The Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) on Yemen revealed on Thursday the results reached by the team in Yemen with regard to the latest allegations from international governmental and non-governmental organizations about the military operations in Yemen, reported the Saudi Press Agency.
JIAT spokesman Legal Consultant Mansour Ahmed Al-Mansour told a press conference in Riyadh that the assessment was in line with the International Humanitarian Law and customary rules. The Saudi-led Arab coalition is also committed to the rules of engagement in Yemen.
JIAT refuted a Human Rights Watch report from July 2016 in which it charged that coalition forces had attacked two out of five warehouses in the Hodeidah province.
After a JIAT revision, Mansour said that based on intelligence received by the coalition, the Iran-backed Houthi militias were using the warehouses as weapons and ammunition caches. This made them a legitimate military target whose destruction will achieve a military advantage based on the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions.
Coalition forces carried out an air mission on the target in Hodeidah city, using two guided bombs that hit their target.
During the study of the executed mission the JIAT found that the coalition forces have taken feasible precautions to avoid casualties or any accidental damages to civilian objects.
In the light of that, JIAT found that the procedures taken by coalition forces in dealing with the legitimate military target (armories) in Hodeidah was in accordance with the International Humanitarian Law and customary rules.
The JIAT also refuted claims about strikes in Sanaa and other regions in Yemen, stressing that they were in line with international conventions and laws.
