Houthis limit relief workers’ mobility by requiring authorization between cities

Yemeni government has reiterated its appeal for UN agencies to relocate headquarters from Houthi-held areas to Aden. (File/AFP)
Yemeni government has reiterated its appeal for UN agencies to relocate headquarters from Houthi-held areas to Aden. (File/AFP)
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Updated 14 August 2024
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Houthis limit relief workers’ mobility by requiring authorization between cities

Yemeni government has reiterated its appeal for UN agencies to relocate headquarters from Houthi-held areas to Aden. (File/AFP)
  • Yemeni government has reiterated its appeal for UN agencies and other international organizations to relocate headquarters from Houthi-held areas to Aden

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s government has said that the Iran-backed Houthis have requested that Yemenis and foreigners working for international organizations operating in areas under their control obtain prior permission before traveling between Yemeni cities and that the Yemeni militia has abducted dozens of officers and public employees for unknown reasons. 

The Yemeni government has reiterated its appeal for UN agencies and other international organizations to relocate headquarters from Houthi-held areas to the southern city of Aden, Yemen’s temporary capital.

Yemen’s Human Rights Minister Ahmed Arman told Arab News that the Houthis informed Yemeni and foreign workers with international organizations, including some UN agencies, in Sanaa, Hajjah, Amran, Hodeidah, and other Houthi-controlled Yemeni provinces last week that they needed to notify them in advance if they wanted to travel between Yemeni cities. The Houthis waived permission for workers who wished to travel outside of Yemen, which was regarded as an attempt to coerce them to leave the country.

The Yemeni minister urged that the UN “completely” shut its offices in Sanaa to put pressure on the Houthis to return abducted workers and cease harassing humanitarian workers in Yemen, saying: “We demand that the UN and other international institutions completely close their doors until the abducted workers are released.”

In a dramatic sweep that started in late May, the Houthi militia seized around 70 Yemeni personnel from UN agencies, other international organizations, and Western embassies in Sanaa and other Yemeni regions under their control, as well as searched their homes and offices.

According to reports, the Houthis ransacked the abducted workers’ residences, stealing personal papers and belongings, as well as electronics. The arrests happened after the Houthis claimed to have discovered Yemenis exploiting their positions at international organizations to conduct espionage for the US and Israel.

On Tuesday, Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, lambasted the Houthis for seizing a UN human rights agency office in Sanaa and taking papers and other items, saying that their many appeals for the Houthis to return the abducted workers had “fallen on deaf ears.”

In a press release, Turk said: “It is crucial that the de facto authorities respect the United Nations and its independence, release all detained UN staff immediately, and create conditions in which my Office and other UN agencies can continue their critical work for the people of Yemen without threats or hindrance.” 

In a post on social media platform X, Yemen’s Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani on Tuesday made the same call for the UN and other international organizations to relocate their offices from Sanaa to Aden in order to safeguard personnel from the Houthi crackdown.

Al-Eryani urged the UN, its agencies, and other international organizations in Yemen to “immediately move their headquarters to the interim capital, Aden, and the liberated areas, to ensure a suitable environment to carry out their humanitarian missions safely and more effectively to serve those in need, and to preserve the lives of their staff.”

At the same time, Arman said that the Houthis had broadened their crackdown to include officers from intelligence and security agencies, as well as public workers from two ministries. The Houthis have seized 30 officers from national and political security agencies, as well as 16 personnel from the Ministries of Education and Higher Education, and are on the trail of 186 Yemenis for unexplained reasons.

Meanwhile, the US Central Command said on Wednesday morning that its forces had destroyed two Houthi boats in the Red Sea that were preparing to attack commercial and navy ships in the critical commerce channel. This comes a day after the Houthis assaulted two ships in the Red Sea, the latest in a series of assaults on ships that the Yemeni militia claims are in favor of the Palestinian people.


UAE will not back post-war Gaza plans without Palestinian state

UAE will not back post-war Gaza plans without Palestinian state
Updated 15 sec ago
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UAE will not back post-war Gaza plans without Palestinian state

UAE will not back post-war Gaza plans without Palestinian state

DUBAI: The UAE is not prepared to support a post-war plan for Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state, Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan tweeted on X on Saturday. 

“The UAE is not ready to support the day after the war in Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state,” his post on X said. 

Anwar Gargash, an Emirati diplomatic adviser and a former minister of state, said Sheikh Abdullah’s statement made clear that the UAE rejects anything but a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel.
“The statement by His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed that the UAE is not prepared to support the day after the war in Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state reflects our firm and steadfast position in supporting our Palestinian brothers and our conviction that there is no stability in the region except through a two-state solution,’’ Gargash wrote on X. 
“The UAE will stand by the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” he added.
Earlier, the UAE called for a temporary international mission to lay the foundation for a new governance in Gaza after the war ends.

In a statement, Reem bint Ebrahim Al-Hashimy, the country’s minister of state for international cooperation, reaffirmed the UAE’s support for international efforts to achieve the two-state solution and for the mission that would help establish law and order and respond to the humanitarian crisis in post-war Gaza.


