The Biden administration is expected to soon announce plans to redesignate Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as specially designated global terrorists, according to two people familiar with the White House decision and a U.S. official.
The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The group says it has attacked the ships in response to Israel’s military operations in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
The three people familiar with the decision were not authorized to comment and requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of the expected formal announcement.
Bombing Rafah Crossing in self defense?
Yes. They were attacking an underground tunnel that could have been used to supply Hamas, and they warned the Gazans operating the gate in advance.
By bombing and sniping civilians on the street?
I can’t keep up with your moving goal posts, what incident are you referring to? Israel has been clear they will attack valid Hamas targets no matter where they are found, even when Hamas hides among civilians or uses ambulances and hospitals for their military purposes.
The bombing of Rafah Crossing and the Israel sniping of Palestinian medics in Gaza.
The Israelis have claimed that one in three Gazans killed during their invasion has been a member of Hamas. Never even mind how they came to that statistic, but that still leaves two in three Gazans who aren’t valid Hamas targets that they admitted to knowingly slaughter.
I’m not seeing anything about gazan medics being sniped by IDF in this current conflict, Google isn’t returning any results that match what you are describing, can you provide a credible source?
Given that the average urban combat that involves explosives has 90% civilian casualties the 61% civilian casualties that Israel reportedly caused is actually evidence that they are very selective with their targets, not indiscriminate. Going in to a well-prepared urban terrorist den without air support would have led to many IDF casualties and is therefore a non-starter.
The statistic that 90% of casualties in wars are civilians don’t seem to be supported from what I can tell. It varies a lot but for example the civilian casualty ratio for WWII was like 67%. For the 2008 Gaza war the civilian casualty ratio was more like 74% (noncombatants) and 64% for the 2014 war (unless you only look at IDF sources, then it’s more like 40%). I can’t really get details on the 61%, are they counting all males 14+ as combatants? Even then it comes to 69% civilian casualties. I don’t see how they got to 61%, which is still very high for modern conflicts as stated in the article you linked.
This is what the UN article is referring to which I don’t understand why you think it shows that Israel is trying to reduce civilian deaths. What do you think Israel is counting as combatants? The numbers they claim only make sense if you think all males, including teen-age, are somehow combatants. Which makes no sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
https://gwern.net/doc/politics/2010-roberts.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Gaza_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_strikes_and_Palestinian_casualties_in_the_2014_Gaza_War
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians
I found a few links of the IDF killing medics in 2023, plus some bonus articles
www.timesofisrael.com/after-damning-report-idf-says-it-is-probing-killing-of-gazan-medic-in-june/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-protests-latest-idf-condemned-edited-video-angel-of-mercy-medic-razan-al-najjar-a8389611.html
https://www.barrons.com/news/israel-denies-bombing-gaza-ambulance-killing-medics-41a3e09c
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/16/escape-from-al-shifa-how-a-gaza-medic-dodged-israeli-patrols-snipers
https://english.palinfo.com/news/2024/01/16/312909/