GENEVA:
Fisticuffs broke out on Thursday at a Geneva press conference by Yemeni rebels when their leader was attacked by a slipper-wielding woman and others accusing them of mass killings in the country’s south.
The incident underscored the deep divisions between the various sides involved in trying to get Iran-backed rebels and the exiled government to agree to a badly-needed humanitarian truce.
Hamza al-Houthi, the head of the rebel delegation and from the Ansarullah group, was addressing reporters when a woman in a headscarf barged in and threw a slipper at him — a huge insult in the Arab world. Al-Houthi promptly threw it back.
She was quickly joined by six men who shouted slogans against the rebels and started raining blows at them, screaming “Killers, you are spreading death and disease in South Yemen”.
The melee lasted several minutes with bottles hurled before the intruders were hauled out.
The woman’s gesture was immediately hailed on social media in Aden, the main port city in South Yemen, with congratulatory tweets.
Once order was restored, al-Houthi said the rebels wanted “a humanitarian truce but it is not wanted by Saudi Arabia and its allies” who have staged aerial bombings on the rebels since March 26.