as an ally, launched a series of powerful strikes near Syria’s presidential palace and on the military headquarters in the heart of Damascus on Wednesday, warning Syria it would escalate further if it did not withdraw from the south and halt attacks against the Druze community.

“We are keen on holding accountable those who transgressed and abused our Druze people, as they are under the protection and responsibility of the state,” Sharaa said in the speech, describing the minority as “a fundamental part of the fabric of this nation.”

“We affirm to you that the protection of your rights and freedoms is among our top priorities, and we reject any attempt aimed at pulling you toward an external party.”

Al-Sharaa said that “responsibility” for security in the violence plagued would be handed to religious elders and some local factions “based on the supreme national interest”.

Troops withdraw

The remarks came after the Syrian government and Druze leader Sheikh Yousef Jarbou announced a new ceasefire in the city, and said the army had begun withdrawing from Suwayda.

But there does not appear to be consensus in Suwayda among the Druze, a small but influential minority in both Syria and Israel.

While Sheikh Jarbou said he agreed to the ceasefire deal and spoke out against the Israeli strikes on Syria, telling Al Jazeera Arabic that “any attack on the Syrian state is an attack on the Druze community”, another influential Druze leader in the city said he rejected the ceasefire.

Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari promised to continue fighting until Suwayda was “entirely liberated”.

‘Unknown fate’ avoided

In the speech, al-Sharaa called for national unity, saying that “the building of a new Syria requires all of us to stand united behind our state, to commit to its principles, and to place the interest of the nation above any personal or limited interest.”

Addressing the Druze community, he said the government rejected “any attempt to drag you into the hands of an external party”, in a reference to Israel’s intervention in the conflict.

“We are not among those who fear the war. We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” he said.

He added that Israel’s extensive strikes, including those that killed three people and injured 34 in Damascus on Wednesday, could have pushed “matters to a large-scale escalation, if it were not for the intervention of US, Turkish and Arab mediators “which saved the region from an unknown fate”.

The US, which has softened its stance towards Syria and is attempting to re-engage and support the country’s reconstruction after more than a decade of conflict, has been eager to de-escalate the conflict, which State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called “a misunderstanding between new neighbours”.

Actions ‘louder than words’

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Mohamad Elmasry, professor of media studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said al-Sharaa’s speech contained encouraging messages about the place of the Druze minority in Syrian society.

“He said that the Druze are an essential component,” said Elmasry. “He said it’s the Syrian government’s responsibility to protect them and to hold to account those who have transgressed against them in recent days.”

But, he said, it would all come down to how his government behaved in the aftermath of the speech.

“II think their actions will speak louder than words for those minority groups in Syria.”

He said the speech also contained a note of warning to Israel that it did not fear war and that “anyone who starts a war with Syria … would regret it”.

“These were messages directed at Israel, and it marked a very significant departure from what we’ve heard from him and at times not heard from him when Israel has attacked Syria,” Elmasry said.

“I think we’re at a potentially dangerous tipping point and it really will come down to, I think, the extent to which Donald Trump and the United States are willing to kind of rein in Israel,” he said.

“It’s a very difficult situation in Syria. You are talking about a very multiethnic society. You have outside forces, starting with Israel, trying to basically fragment the country and establish a separatist system, if you will, in Syria,” Elmasry said.

Cycle of violence

The escalation in Syria began with tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks between Druze armed factions and local Sunni Bedouin tribes in Suwayda province.

Government forces that intervened to restore order clashed with the Druze, with reports of Syrian troops committing abuses, according to local monitors and analysts.

The actions committed by members of the security forces – acknowledged as “unlawful criminal acts” by the Syrian presidency – have given Israel a pretext to bombard Syria as it builds military bases in the demilitarised buffer zone with Syria seized by its forces.

At least fifteen people have been injured in the latest wave of Russian drone strikes, which this time hit four Ukranian cities. Video shows firefighters battling flames from a large blaze. This comes amid the 50-day deadline from the US for Russia to secure a peace deal.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the 27-member bloc was leaving the door open to action against Israel over its assault on the besieged and bombarded Gaza Strip if the humanitarian situation does not improve.

Kallas put forward 10 potential options on Tuesday after Israel was found to have breached a cooperation deal between the two sides on human rights grounds.

The measures range from suspending the entire accord or curbing trade ties to sanctioning Israeli ministers, imposing an arms embargo and halting visa-free travel.

Despite growing anger over the devastation in Gaza, EU states remain divided over how to tackle Israel, and there was no agreement on taking any of the moves at a Tuesday meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

“We will keep these options on the table and stand ready to act if Israel does not live up to its pledges,” Kallas told journalists. “The aim is not to punish Israel. The aim is to really improve the situation in Gaza.”

