Hezbollah Lashes out at Saudi War Crimes, Slams ‘Suspicious’ International Silence
Hezbollah lashed out at Saudi crimes in Yemen, slamming as ‘suspicious’ the international silence in this regard.
In a statement released by its Media Relations Office late Thursday, Hezbollah described as war crimes the attacks carried out by the Saudi-UAE alliance which has been for more than 3 years waging a brutal aggression on Yemen, al-ManarTV website reported.
“Even before the blood of school students dries up, the US-Saudi aggression has committed a new massacre in Yemen’s Hodeidah, killing dozens of children and women… amid suspicious silence by the international community which only counts the number of victims.”
Hezbollah was referring to an earlier massacre committed by the Saudi-led aggression on Saada’s Dahian. The strike, which took place on August 9 targeted a school bus in a market, killing 51 civilians including 40 children, and injuring dozens others.
“Attacks by US-Saudi alliance: killing children and women as well as destroying schools, hospitals, markets and heritage sites in Yemen are all war crimes in every sense of the word,” the statement said.
The Lebanese resistance group denounced the continuous crimes against Yemeni people, calling on the international community to “stand against this savage aggression in order not to be complicit in these crimes.”
Hezbollah meanwhile in his statement saluted the Yemeni leadership and people, stressing that the “blood of innocents will triumph over the swords of the headmen.”
US-backed body covering up Saudi war crimes in Yemen: HRW
According to Press TV, Human Rights Watch says a so-called investigatory body, overseen by Saudi Arabia, has for more than two years been covering up war crimes committed by the kingdom in Yemen.
The rights organization released a 90-page analysis on the investigative work of a body, known as the Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT), which is made up of officials from the countries involved in the military “coalition” in Yemen.
Riyadh launched a war on Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstate Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen’s former president and an ally of Riyadh, and crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The rights group said on Friday that the investigatory body failed “to provide credible, impartial, and transparent investigations into coalition laws-of-war violations.”
The vast majority of the body’s so-called probes in Yemen, according to the HRW, concluded that any strikes on civilians were “unintentional outcomes of legitimate military operations.”
Middle East director at Human Rights Watch Sarah Leah Whitson said “the coalition has claimed that JIAT was credibly investigating allegedly unlawful airstrikes.”
“But the investigators were doing little more than covering up war crimes,” she added.
Whitson warned countries selling arms to Saudi Arabia, including the United States and the UK, that the “investigations do not protect them from being complicit in serious violations in Yemen.”
Human Rights Watch urged Riyadh and its allies to improve their investigatory procedures and “appropriately prosecute people responsible for war crimes” in Yemen.
Many analysts say by backing Saudi Arabia in Yemen, the Trump administration may be exposing itself to being held legally responsible for attacks on civilians.
The Trump administration faces increasing pressure even at home for its support for the kingdom. It has been supplying Saudi Arabia and its allies with advanced arms, intelligence sharing and aerial refueling of warplanes operating in Yemen.
H.M