PARIS: More ships packed with aid have arrived in Yemen as Saudi Arabia and coalition forces draw up a humanitarian plan, the Kingdom’s ambassador to the war-torn country told Arab News.
The coalition closed air, land and sea access to Yemen earlier this month to stop the alleged flow of Iranian arms to Houthi militias, after a missile fired toward Riyadh was intercepted by Saudi forces. Iran has denied supplying arms to the Houthis.
The measures were eased over the weekend, with a ship carrying 5,500 tons of flour having docked in Yemen’s Hodeidah port in the Red Sea, and UNICEF having sent a plane with vaccines to Sanaa airport after the coalition granted clearance for UN flights.
Regional UNICEF director Geert Cappelaere earlier said that the delivery of vaccines “cannot be a one-off” and that more supplies are needed.
But Mohammed Al-Jabir, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, confirmed that more aid was arriving as the allies work on a plan to boost the response to the humanitarian situation.
“More than three ships arrived to Hodeidah with different kinds of foods (on Saturday and Sunday), and also five flights to Sanaa airport from different UN organizations,” he told Arab News.
“Saudi Arabia and the coalition are preparing for the humanitarian operations plan, which will be announced maybe over the next few days.”
Al-Jabir was speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Paris on Yemen’s cultural heritage and humanitarian aid.
The event, held at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) headquarters, heard how Houthi militias are “destroying” Yemen’s cultural history.
“The Houthis are … a threat to the culture and heritage,” Al-Jabir said.
The ambassador said Houthi militias had transformed cultural sites into military facilities and engaged in the illegal trafficking of artefacts.
Col. Turki Al-Maliki, spokesman for the coalition forces, said the Houthis had taken advantage of the coalition’s policy not to target cultural and archaeological sites.
Mustafa Al-Jabri, of the Yemeni embassy in Paris, lamented the loss of historical artefacts in Yemen and said some people had turned “their houses into personal museums.”
“Terrorist groups keep stealing artefacts,” he said. “The Houthis are destroying the heritage of Yemen and they work with groups like Al-Qaeda, which has a long history of destroying cultural and archaeological sites.”
Abdul Aziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center, agreed that the Houthis are “looting” Yemini culture but said Saudi Arabia was working to preserve it.
“What Saudi Arabia has been trying to do is to save Yemen from that chaos … and to ensure that its culture remains intact.”
Yemen’s Ambassador to UNESCO Ahmed Sayyad said there was a “shared responsibility” to preserve the culture of the war-torn country. “Yemen is a cradle of Arab-world heritage,” he said.
More aid flows into Yemen as coalition works on humanitarian plan
More aid flows into Yemen as coalition works on humanitarian plan
Iraq sets November 11 for parliamentary election
BAGHDAD: The Iraqi cabinet has set November 11 as the date for a parliamentary election, it said on Wednesday.
US says it is aware of Palestinian American’s killing by Israeli forces in West Bank
- Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said last month
WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Tuesday it was aware of the killing by Israeli forces of a Palestinian American teenager in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and was seeking more information about the incident.
A State Department spokesperson made the comments to reporters when asked about the killing of US citizen Omar Mohammad Rabea, 14, and the shooting of two other teenagers.
“We are certainly aware of that dynamic,” the State Department spokesperson said. “There is an investigation that is going on. We are aware of the reports from the IDF that this was a counterterrorism act, we need to learn more about the nature of what happened on the ground.”
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the weekend incident as an “extra-judicial killing” by Israeli forces during a raid. A local mayor said Rabea was shot along with two other teenagers by an Israeli settler and that the Israeli army pronounced him dead after detaining him.
The Israeli military said it shot a “terrorist” who endangered civilians by hurling rocks.
“We don’t have the complete picture of what was going on on the ground,” the State Department spokesperson added.
Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said last month.
Settler violence in the West Bank, including incursions into occupied territory and raids, has intensified since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza that has killed over 50,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and led to genocide and war crimes accusations that Israel denies.
The Israeli onslaught in Gaza followed a Hamas attack in October 2023 in which 1,200 were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel troops shoot dead woman in alleged West Bank knife attack
- Yaqub was a lawyer and mother of three from nearby Biddya, the village’s mayor, Ahmed Abu Safiyeh, told AFP
- The Israeli military said Tuesday that Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian event hall overnight in the area of Biddya, and that no injuries were reported
HARES, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli troops killed a 30-year-old woman near the West Bank city of Salfit on Tuesday after what the army described as an attempted stabbing.
The ministry reported the death of Amana Ibrahim Mohammed Yaqub, 30, “who was shot by (Israeli) forces near Salfit,” south of Nablus.
The Israeli military said it had “neutralized a terrorist who hurled rocks and attempted to stab soldiers adjacent to the Gitai Avisar junction” close to the West Bank village of Hares.
An AFP journalist reported seeing a lifeless body under a foil blanket by the roadside at the scene of the attack.
Yaqub was a lawyer and mother of three from nearby Biddya, the village’s mayor, Ahmed Abu Safiyeh, told AFP.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian event hall overnight in the area of Biddya, and that no injuries were reported.
An AFP journalist reported most of the hall was burned to the ground, and that settlers left graffiti in Hebrew on nearby walls.
The area around Salfit and Biddya is dense with Israeli settlements, including the town of Ariel.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, violence has soared in the occupied West Bank. Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 918 Palestinians in the territory, according to health ministry figures.
Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to Israeli figures.
Hamas official says ‘necessary to reach a ceasefire’ in Gaza
- “This war cannot continue indefinitely, and it is therefore necessary to reach a ceasefire,” Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: A Hamas official told AFP on Tuesday that it was “necessary to reach a ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, three weeks after Israel resumed bombardments on the Palestinian territory.
“This war cannot continue indefinitely, and it is therefore necessary to reach a ceasefire,” Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP, adding that “communication with the mediators is still ongoing” but that “so far, there are no new proposals.”
Iran-backed militias in Iraq ‘ready to disarm’
- They fear threat of US airstrikes
BAGHDAD: Powerful Iran-backed militias in Iraq are ready to disarm to avert the threat of US airstrikes, they said on Tuesday.
The move follows repeated private warnings by US officials to the Iraqi government since Donald Trump took office as US president in January.
They told Baghdad that unless it acted to disband the militias on its soil, America could attack the groups.
“Trump is ready to take the war with us to worse levels, we know that, and we want to avoid such a bad scenario,” said one commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, the most powerful militia.
BACKGROUND
Militia leaders said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had told them to do whatever they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially ruinous conflict with the US.
The others that have offered to lay down their weapons are Nujabaa, Kata’ib Sayyed Al-Shuhada and Ansarullah Al-Awfiyaa.
Militia leaders said their main ally and patron, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, had told them to do whatever they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially ruinous conflict with the US.
The militias are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, about 10 armed factions with about 50,000 fighters and arsenals that include long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.
They are a key pillar of Iran’s network of regional proxy forces, and have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel and US forces in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war began in 2023.
Iraqi security officials said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani was pressing for disarmament by all militias that declared their allegiance to the Revolutionary Guards or its Quds Force rather than to Baghdad.
Some have already quit their bases and reduced their presence in major cities including Mosul and Anbar for fear of airstrikes.
