AL-MUKALLA: Shortly before slipping out of Sanaa early this year, Ibetisam Abualdonia, parked her daughter’s car outside her home and moved to another house. “The aim was to assure Houthi eyes I was inside the house,” Ibetisam said in an exclusive interview with Arab News.
Ibetisam, 48, was among a few Yemeni activists who had stayed inside the city for years where they paid a heavy price for challenging Houthi repression and demanding salaries.
Several days before fleeing Sanaa, as many as 14 Houthi men stormed her house where they beat and verbally abused her. The Houthis sought to punish Ibetisam for being filmed strongly criticizing their leader and the movement and demanding salaries.
“They got angry when I criticized Abdul Malik Al-Houthi. They think he is a holy man,” she said, referring to Houthi movement leader. Before raiding her house, Ibetisam said the Houthis harassed her online to stop her activism. “They subjected me to different methods of psychological pressure such as sending death threats through text messages and attacking me on social media,” she said.
After Houthi reprisal attacks, she thought that the Houthis had put her on their radar and would keep abusing her if she continued criticizing them. At the same time, the widowed mother of three had to keep demanding Houthis to pay her husband’s pension in order to survive. “They have not paid the pension for the last three years. We survive on my daughter’s salary.”
She and her children fled Sanaa under the cover of darkness. “We hired a car that drove us to Aden.”
To escape Houthi checkpoints, she covered her body in a black abaya and told the children to say they were taking their sick mother to Aden. The Houthis allowed them to move unchecked.
When she arrived in Aden, she kept a low profile and moved from one hotel to another fearing hidden Houthi eyes. “I did not tell anyone that I fled Sanaa. I kept moving hotels.”
After hearing about her ordeal, officials at the internationally recognized government helped her travel to Cairo and then to Riyadh, where she recounted to Arab News her harsh days under Houthi rule.
After hearing about her disappearance, Houthis began harassing her relatives. “They blew up my uncle’s car and burnt another car of a relative of mine. They phoned my mother, sister and other members of family, vowing to punish me,” she said.
Ibetisam said life inside Houthi-controlled Yemen has exacerbated since late 2016, when the Houthis stopping paying public sector salaries in response to a government decision to relocate the headquarters of the central bank from Sanaa to Aden.
The relocation was aimed at stopping rebels from plundering the bank’s reserves from hard currencies. But instead of paying all government employees in their territories, Houthis used salaries as a leverage to force people into joining the battlefields. Many extremely poor families bowed to the pressure and dispatched children to fight along with the Houthis. One of Ibetisam’s relatives was forced to provide a child for the fighting.
Like thousands of poor fighters, the Houthis gave Ibetisam’s relative 30,000 Yemeni riyals (SR176) every month for fighting their opponents.
Confirming media reports about Houthi mishandling of humanitarian aid, Ibetisam said that Houthis give out aid to loyalists or those families who agreed to send children to take part in fighting.
“Those who do not have combatant relatives have no choice but to beg to survive. People cannot speak out because if they criticize Houthi misbehavior, they will beat or abduct them,” Ibetisam said, adding that people in Sanaa struggle to get basic services such as cooking gas, electricity or water.
Despite Houthi repression, several Yemeni women have remained in Sanaa, where they criticize Houthi political and economic policies. The number of protesters has dwindled since late 2017, when Houthis killed former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, prompting hundreds of his followers into fleeing to government controlled areas or seeking exile. Ibetisam predicted that female activists who challenge Houthis from Sanaa would share her fate sooner or later.
Some of the minor female activists have been abducted for speaking out. “They will be either killed or forcibly disappeared. Before leaving Sanaa, I found out that they forcibly disappeared 10 women,” she said.
Since taking power in late 2014, the Houthi movement has established local police regiments known as Zaynabiat to handle protests by women. In Yemen, women usually have cultural impunity from attacks.
The Zaynabiat are infamous for suppressing rare protests in the capital and other provinces in northern Yemen. The biggest anti-Houthi protest was in October 2017, when dozens of women went out to protest against hunger and poverty inside Houthi-controlled areas.
As women were getting together in Sanaa, armed Zaynabiat in black abayas beat and detained the protesters. Ibetisam said the Houthi policewomen have no offices and are under the command of Houthi observers.
In addition to suppressing dissidents, the Zaynabiat’s other roles include espionage and recruiting female members. “They exercise physical violence and kidnapping,” she said.
As a Yemeni activist who was harassed by Houthis and witnessed the signing of several peace agreements between the militia and the internationally recognized government since late 2014, Ibetisam said that only military pressure would end the conflict. “I am inclined toward the military option. Houthism is a radical movement. It is not a political group that you can get concessions from,” she concluded.
Yemeni activist who endured and challenged Houthi repression
https://arab.news/4h2tn
Yemeni activist who endured and challenged Houthi repression

