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Israel Bombs Yemens Hodeidah Port After Attack Near Tel Aviv

Air strikes come a day after the Iran-aligned Houthis fired a missile that struck near Israel’s main airport. Israel strikes target Yemen’s Hodeidah a day after Houthi missile attack on Ben Gurion Airport The Israeli military says it has carried out air strikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port and a cement factory, claiming the sites were used to support Houthi operations against Israel. The strikes on Monday injured at least 21 people, the Houthi-run health ministry spokesman Anees al-Asbahi said. According to the Israeli army, fighter jets struck infrastructure linked to the Houthis, including a cement factory east of Hodeidah that it described as “an important economic resource” used in building tunnels and military infrastructure. “The Hodeidah seaport serves as a hub for the transfer of Iranian weapons and equipment for military needs,” the Israeli army said in a statement. The claim could not be independently verified. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that six Israeli strikes hit Hodeidah’s port and blamed both Israel and the United States. Axios journalist Barak Ravid quoted a senior US official who said the air raids were coordinated between Israel and the US. A US defence source told Al Jazeera that “US forces did not participate in the Israeli strikes on Yemen today” but did not deny nonlethal support may have been provided. The attack was carried out after a ballistic missile fired from Yemen on Sunday struck close to Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pledged retaliation for the Houthi attack, the first known missile to avoid interception since the Yemeni group began targeting Israel in November 2023. Al Jazeera correspondent Ali Hashem reported that about 30 Israeli warplanes took part in Monday’s operation, which was overseen by Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz from a command centre in Tel Aviv. Hashem said the strikes mark a “new phase” in Israeli attacks on Yemen. Since US President Donald Trump returned to power in January, the US has embarked on a more aggressive assault on Yemen “which is related directly to Israeli interests”, Hashem added. This is not the first time Israel has bombed targets in Yemen. In December, air raids struck the Ras Isa oil terminal and other sites in Hodeidah province, killing at least nine people. While most Houthi-launched projectiles have been intercepted, Sunday’s attack was the “most significant strike”, Hashem said, since the group launched its campaign in November 2023, which it said is in response to Israel’s war on Gaza and to show solidarity with Palestinians. A drone had previously hit a building in Tel Aviv last year. Since November 2023, the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah, have launched more than 100 drone and missile attacks targeting vessels they said are linked to Israel in the Red Sea. Although the Houthis paused attacks during a ceasefire in Gaza this year, they resumed their operations in March after Israel cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza and resumed its offensive. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Palestinian Author Mosab Abu Toha Wins Pulitzer Prize For Commentary

The poet gets the prestigious award for New Yorker essays ‘on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza’ amid war. Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha, who has been targeted by pro-Israel groups in the United States for deportation, has won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Abu Toha received the prestigious award on Monday for essays published in The New Yorker “on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience” of the war. “I have just won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary,” Abu Toha wrote on social media. “Let it bring hope. Let it be a tale.” The comment appears to be a tribute to his fellow Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, was killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza in December 2023. Alareer’s final poem was titled, “If I must die, let it be a tale”. Abu Toha was detained by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2023 before being released to Egypt and subsequently moving to the US. “In the past year, I have lost many of the tangible parts of my memories – the people and places and things that helped me remember,” Abu Toha wrote in one of his New Yorker essays. “I have struggled to create good memories. In Gaza, every destroyed house becomes a kind of album, filled not with photos but with real people, the dead pressed between its pages.” In recent months, right-wing groups in the US have called for deporting Abu Toha amid a campaign by President Donald Trump cracking down non-citizens critical of Israel. The author cancelled events at universities in recent months, citing fears for his safety. I have just won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Let it bring hope
Let it be a tale pic.twitter.com/VP6RsPY6vz — Mosab Abu Toha (@MosabAbuToha) May 5, 2025 The Palestinian poet told Al Jazeera’s The Take podcast in December that the feeling of inability to help people in Gaza has been “devastating”. “Imagine that you are with your parents, with your siblings and their children in a school shelter in Gaza,” Abu Toha said. “You are unable to protect anyone. You are unable to provide them with any food, with any water, with any medicine. But now you are in the United States, the country that is funding the genocide. So, it is heartbreaking.” In other Pulitzer categories, New York Times won prizes for explanatory reporting, local reporting, international coverage and breaking news photography on Monday. With the four awards, the New York-based newspaper received the most prizes from Pulitzer’s 14 journalism contests this year. Winners of the award, named after the Hungarian-American newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, are selected by a board of journalists and academics and announced at Columbia University annually. The New York Times received the international reporting prize for its coverage of the conflict in Sudan, edging out The Washington Post, which was a finalist in the category for its “documented Israeli atrocities” in Gaza, including investigations into the killings of Palestinian medics and journalists. The Post won the breaking news prize for its coverage of the Trump assassination attempt during a campaign rally last year. The Reuters news agency took the investigative reporting award for a “boldly reported expose of lax regulation in the US and abroad that makes fentanyl”. Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Michigan Drops Charges Against Pro-Palestine US Student Protesters