The meeting in Brussels came in the wake of the deal largely forged by Kallas and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. Saar met with EU leaders on Monday after agreeing last week to allow desperately needed food and fuel into the coastal enclave of 2.3 million people who have endured more than 21 months of Israel’s deadly assault amid a crippling blockade.

“The border crossings have been opened, we see more trucks going in, we see also operations of the electricity network, but it’s clearly not enough because the situation is still untenable,” Kallas said.

Details of the deal remain unclear, but EU officials have rejected any cooperation with the Israeli-backed GHF over ethical and safety concerns.

Calls to end ties with Israel

European nations like Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain have increasingly called for the EU’s ties with Israel to be reassessed in the wake of the war, which has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians – mostly women and children.

A report by the European Commission found “indications” that Israel’s actions in Gaza are violating human rights obligations in the agreement governing its ties with the EU, but the bloc is divided over how to respond.

Public pressure over Israel’s conduct in Gaza made the new humanitarian deal possible, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said, adding, “That force of the 27 EU member states is what I want to maintain now.”

Kallas will update EU member nations every two weeks on how much aid is actually getting through to Gaza, Irish Foreign Minister Thomas Byrne said.

“So far we haven’t really seen the implementation of it, maybe some very small actions, but there’s still slaughter going on, there’s still a denial of access to food and water as well,” he said. “We need to see action.”

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares Bueno said details of the deal were still being discussed and the EU would monitor results to see if Israel is complying.

“It’s very clear that this agreement is not the end – we have to stop the war,” he said.

There have been regular protests across the continent, including a small one on Tuesday outside the European Council, where the ministers were discussing the aid plan.

Dozens of protesters in Brussels called for more aggressive actions to stop Israel’s offensive in the largely destroyed Gaza Strip, where famine looms and the healthcare system is on the brink of collapse.

“It was able to do this for Russia,” said Alexis Deswaef, vice president of the International Federation for Human Rights. “It must now agree on a package of sanctions for Israel to end the genocide and for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza.”

Human rights groups largely called the EU’s actions insufficient.

“This is more than political cowardice,” said Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International. “Every time the EU fails to act, the risk of complicity in Israel’s actions grows. This sends an extremely dangerous message to perpetrators of atrocity crimes that they will not only go unpunished but be rewarded.”

‘Moving towards the unknown’

Israel and Hamas have been engaged in indirect talks for two weeks over a new ceasefire deal, but talks appear to be deadlocked.

Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said negotiations have not stopped but are still in the early stages, adding that Israeli and Hamas delegations are both in Doha.

Meanwhile, Israeli attacks across Gaza resumed on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people, including two women who were shot near an aid distribution point run by the controversial Israel- and US-backed GHF.

Gaza’s civil defence said on Tuesday that its “crews have transported at least 18 martyrs and dozens of wounded since dawn”, most of them following Israeli air strikes on the northern Gaza Strip, where Israeli forces have stepped up attacks in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, the army issued another forced evacuation threat for Palestinians living in 16 areas in northern Gaza.

Among them is Jabalia, a ravaged town where residents have been fleeing in fear and panic.

“People are using their cars and donkeys to evacuate the area, and all are moving towards the unknown; they don’t know where to go,” Al Jazeera’s Moath al-Kahlout said.

“They are also struggling with transportation as there is no fuel to move from here and other areas. So, the situation is very chaotic. Everyone living here is in a state of panic.”

One Israeli strike also hit a tent in Gaza City housing displaced Palestinians, killing six people, according to the civil defence agency.

In the southern area of Rafah, two women were killed by Israeli fire near an aid distribution point, the agency said, adding that 13 people were wounded in the incident.

The United Nations said that at least 875 have died trying to access aid in Gaza since late May, when the GHF began operating.

Meanwhile, health teams in Gaza for the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have warned that malnutrition rates are increasing, especially since the Israeli siege was tightened more than four months ago.

According to UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, one in 10 children screened is malnourished.

In a statement, the group called malnutrition in the Strip “engineered and man-made”.

The strikes targeted areas in the Bekaa Valley, including a Syrian refugee camp, Lebanon’s state news agency says.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 12 people, including five Hezbollah fighters, in eastern Lebanon, according to Lebanese state media reports, in what Israel said was a warning to the armed group against trying to re-establish itself.

Eight other people were wounded on Tuesday in the Israeli air strikes that hit the Wadi Fara area in the northern Bekaa Valley, including a camp for displaced Syrians, Lebanon’s National News Agency said.

