“In numerous situations where military targets could be identified, there remain serious concerns as to whether the incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects that could be expected from the attack were not excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage apparently sought”, the report said.
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Zeid is now calling for an independent, worldwide investigation into the conflict.
The coalition intervened in March a year ago to support President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi after the Huthis and their allies seized much of Yemen. It was not clear when the surgery was performed.
“We have been concerned for quite some time about the degree to which civilians in Yemen have been caught in the crossfire in that conflict”, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing.
According to reports, recently Houthi rebels and ex-president Ali Saleh formed a Supreme National Council in Sanaa and called on Saudi Arabia to direct negotiations in an attempt to bypass stalled UN-sponsored peace talks. “It has to stop”, Kerry told reporters in a press conference in Jiddah.
The State Department official said Kerry would be giving Gulf Arab states “an update on where things are going in Geneva” regarding proposals to share intelligence and coordinate militarily with Russian Federation against the IS group and al-Qaida.
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states back rebels fighting the forces of the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, and are members of the US-led coalition bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz at the King’s farm, on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 23, 2016.
Fewer than five US service members are now assigned full-time to the “Joint Combined Planning Cell”, which was established a year ago to coordinate US support, including air-to-air refueling of coalition jets and limited intelligence-sharing, Lieutenant Ian McConnaughey, a US Navy spokesman in Bahrain, told Reuters.
Kerry wrote on Twitter that he and the King discussed the “need to reach a political solution (and) address the humanitarian crisis in Yemen”, as well as the war in Syria and the fight against the Daesh.
Kerry also met Thursday with United Nations special envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed.
Yemen has seen nearly daily military attacks by Saudi Arabia since late March 2015, with internal sources putting the toll from the bloody aggression at about 10,000.
The government said it welcomed “in principle” the ideas proposed following Kerry’s meeting with his Gulf counterparts in Saudi Arabia, the official SABA news agency said.
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Those talks centre on proposals to share intelligence and coordinate militarily with Russian Federation against the IS group and al Qaida. The United States is also providing critical support to improve the capacity of Hudaydah Port to receive humanitarian and commercial supplies.
