Yemenis take to the streets of the capital Sana’a and other provinces across the country on August 16, 2024, to reiterate their support for Palestinians in Gaza who are subjected to an Israeli genocidal war.

Sanaa, August 17 (RHC)-- Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets of the capital Sana’a and other provinces across the country to reiterate their support for Palestinians in Gaza who are subjected to an Israeli genocidal war. 

Despite a heavy rain, the protest called the Million-Man March was held in Sana’a on Friday.  Similar weekly protests also took place in other Yemeni provinces, including Hajjah, Hudaydah, Ma’rib, and Sa’ada.

The demonstrators were raising Yemeni and Palestinian flags and chanting slogans in support of the oppressed Palestinian people.  They also voiced their support for their country’s pro-Gaza operations and the expected response of the Axis of Resistance to the recent Israeli assassinations.

“The response is a definite decision… coming inevitable,” the protesters chanted.

Late last month, Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander and an advisor to the Lebanese movement’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated in an Israeli strike against a building in a suburb of the country’s capital Beirut. That was followed by the regime’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas’ Political Bureau Chief, in the Iranian capital of Tehran.

In a statement, the organizers of the protests hailed the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their resistance fighters who “thwarted the enemies’ hopes and dreams.”  The statement praised the missile attack conducted by the military wing of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas against Tel Aviv and its suburbs this week, more than 10 months after the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, saying it shows that the regime has failed to undermine the Palestinian resistance and that “there are so safe areas for the occupiers”.

Meanwhile, the statement slammed the international silence and Arab inaction on the Israeli crimes.  It also denounced the Israeli violations at al-Aqsa Mosque in al-Quds as “a serious escalation,” urging the Arab and Muslim nations to take “honorable” stances on Israeli crimes and violations.

On Tuesday morning, more than 2,200 illegal settlers forced their way into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound to commemorate Tisha B'Av, an annual Jewish fast day that marks the occurrence of several disasters in Jewish history.  Israel's far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Yitzhak Wasserlauf were among the intruders.

Al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site for Muslims.  Far-right Israeli groups have previously called for widespread incursions into the mosque on the occasion of the Jewish Passover holiday.

Under an agreement signed between Israel and the Jordanian government in the wake of the regime’s occupation of al-Quds in 1967, non-Muslim worship at the holy compound is prohibited. But the ban is a mere phrase and, in action, circumstances have been against Muslims.

The latest intrusion into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound takes place as the regime has been keeping its bloody war machine going in the Gaza Strip since October last year, with hopes of a long-awaited ceasefire agreement fading after more than ten months of barbaric onslaught on the Palestinian territory.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed more than 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured tens of thousands of others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

Since the onset of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the Yemeni forces have carried out scores of operations in support of the war-hit Gazans, striking targets throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, in addition to targeting Israeli ships or vessels heading towards ports in the occupied territories.