The Israeli military said its air strikes targeted training camps used by elite Hezbollah fighters and warehouses the group used to store weapons.

The air strikes were the deadliest on the area since a United States-brokered ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel last November – a truce repeatedly violated by Israel, which has carried out near-daily strikes across parts of the country.

Bachir Khodr, governor of the Bekaa region, said seven of the dead were Syrian nationals.

Israel dealt Hezbollah significant blows in last year’s war, assassinating its leader Hassan Nasrallah along with other commanders and destroying much of its arsenal.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday’s strikes sent a “clear message” to Hezbollah, accusing it of planning to rebuild the capability to raid Israel through the elite Radwan force.

Israel “will respond with maximum force to any attempt at rebuilding”, he said. He added that strikes were also a message to the Lebanese government, saying it was responsible for upholding the ceasefire agreement.

There was no immediate public response from Hezbollah or from the Lebanese government to the latest Israeli strikes.

Under the November ceasefire deal, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border, leaving the Lebanese army and United Nations peacekeepers as the only armed parties in the region.

Israel was required to fully withdraw its troops from the country, but has kept them in five places it deems strategic.

The US has submitted a proposal to the Lebanese government aimed at securing Hezbollah’s disarmament within four months in exchange for Israel halting air strikes and withdrawing troops from the positions they still hold in south Lebanon.

Unite says it has suspended Angela Rayner from her membership of the union, amid a deepening row over the long-running bin strikes in Birmingham.

The deputy prime minister has been urging striking bin workers to accept a deal to end the dispute, which has seen mountains of rubbish pile up in the city.

The union said it would also re-examine its relationship with Labour after an emergency motion at its conference in Brighton.

Bin collection workers walked out in January, with an all-out strike going on since March. Unite is a major donor to the Labour Party, and has previously donated to Rayner herself.

July 11 (UPI) — A federal appeals court has sided with the jury that found President Donald Trump liable of sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and of lying about the assault.

The three-judge Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued its mandate Thursday, affirming the May 2023 Manhattan jury’s unanimous decision that Trump had sexually abused Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department stor in 1996 and awarded her $5 million in compensatory damages.

“So long, Old Man!” Carroll celebrated on X. “The United States Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit, bids thee farewell.”

Trump maintains he didn’t sexually abuse her, and filed an appeal.

He argued the Manhattan district court had erred when it allowed testimony from two other women who alleged Trump had sexually assaulted them in the past and a notorious 2005 recording in which the president is heard on a hot mic telling another man how he forcibly kissed and grabbed women by their genitals.

In its ruling rejecting Trump’s appeal, the court found the district court did not err by including both women’s testimonies as well as the so-called Access Hollywood tape as evidence of the president’s alleged history of committing such acts.

“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” it said. “Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”

In January 2024, another civil jury found Trump liable for defamatory statements and ordered him to pay the writer $83.3 million in damages.

After Carroll went public with her accusations against Trump in 2019, Trump claimed to have never met her and accused her of making up the allegation to sell books.

July 10 (UPI) — A second consecutive night of Russian drone and missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least two people and injured 24, authorities said.

Residential, healthcare, education, commercial and transport infrastructure was damaged across eight districts of the capital, including Podilskyi, where a 22-year-old woman police officer and a 68-year-old woman were killed, Kyiv Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a social media update.

“House-to-house inspections of the affected building are underway with the police checking whether anyone was left without help. About 400 rescuers and 90 units of fire and rescue, engineering and robotic equipment of the State Emergency Service are involved in clearing the rubble and dealing with the consequences of the shelling,” he said.

Tkachenko said apartment blocks, vehicles, warehouses, offices and other non-residential buildings were burning.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that apartment buildings in Shevchenkivskyi and Darnytskyi were set ablaze, gas stations and garages damaged, and a primary healthcare center “almost completely destroyed” in Podilskyi district.

The attack started shortly after 1 a.m. local time when explosions were heard and a swarm of Shahed-type attack drones was detected over the Pechersk district in old Kyiv, kicking off a three-hour-long intense bombardment in which the city was also targeted with ballistic missiles.

The Ukraine Air Force said 18 ballistic, cruise and S-300 guided missiles, mostly targeting Kyiv, were part of a much larger attack targeting the Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Kirovohrad and Kharkiv regions that involved almost 400 real and decoy drones in an effort to throw off Ukrainian air defenses by swamping them.

However, air defenses succeeded in downing 14 of the missiles and while more than 350 drones were shot down, jammed or went the wrong way, at least two people, a man and a woman, were injured in the southern province of Kherson.