Missile fired from Yemen set off sirens in central Israel, military says

Missile fired from Yemen set off sirens in central Israel, military says
Updated 9 min 31 sec ago
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Missile fired from Yemen set off sirens in central Israel, military says

Missile fired from Yemen set off sirens in central Israel, military says
  • Air raid sirens had sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel, sending residents running for shelters

JERUSALEM: A surface-to-surface missile fired at central Israel from Yemen hit an unpopulated area, causing no injuries, Israel’s military said on Sunday.
Moments earlier, air raid sirens had sounded in Tel Aviv and across central Israel, sending residents running for shelter.
“Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in central Israel, a surface-to-surface missile was identified crossing into central Israel from the east and fell in an open area. No injuries were reported,” the military said.
Loud booms were also heard in the region, which the military said came from missile interceptors that had been launched. It added that its protective guidelines to Israel’s residents were unchanged.
Smoke could be seen billowing in an open field in central Israel, according to a Reuters witness, though it was unclear if the fire was started by the missile or debris of an interceptor.
In July, Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen fired a long-range drone at Tel Aviv, killing one man and wounding four others. The attack prompted Israel to carry out a major air strike on Houthi military targets near Yemen’s Hodeidah port, killing at least three people and wounding 87.


Tunisia fisherwomen battle inequality and climate change

Tunisia fisherwomen battle inequality and climate change
Updated 15 September 2024
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Tunisia fisherwomen battle inequality and climate change

Tunisia fisherwomen battle inequality and climate change
  • Tunisian women have long played a major role in this vital sector

KERKENNAH, Tunisia: Off a quiet Tunisian island, Sara Souissi readies her small fishing boat. As a woman in the male-dominated trade, she rows against entrenched patriarchy but also environmental threats to her livelihood.
Souissi began fishing as a teenager in a family of fishers off their native Kerkennah Islands near the city of Sfax, defying men who believed she had no place at sea.
“Our society didn’t accept that a woman would fish,” she said, hauling a catch onto her turquoise-colored boat.
“But I persisted, because I love fishing and I love the sea,” said Souissi, 43, who is married to a fisherman and is a mother of one.
A substantial portion of Tunisia is coastal or near the coast, making the sea an essential component of everyday life.
Seafood, a staple in Tunisian cuisine, is also a major export commodity for the North African country, with Italy, Spain and Malta top buyers, and revenues nearing 900 million dinars ($295 million) last year, according to official figures.
Tunisian women have long played a major role in this vital sector.
But their work has been undervalued and unsupported, a recent study by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found.
The study said that while women were actively involved throughout the fishing value chain, they remained “generally not considered as an actual worker” by their male counterparts.
Fisherwomen also have less access to administrative benefits, training and banking services, where they are viewed as “high-risk borrowers” compared to men, the study said.
As a result, many don’t own their own boats, and those working with male relatives are “considered as family help and therefore not remunerated,” it added.

In Raoued, a coastal town on the edge of the capital Tunis, the Tunisian Society for Sustainable Fishing launched a workshop in June for women’s integration into the trade.
But most of the women attending the training told AFP they were only there to help male relatives.
“I want to help develop this field. Women can make fish nets,” said Safa Ben Khalifa, a participant.
There are currently no official numbers for fisherwomen in Tunisia.
Although Souissi is formally registered in her trade, many Tunisian women can work only under the table — the World Economic Forum estimates 60 percent of workers in informal sectors are women.
“We want to create additional resources amid climate change, a decrease in marine resources, and poor fishing practices,” said Ryma Moussaoui, the Raoued workshop coordinator.
Last month, the Mediterranean Sea reached its highest temperature on record at a daily median of 28.9 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit), Spain’s leading institute of marine sciences said.
The strain on sea life and resources has been compounded in countries like Tunisia by pollution and overfishing.
Rising temperatures make the waters uninhabitable for various species, and unsustainable fishing like trawling or using plastic traps indiscriminately sweeps up the dwindling sea life and exacerbates pollution.
“They don’t respect the rules,” Souissi said about fishers using those methods. “They catch anything they can, even off-season.”

In 2017 in Skhira, a port town on the Gulf of Gabes, 40 women clam collectors formed an association to enhance their income — only to see their hard-won gains later erased by pollution.
Before its formation, the women earned about a tenth of the clams’ final selling price in Europe, said its president, Houda Mansour. By cutting out “exploitative middlemen,” the association helped boost their earnings, she added.
In 2020, however, the government issued a ban on clam collecting due to a severe drop in shellfish populations, leaving the women unemployed.
“They don’t have diplomas and can’t do other jobs,” Mansour, now a baker, explained.
In hotter, polluted waters, clams struggle to build strong shells and survive. Industrial waste discharged into the Gulf of Gabes for decades has contributed to the problem.
It has also forced other species out, said Emna Benkahla, a fishing economics researcher at the University of Tunis El Manar.
“The water became an unfavorable environment for them to live and reproduce,” undermining the fishers’ revenue, she said.
“Because they couldn’t fish anymore, some sold their boats to migrants looking to cross the Mediterranean illegally,” she added, calling for more sustainable practices.
Souissi, who only uses relatively small nets with no motor on her boat, said she and others should fish responsibly in order to survive.
“Otherwise, what else can I do?” she said, rowing her boat back to shore. “Staying at home and cleaning? No, I want to keep fishing.”
 

