Middle East latest: Israeli defense minister warns Yemen's Houthi rebels

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Middle East latest: Israeli defense minister warns Yemen's Houthi rebels

2024-12-19 17:09 Last Updated At：17:20

Israel’s defense minister said Thursday the country would “not allow the continuation” of shooting from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, hours after Israel launched heavy airstrikes on rebel sites.

“I suggest the leaders of the Houthi organization to see, to understand and remember, whoever raises a hand against the state of Israel, his hand will be cut off. Whoever harms us will be harmed sevenfold,” said Israel Katz, the defense minister.

Israel would “strike with force,” Katz said, and “not allow the continuation of this situation of shooting and threats against the state of Israel.”

The statement followed a series of intense Israeli airstrikes that shook Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel and badly damaged a school building.

The Iran-backed Houthis have staged attacks throughout the war on ships in the Red Sea corridor and launched missiles at Israel. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Here’s the latest:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel.

Israel said it conducted two waves of strikes in a preplanned operation involving 14 fighter jets and targeting infrastructure at Red Sea ports and in Yemen’s rebel-held capital.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said the strikes hit targets the Iranian-backed Houthis “have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military action.”

The strikes risk escalating conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthis, whose attacks on the Red Sea corridor have impacted global shipping. The rebels have so far avoided the same level of intense military strikes that have targeted the Palestinian Hamas militant group and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The Houthi-controlled satellite channel al-Masirah said some of the strikes targeted power stations in the capital, as well as the Ras Isa oil terminal on the Red Sea. The channel, citing its correspondent in the port city of Hodeida, said at least seven people were killed at the nearby port of Salif, while another two were killed at Ras Isa.

Gisèle Pelicot's ex-husband found guilty of rapes and all other charges against him in France

2024-12-19 17:18 Last Updated At：17:20

AVIGNON, France (AP) — A French court on Thursday declared the ex-husband of Gisèle Pelicot guilty of aggravated rapes and all other charges against him, and was reading out verdicts against dozens of other men charged in the case.

The verdict for 72-year-old Dominique Pelicot was read by the lead judge of the court in Avignon, Roger Arata. He hasn't yet delivered the sentence, which can be up to 20 years imprisonment.

Arata read out verdicts one after the other against the 51 men, declaring “you are therefore declared guilty of aggravated rape on the person of Mme. Gisèle Pelicot” as he worked his way through the first names on the list.

Gisèle Pelicot was seated on one side of the courtroom, facing the defendants as Arata announced one guilty verdict after another.

The historic case has profoundly shaken France over the past several months.

Dominique Pelicot admitted that for years he knocked his then wife of 50 years out with drugs so that he and strangers he recruited online could abuse her while he filmed the assaults.

The appalling ordeal inflicted over nearly a decade on Gisèle Pelicot, now a 72-year-old grandmother, in what she thought was a loving marriage and her courage during the bruising and stunning trial have transformed the retired power company worker into a feminist hero of the nation.

Stretching over more than three months, the trial galvanized campaigners against sexual violence and spurred calls for tougher measures to stamp out rape culture.

Dominique Pelicot and 49 other men were tried in the southern French city of Avignon for aggravated rape and attempted rape and face up to 20 years imprisonment if convicted.

Prosecutors asked that he get the maximum penalty and for sentences of 10 to 18 years for the others. They also requested a four-year prison term for another defendant who was tried for aggravated sexual assault.

Of the 50 men accused of rape, just one was acquitted but was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault.

The defendants were all accused of having taken part in Dominique Pelicot's sordid rape and abuse fantasies that were acted out in the couple's retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere.

Dominique Pelicot testified that he hid tranquilizers in food and drink that he gave his then wife, knocking her out so profoundly that he could do what he wanted to her for hours.

One of the men was on trial not for assaulting Gisèle Pelicot but for drugging and raping his own wife — with the help and drugs from Dominique Pelicot, who was also tried for raping the other man's wife.

The five judges voted by secret ballot in their rulings, with a majority vote required to convict and also for the sentences of those found guilty.

Campaigners against sexual violence are hoping for exemplary prison terms and view the trial as a possible turning point in the fight against rape culture and the use of drugs to subdue victims.

Gisèle Pelicot's courage in waiving her right to anonymity as a survivor of sexual abuse and successfully pushing for the hearings and shocking evidence — including videos — to be heard in open court have fueled conversations both on a national level in France and among families, couples and groups of friends about how to better protect women and the role that men can play in pursuing that goal.

“Men are starting to talk to women — their girlfriends, mothers and friends — in ways they hadn’t before,” said Fanny Foures, 48, who joined other women from the feminist group Les Amazones in gluing messages of support for Gisèle Pelicot on walls around Avignon before the verdict.

“It was awkward at first, but now real dialogues are happening," she said.

“Some women are realizing, maybe for the first time, that their ex-husbands violated them, or that someone close to them committed abuse,” Foures added. “And men are starting to reckon with their own behavior or complicity — things they’ve ignored or failed to act on. It’s heavy, but it’s creating change.”

A large banner that campaigners hung on a city wall opposite the courthouse read, “MERCI GISELE” — thank you Gisèle.

Dominique Pelicot first came to the attention of police in September 2020, when a supermarket security guard caught him surreptitiously filming up women’s skirts.

Police subsequently found his library of homemade images documenting years of abuse inflicted on his wife — more than 20,000 photos and videos in all, stored on computer drives and catalogued in folders marked “abuse,” “her rapists,” “night alone” and other titles.

The abundance of evidence led police to the other defendants. In the videos, investigators counted 72 different abusers, but weren't able to identify them all.

Although some of the accused — including Dominique Pelicot — acknowledged that they were guilty of rape, many didn't, even in the face of video evidence. The hearings sparked wider debate in France about whether the country’s legal definition of rape should be expanded to include specific mention of consent.

Some defendants argued that Dominique Pelicot’s consent covered his wife, too. Some sought to excuse their behavior by insisting that they hadn’t intended to rape anyone when they responded to the husband’s invitations to come to their home. Some laid blame at his door, saying he misled them into thinking they were taking part in consensual kink.