“This is a clear escalation of terror by Russia — hundreds of ‘shaheds’ every night, constant strikes, and massive attacks on Ukrainian cities,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X.

“This demands that we speed things up. Sanctions must be imposed faster, and pressure on Russia must be strong enough that they truly feel the consequences of their terror. There’s a need for quicker action from our partners in investing in weapons production and advancing technology,” Zelensky wrote.

The latest attacks came as the United Nations released figures for June showing 232 people were killed and 1,343 injured in Ukraine due to enemy action, the highest number of civilian casualties in any month since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

July 9 (UPI) — Just days before federal government was to enforce the so-called click-to-cancel rule, an appeals court struck it down, finding the Federal Trade Commission had failed to follow procedural requirements under the law.

Known colloquially as the click-to cancel rule, the Negative Option Rule was to go into effect July 14, forcing companies to make it as easy for consumers to cancel enrollment in subscriptions and programs as it was for them to enroll.

The rule has received pushback from various industry associations and individual businesses who filed a legal challenge against it in October, arguing it is “arbitrary” and “capricious” under the Administrative Procedure Act due to its scope and the FTC failed to follow procedural requirements under the FTC Act.

In its ruling Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit generally agreed.

“While we certainly do not endorse the use of unfair and deceptive practices in negative option marketing, the procedural deficiencies of the Commission’s rulemaking process are fatal here,” the court wrote in its 23-page ruling, adding that “vacatur of the entire Rule is appropriate in this case because of the prejudice suffered by petitioners as a result of the commission’s procedural error.”

According to the ruling, the FTC specifically failed to issue a preliminary regulatory analysis of the rule as required due to its annual effect on the U.S. economy being found to be more than $100 million.

The FTC had argued that it was not required to prepare such analysis as its initial estimate of annual economic impact did not surpass that threshold.

Lina Khan, former FTC commissioner during the Biden administration, which was behind the click-to-cancel rule, blamed the Trump administration for dragging its feet on implementing it, as it was first set to go into effect in May, and urged supporters of the rule to contact their local politicians.

“The rule was set to go into effect in May but this @FTC slow-walked it — and now a court has tossed it out, claiming industry didn’t get enough of a say,” she said on X.

“Anyone frustrated by how difficult firms make it to cancel subscriptions can tell the @FTC commissioners to re-issue the rule and urge members of Congress to make it law.”

Mark Meador, the current FTC commissioner, blamed the Biden administration, saying it “cut corners and didn’t follow the law.”

“Process matters,” he said on X.

Meanwhile, America’s Communications Association Connects lauded the ruling, saying the FTC overstepped its authorities, which could have had wider implications for how businesses handle all areas of transactions.

“It sought to impose compliance requirements that made it more difficult for our members to provide the best value and customer experience possible,” ACA Connects, which represents some 500 smaller and medium-sized broadband, video and phone services providers, said in a statement.

“We’re glad the Eighth Circuit recognized this reality today.”

Houthis strikes on Israel prove without a shadow of a doubt that America’s air strikes on Yemen are a failure, Nasr Al-Din Amer, deputy head of the Houthi group’s media office, said yesterday.

In statements to Al Jazeera, Amer added: “As much as the destruction of our infrastructure pains us, it does not affect our military operations, and we will respond.”

He stressed that “the blockade on Umm Al-Rashrash [Eilat] Port will not be lifted, nor will it resume operations. It will remain closed, and navigation will not return to normal at the Israeli enemy’s airports. They will remain closed until the aggression against Gaza stops.”

“We tell them that the operations will not end, and we are in a long battle, not an exchange of strikes. Our strikes are coming, even if you don’t attack Sana’a airport or Hudaydah Port. We will attack you because you are killing the Palestinian people,” he continued.

READ: US-Houthi ceasefire deal does not include Israel, says Houthi spokesperson

Amer asserted that the group’s operations intend to support the Palestinian people, vowing to intensify them with other advanced methods “if Israel continues to threaten ground operations in Gaza.”

He ended by saying: “We are responding within the framework of a battle with the Israeli enemy entity. As long as the aggression against Gaza continues, along with the siege and the violation of a number of Arab countries continues, we remain in a state of engagement with the enemy. We will respond with full force, we will say no, and we are confident that we will achieve victory in the battle.”

Yesterday, the Israeli occupation army announced it bombed Sanaa airport and central power stations used by the Houthis in the capital, as a response to the attack on Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv on Sunday.

READ: Airlines halt all flights to Israel after Houthi missile lands near airport