El Gordo. Cartoon of 22/12/2024 in CTXT
Translation of the cartoon: "There are only a few hours left to find out where the Gordo will fall" (El Gordo is the biggest prize in Spain's Christmas Lottery).
It was already announced in the last quarter of 2023 that 2024 would be a year of war. And this winter is going to be a hot one in the Middle East.
On 19 December, Israel's third attack on Yemen since October 2023, which took out infrastructure in different regions of Yemen in response to a missile strike. The Houthi rebels claimed to have sent two ballistic missiles. According to France 24, citing sources from the Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah television channel, nine people were killed by the Israeli strikes.
On 21 December, a ballistic missile fired from Yemen injured at least 16 people in Israel when it hit a residential area of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, damaging a children's playground and some buildings in the area. Israel acknowledged that it had failed to intercept the missile with its notorious"Iron Dome" missile defence shield. Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues its genocidal campaign in Palestine.
Houthi rebels, allied with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, claimed responsibility for the attack. Yemeni armed forces spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a statement that they had targeted an Israeli "military target" in the occupied Jaffa area with a hypersonic ballistic missile, of the "Palestine 2'" type.
Hours later, the response came. The Yemeni media outlet Al-Masirah, linked to the Iranian-backed Houthis, claimed that the explosions in Yemen's capital, Sana'a, were the result of air strikes. According to Israeli sources, the attacks were carried out by the US-led coalition, not Israel.
Far from easing the situation, on 22 December Yemen's Houthis claimed in a communiqué to have prevented a US/UK attack in the Red Sea and that during the operation they shot down an F/A-18 aircraft and used eight missiles and 17 drones to force the attacking aircraft out of Yemeni airspace and into neutral waters of the Red Sea.
Those who still believe that all this is just something that is happening far away should be in no doubt that the increase in global repercussions can have reflections and impacts almost anywhere on the globe.