- Like thousands of poor fighters, the Houthis gave Ibetisam’s relative 30,000 Yemeni riyals (SR176) every month for fighting their opponents
Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments

- Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year, Aboul Gheit said in a statement
CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and Lebanon through irresponsible military provocations, in “flagrant disregard for international legal norms.”
In a statement, Aboul Gheit lamented that global inaction has further emboldened the Zionist state.
“(T)he wars waged by Israel on the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria have entered a new phase of complete recklessness, deliberately violating signed agreements, invading countries, and killing more civilians,” said the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.
He said Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year.
Aboul Gheit suggested that Israel’s actions were driven by narrow domestic agendas at the expense of civilian lives and regional peace.
“It seems that the Israeli war machine does not want to stop as long as the occupation leaders insist on facing their internal crises by exporting them abroad, and this situation has become clear to everyone,” he said.
As per the Gaza Ministry of Health’s count last week, more than 50,000 people have been killed and over 113,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories in retaliation against the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel.
In Lebanon, war monitors have said at least 3,961 people were killed and at least 16,520, wounded in Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from October 8, 2023, to November 26, 2024.
Syria’s new government accused Israel on April 3 of mounting a deadly destabilization campaign after a wave of strikes on military targets, including an airport, and a ground incursion killed 13 people, in the southern province of Daraa.
Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres

Damascus: Syria’s government said late Friday it was “closely following” the findings of a new Amnesty International report urging an investigation into sectarian massacres last month.
Amnesty called on the Syrian government in a report on Thursday to ensure accountability for the massacres targeting the Alawite minority, saying they may constitute war crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those responsible.
In a statement on Friday, the government said it had been “following closely the Amnesty report” and its “preliminary findings.”
“It is up to the Independent National Commission for Investigation and Fact-Finding to evaluate them, in accordance with the mandate, independence, and broad powers granted to it by presidential decree,” it said.
The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.
The government on Friday complained the report failed to note “the broader context of the events.”
It said the violence began with a “premeditated assault” by the “remnants of the previous regime, targeting army and internal security personnel.”
In the ensuing chaos, “acts of retaliation and serious violations occurred,” it said, vowing that these would be investigated and a report issued within a month.
Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq

- Organization calls for greater effort to reduce contamination that spans 2,100 sq. km.
- More than 80 casualties recorded since 2023
LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to pose a severe threat in Iraq, contaminating an estimated 2,100 sq. km.
In a statement issued to coincide with the International Day for Mine Awareness, the organization said landmines from past conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War and the 2014–17 battle against Daesh, remained a major hazard.
The contamination had resulted in civilian casualties, forced displacement, restricted farmland access and slowed reconstruction efforts, it said.
Between 2023 and 2024, the ICRC recorded 78 casualties from landmines and remnants of war in Iraq. Earlier this year, three students were killed in an explosion in Abu Al-Khasib, Basra.
The ICRC has appealed for greater efforts to reduce contamination and support mine-affected communities. Clearance operations continue in cooperation with national authorities and humanitarian partners.
The call for action comes at a time when several NATO member states, namely Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, have signaled their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. They cited the growing military threat from Russia as the reason for reconsidering the ban.
Meanwhile, the US, previously the largest funder of global mine clearance efforts, has cut back support due to a foreign aid review under the Trump administration.
Washington had contributed over $300 million annually, covering 40 percent of total international mine action funding, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor report, which led to major clearance efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Laos.
A State Department official said last month that the US had restarted some global humanitarian demining programs but provided no details.
Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages

- “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives,” said Abu Obeida
GAZA CITY: Hamas on Friday said Israel’s offensive in Gaza was creating a “highly dangerous” situation for the hostages held there, warning that half of the living captives were in areas where the army had ordered evacuations.
“Half of the living Israeli (hostages) are located in areas that the Israeli occupation army has requested to be evacuated in recent days,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement. “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives.”
Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

- The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh
- The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month
ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in the Syrian Arab Republic’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.
The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.
The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.
Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.
After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.
Kurds made up 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.