US state’s attorney general says her office will no longer pursue the case due to delays and a ‘circus-like atmosphere’. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has dropped charges against seven student protesters from the University of Michigan, citing legal delays and controversies surrounding the US case, which she said has become a “lightning rod of contention”. The decision on Monday puts an end to the case that started in May 2024 when the students, who pleaded not guilty, were charged with trespassing and resisting a police officer while attending a pro-Palestinian campus protest.  “We feel vindicated that the case was dismissed,” said Jamil Khuja, a member of the defence team for the students. “These individuals committed no crime whatsoever. They were exercising their right to protest and engage in political speech on public property.” Despite dropping the charges and growing criticism of the case, Nessel on Monday defended her decision to pursue felony charges against the students, saying “a reasonable jury would find the defendants guilty of the crimes alleged”. However, Nessel added in a statement that she dropped the charges nearly a year later because she did not believe “these cases to be a prudent use of my department’s resources”. While hundreds of students were arrested during the wave of pro-Palestine campus encampments that swept the United States last year amid Israel’s war on Gaza, most were immediately released. The case in Michigan gained national attention and became symbolic of the nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine demonstrations, with Palestinian rights advocates arguing that the Nessel case was an attack on freedom of speech and assembly. Defence lawyers for the accused had filed motions for Nessel to recuse herself from the case, citing accusations of bias – assertions that the attorney general dismissed as “baseless and absurd”. “These distractions and ongoing delays have created a circus-like atmosphere to these proceedings,” the attorney general said in her statement. Khuja, the defence lawyer, said the team was “absolutely confident” of winning the case, either by judicial dismissal or not-guilty jury verdict, and criticised Nessel’s characterisation of the pretrial proceedings as “circus-like” as untrue. He said requesting Nessel’s removal from the case was warranted, adding that the charges should have been brought by the county and not the state’s attorney general, according to Michigan’s prosecution procedures. To underscore the alleged bias, the defence lawyer also noted that weeks before filing the charges last year, Nessel had clashed with Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, “the only Palestinian in Congress”, for defending the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, which has been used by student protesters. Soon after Nessel charged the students, Tlaib accused the attorney general of “possible biases” within her agency, underscoring that other protest movements did not face a similar legal crackdown. The attorney general responded by accusing Tlaib of anti-Semitism, although the congresswoman made no mention of the attorney general’s religion or Jewish identity. “Rashida should not use my religion to imply I cannot perform my job fairly as Attorney General. It’s anti-Semitic and wrong,” Nessel wrote in a social media post in September. The controversy stretched for weeks, with CNN and pro-Israel outlets echoing Nessel’s anti-Semitism allegations against Tlaib without evidence. Khuja said the attorney general ultimately wanted to “make an example out of those protesting for Palestine”. He added that the case was larger than the students and politicians involved. “The First Amendment applies to all speech, but it’s been under attack in order to shield Israel from criticism lately,” Khuja told Al Jazeera. “And this case proved that those who believe in Palestinian rights, their views are just as legitimate as anybody else’s, and the First Amendment protects those views and your right to express them.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Russia Reports Ukrainian Drone Attack On Moscow Ahead Of May 9 Events

The attack comes as Moscow prepares to welcome foreign leaders from China and Brazil, among others. Russia has reported that it repelled a drone attack on Moscow as the capital city prepares to host a major military parade with foreign leaders in attendance. Russia’s air defence systems intercepted “four drones flying towards Moscow”, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Monday. The attack appears intended to unsettle Moscow’s preparations for events marking the end of the Great Patriotic War, commonly known as World War II elsewhere, on May 9. President Vladimir Putin has called for a 72-hour ceasefire to mark the occasion starting on May 8. However, Ukraine has demanded instead a 30-day truce aimed at agreeing to a permanent ceasefire in the conflict that began when Russia invaded in February 2022. Sobyanin said in a post on Telegram that there were no reports of injuries or damage. However, the attack did prompt a brief halt to air traffic at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. Aviation regulator Rosaviatsia confirmed flights were suspended for about 90 minutes overnight to ensure air safety. Elsewhere, Russian officials said 17 drones were downed over the Bryansk region and five more over Kaluga. The Kremlin has branded Putin’s declaration of a three-day unilateral ceasefire a humanitarian gesture. Military operations will be paused during the truce, according to Russian authorities, as world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, are expected in Moscow. However, Russia has rejected an unconditional 30-day ceasefire proposal, accepted by the United States, which is trying to broker an end to the war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also dismissed the 72-hour truce, which came as US President Donald Trump suggested he is growing frustrated with Moscow’s failure to agree on a ceasefire, as “unserious”. He accused Moscow of “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on May 9”. Zelenskyy also said Ukraine could not guarantee the safety of any foreign dignitaries, adding that Russia was responsible for its own security. “The Russians are asking for a ceasefire on May 9 and are themselves firing at Ukraine every day. This is cynicism of the highest order,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. Putin said in his original declaration of the 72-hour pause in the fighting that Russian forces would respond if the country was fired upon. Russia has continued to bombard Ukraine despite its proposed ceasefire from May 8. On Monday, Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 42 of 116 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack. At least 11 people, including two children, were injured in the capital, Kyiv, during the attack, Timur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv city military administration, said on social media. Cherkasy in central Ukraine was also targeted. Emergency services reported that one person was injured and residential buildings and civil infrastructure were damaged. Meanwhile, war bloggers reported on Monday that Ukrainian forces have attacked Russia’s western Kursk region – a portion of which they occupied for months before being ejected last month, according to Russia’s military. Firing missiles, Ukraine’s forces were reported by several sources to have smashed through the border. There was no immediate comment from either Russia or Ukraine, but Russian war bloggers published maps showing Ukrainian forces trying to push over the border in two places. Follow Al Jazeera English:...