🇸🇦🇾🇪 With Turkey’s military power and Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence backing Saudi under the Mecca Pact, the Houthis face a very different enemy.
The trilateral defense bloc combines Turkish drones, Pakistani troops, and Saudi air power, overmatching the rebels in conventional strength and tightening control over Saudi infrastructure and the Bab al-Mandeb.
But dominating the coast is one thing; defeating the Houthis in Yemen’s mountains is another.
Air power and electronic warfare lose much of their edge there, leaving the alliance with the only choice to secure the coast or risk another endless guerrilla war.
Three years after the October 7 atrocities waged by Hamas at break of dawn, Israel is holding memorial and commemoration ceremonies nationwide Wednesday for those killed and murdered. At 6:29 a.m., the exact minute Hamas opened fire in 2023, civilians shut down the Ayalon Highway (Tel Aviv’s main freeway) in both directions, unfurling massive banners that read, “The nation shall remember its sons and daughters.” At a ceremony in Kfar Aza (a hard-hit Gaza border community), the flag was lowered to half-staff at the same moment.
The protesters said in a statement, “This morning, we stand with the families of October 7. The memory of those murdered and abandoned cannot be erased, nor can the day of the massacre.”
Video: Protesters block the Ayalon Highway / Credit: W.L.
On Tel Aviv’s beaches Wednesday morning, hundreds of people gathered around a display illustrating the scale of the massacre. “Lying here are families slaughtered in their own homes, elderly pioneers and founders of the state, party lovers who had just gone out to dance, security forces personnel, citizens who wanted to help… men, women and children. Their only sin was being citizens of Israel, or visitors in the country, on October 7, 2023. This is not a fated tragedy. It is a state that lost its way. A state with no moral compass. A leadership that abandons its citizens. A disregard for the sanctity of life and mutual responsibility.”
The destruction in Kfar Aza following the Oct. 7 massacre (Flash 90 / Haim Goldberg)
Across the country, the Israel Police commissioner and the force’s senior command staff saluted and stood for a moment of silence at every site where officers and fighters fell in the containment battles.
At 6:29 a.m. on October 7, 2023, Hamas launched the largest terrorist attack the State of Israel had ever seen. Hundreds of terrorists tore through the border fence from the Gaza Strip. They stormed Israeli communities and IDF bases. The massacre resulted in the murder of roughly 1,200 people. Thousands more were wounded, and hundreds were dragged into the Gaza Strip as hostages. That single morning shook the entire country, and to this day, Israel remains at war in what is known as the Swords of Iron war.
Schedule of commemoration events across the country
At 6:29 a.m., the exact moment the horrific attack began in 2023, bereaved families in Kibbutz Reim (near the Nova festival massacre site) were to gather to read short memorial passages. At the same hour, a ceremony was to unfold at the armory in Kfar Aza, while a memorial display takes shape in front of the Knesset.
Palestinians walk away from the kibbutz of Kfar Azza, Israel, near the fence with the Gaza strip on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023 (AP / Hassan Eslaiah)
At 10 a.m., Channel 12 news correspondent Tamir Steinman was to host a live broadcast from the Kfar Aza cemetery. By 11:47 a.m., a ceremony was to be held to honor those murdered at the Nova festival, where Hamas murdered hundreds of partygoers who had gathered for a rave on the last night of Sukkot, including the victims who had hid inside a shipping container before being shot a point blank. The flag at Kfar Aza, lowered at 6:29 a.m., was to remain at half-staff throughout. Among the crowd will be Knesset member Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of Yisrael Beytenu.
At noon, a “Stop and Remember” initiative would be launched to pause work in hospitals, companies and organizations nationwide, honoring those killed and murdered. Haifa, meanwhile, will hold its own memorial ceremony at the same hour.
By 4:30 p.m., President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal Herzog, were to meet survivors of the massacre in Netiv HaAsara (a Gaza border community). An hour later, the main event unfolds at the Southern Wall (beside Jerusalem’s Western Wall), featuring former hostages Agam Berger, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Bar Kupershtein and Evyatar David, broadcast live. At 6:29 p.m., a musical memorial ceremony will take place at the Nova festival site in Reim, with the president in attendance.
At 9:15 p.m., the national memorial ceremony for the October 7 massacre was be held in Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv. The event, which is organized by the families and is separate from the state ceremonies held on the Hebrew date earlier this week, was to be broadcast live.
Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi Vadra climbed over and opened the gate at Kingsway Camp in Delhi, where Rahul Gandhi and other detained Opposition leaders were being held. Congress workers and other protesters then entered the premises. The incident took place during an Opposition mobilisation over electoral issues and demands directed at Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Visuals show Priyanka Gandhi climbing the gate before protesters moved inside the premises. #priyankagandhi #rahulgandhi #kingswaycamp #congress #delhiprotest #oppositionprotest #gyaneshkumar #electioncommission #delhinews #politicalnews #timesnow #englishnews
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Venezuela halted the Cardon refinery, its second-largest with a capacity of 310,000 barrels per day, after a fire sparked by a ruptured natural gas line, state-run oil company PDVSA said late on Tuesday while it evaluates the situation, Report informs via Reuters.
Eight sources with knowledge of the matter earlier confirmed to Reuters that a fire had broken out at the facility, part of PDVSA’s 955,000-bpd Paraguana Refining Center, Venezuela’s largest complex.
Two of the sources said the fire started at a gas line to the refinery’s diesel hydrotreater, forcing the shutdown of the entire facility, including boilers.
In its evening statement, PDVSA said it quickly contained the blaze caused by a rupture at about 3:25 p.m. (GMT-4) in the natural gas line feeding the boilers. There were no injuries or major damage, it added, and the incident is being investigated.
Fires, power interruptions and outages are common at the company’s facilities, and can affect supply of fuel essential to the domestic market, such as gasoline and diesel.
Huge columns of flames and smoke billowed from the refinery in videos posted on social media. Later photographs from neighbors showed firefighters in the facility and the flames put out.
Output was halted last month from one of Cardon’s crude distillation units and its fluid catalytic cracker because of insufficient feedstock.
