Top UN official in Yemen rejects Israeli claim Sanaa airport was military target
A top UN official in Yemen has rejected allegations that Sanaa airport, which was targeted in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday, has any military purpose. Julien Harneis and his team were at the airport when the strikes hit some 300 metres from them, destroying the air traffic control centre, killing staff working there and injuring a UN crew member.
The top UN official for humanitarian aid in Yemen, who narrowly dodged an aerial bombing raid by Israel on Sanaa's airport, denied Friday that the facility had any military purpose.
Israel said that it was targeting "military infrastructure" in Thursday's raids and that targets around the country were used by Houthis to "smuggle Iranian weapons" and bring in senior Iranian officials.
UN humanitarian coordinator Julien Harneis said the airport "is a civilian location that is used by the United Nations."
"It's used by the International Committee of the Red Cross, it is used for civilian flights – that is its purpose," he told reporters by video link from Yemen.
"Parties to the conflict have an obligation to ensure that they are not striking civilian targets," he added. "The obligation is on them, not on us. We don't need to prove we're civilians."
Harneis described how he, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and 18 other UN staff, were caught up in the attack, which he said also took place as a packed airliner was touching down nearby.
"In fact, that airliner from Yemenia Air was landing, taxiing in, when the air traffic control was destroyed."
(AFP)
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