 


UN official says staff fear they are ‘a target’ as Israel hits Gaza shelters

UN official says staff fear they are ‘a target’ as Israel hits Gaza shelters
Updated 15 September 2024
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UN official says staff fear they are ‘a target’ as Israel hits Gaza shelters

UN official says staff fear they are ‘a target’ as Israel hits Gaza shelters
  • The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” on Hamas militants within the school grounds and had taken steps to reduce the risk to civilians

JERUSALEM: A senior UN official said Saturday that teachers and other UN staff working in Gaza fear they are now targets after an Israeli air strike hit a school-turned-shelter in the territory this week.
Wednesday’s strike on the UN-run Al-Jawni School in central Gaza, which is housing displaced Palestinians, killed 18 people. including six employees of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
It was the deadliest single incident for the agency in more than 11 months of war and drew international condemnation.
“One colleague said that they’re not wearing the UNRWA vest anymore because they feel that that turns them into a target,” UNRWA senior deputy director Sam Rose told AFP on Saturday after visiting the shelter in Nuseirat.
“Another one said that that morning, their children had stopped them from coming into the shelter,” he said in an online interview from Gaza.
The colleagues were gathering for a post-work meal in a classroom when the strike flattened part of the building, leaving only a charred heap of rebar and concrete.
“A son of one of the staff had brought a meal into the building,” Rose said, adding the group then debated whether to eat it in the principal’s office before settling on what appeared to be a classroom decorated with pictures of scientists.
“They were eating when the bomb hit.”
The Israeli military said it had conducted a “precise strike” on Hamas militants within the school grounds and had taken steps to reduce the risk to civilians.
The Israeli military published what it said was a list of nine militants killed in the Nuseirat strike, including three it said were employees of UNRWA.
An Israeli government spokesman said the school had become “a legitimate target” because it was used by Hamas to launch attacks.
Rose said such statements further battered morale among UN staffers still at the school, where thousands have sought shelter from a war that has displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million population at least once.
“They were particularly angry by the allegations that had been made as to the involvement of their colleagues in extremist and terrorist activities,” Rose said.
“They felt that this really was a stain on the memory of dear colleagues, dear friends,” he added, describing the mood as “bereft” and “desperate.”
UNRWA has said at least 220 members of the agency’s staff have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which was triggered by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliation has killed at least 41,182 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
On Friday, UNRWA announced one of its employees was killed during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank, the first such death in the territory in more than a decade.
UNRWA has more than 30,000 employees in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere.
It has been in crisis since Israel accused a dozen of its employees of being involved in the October 7 attack.
The UN immediately fired the implicated staff members, and a probe found some “neutrality related issues” but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its main allegations.


Iran downplays ‘failed’ sanctions over alleged missiles for Russia

Iran downplays ‘failed’ sanctions over alleged missiles for Russia
Updated 15 September 2024
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Iran downplays ‘failed’ sanctions over alleged missiles for Russia

Iran downplays ‘failed’ sanctions over alleged missiles for Russia
  • The top Iranian diplomat called sanctions “a tool of pressure and a tool of confrontation, not a tool of cooperation”

TEHRAN: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday dismissed the impact of recent Western sanctions, imposed over alleged arms exports to Russia, calling them a “failed tool” to influence Tehran’s policies.
Britain, France and Germany announced on Tuesday sanctions targeting Iranian air transport, accusing Tehran of delivering ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.
Iran has repeatedly denied sending any weapons to Russia for use in the Ukraine war, and vowed to respond to the latest in a long string of Western sanctions against Tehran including over its nuclear activities.
The official news agency IRNA quoted Araghchi as saying: “It’s surprising that Western countries still do not know that sanctions are a failed tool and that they are unable to impose their agenda on Iran through sanctions.”
The top Iranian diplomat called sanctions “a tool of pressure and a tool of confrontation, not a tool of cooperation.”
Araghchi added, according to IRNA, that Iran has “always been open to negotiations” and “constructive dialogue” with other countries.
“But the dialogue should be based on mutual respect, not threats and pressure.”
Britain called in Iran’s envoy in London on Wednesday and warned him that his government would face a “significant response” if it continued to supply Russia with missiles to use in Ukraine.
The United States has also stepped up sanctions on Iran, including on flag carrier Iran Air “for operating or having operated in the transportation sector of the Russian Federation economy,” the Treasury Department said on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the Iranian foreign ministry summoned four European ambassadors to protest the sanctions.
Iran has suffered years of crippling Western sanctions, especially after its arch-foe the United States in 2018 unilaterally abandoned a landmark nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.