AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s National Center of Meteorology issued an orange notice on Thursday warning that further extreme weather is coming, after seven days of torrential rain and flash floods that have killed at least 45 people and displaced thousands across the nation.
The center cautioned people in the central highlands and along western and southern coasts not to drive through or remain in watercourses or valleys.
Officials in the western province of Hodeidah said on Wednesday that at least 30 people died and thousands had to leave their homes as a result of heavy rainfall and flash flooding in most districts in recent days.
Mohammed Guhim, the Houthi governor of Hodeidah, told Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV that five people were missing and the rains and flooding had affected thousands of residents in about 500 properties.
On Thursday, pro-government militia the Giants Brigades reported that one of its soldiers was killed and two were missing after flash floods carried them away while they were driving in the Hays area of Hodeidah.
Images and videos shared on social media showed severe rains hammering most of Hodeidah’s provincial districts, resulting in flash floods that inundated houses, cut many others off and washed away roads, residences, cars and farm crops. Bodies of flood victims were being found across Hodeidah and residents issued urgent pleas for help.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirmed on Wednesday that the rains had significantly affected thousands of people in Hodeidah province, leaving dozens dead, missing or injured, and severely damaging houses and infrastructure.
It said 15 people were killed by severe flooding in the Maqbanah District of Taiz on Aug. 2, which also displaced 10,000, buried at least 80 wells, swept away fields of crops, and wrecked and damaged houses and infrastructure. Heavy rains and flash floods also claimed lives and damaged property in the provinces of Hajjah, Mahweet and Raymah.
The UN Population Fund’s office in Yemen told Arab News on Thursday that they have distributed emergency relief to 6,797 people in Hodeidah, 3,976 in Hajjah, and 665 in Al-Mahweet and Raymah. It said many people were in desperate need of aid, including relief items, cash assistance, additional food assistance, and non-food items such as clothing.
“The challenges are enormous, including difficult access to affected populations because floods ruin roads and water is everywhere, as well as a shortage of supply to meet all the increasing needs,” the fund said.
In Hodeidah, residents described as “unprecedented” the heavy rain and flash floods that raged across villages and towns. A Yemeni government soldier in the Hays District of Hodeidah, who gave his name as Ali, told Arab News that military barricades, trenches, ammunition, water tanks and other equipment was washed away in the maelstrom, along with mango and banana trees.
“We haven’t witnessed severe rains and violent floods on such a large scale in 20 years,” he said, adding that the flooding had also unearthed land mines planted by the Houthis.
The devastating damage cause by the floods prompted Yemen’s internationally recognized government to issue an urgent request for assistance from foreign donors.
“The grave situation … necessitates immediate and thorough action to tackle the consequences and relieve the pain of affected individuals, provide them with required alternatives in the most impacted locations, and conduct urgent flood-draining measures,” the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation said in a statement reported by the official Yemen News Agency.
Torrential rain and flash floods in Yemen kill 45 and displace thousands
https://arab.news/cj7eh
Torrential rain and flash floods in Yemen kill 45 and displace thousands
- Forecasters warn of further extreme weather to come, urge residents to be cautious and avoid particularly risky areas
- UN Population Fund distributes aid to thousands of people, says many more are in desperate need of help but the ‘challenges are enormous’
Israel accuses Turkiye of ‘malice’ over UN arms embargo call
- Turkiye’s letter, seen by AFP Monday, called the “staggering” civilian death toll “unconscionable and intolerable”
UNITED NATIONS, United States: Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday accused Turkiye of “malice,” after Ankara submitted a letter signed by 52 countries calling for a halt in arms deliveries to Israel over the war in Gaza.
“What else can be expected from a country whose actions are driven by malice in an attempt to create conflicts with the support of the ‘Axis of Evil’ countries,” said Ambassador Danny Danon, using a pejorative term to describe the Arab countries who signed the letter.
Turkiye’s foreign ministry said Sunday it had submitted the letter to the United Nations, with the signatories including the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Israel has faced international criticism for the conduct of its war in Gaza, where its offensive has killed at least 43,374 people, most of them civilians, according to health ministry figures which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
The war was sparked by Palestinian armed group Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
“This letter is further proof that the UN is led by some sinister countries and not by the liberal countries that support the values of justice and morality,” said Danon.
Turkiye’s letter, seen by AFP Monday, called the “staggering” civilian death toll “unconscionable and intolerable.”
“We therefore make this collective call for immediate steps to be taken to halt the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel, the occupying Power, in all cases where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the letter said.
It added that the UN Security Council (UNSC) must take steps to ensure compliance with its resolutions “which are being flagrantly violated.”
The UNSC called in March for a ceasefire in Gaza, but has struggled to speak with a unified voice on the issue due to the veto wielded by Israel’s key ally, the United States.
Asked about the joint letter on Monday, the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had not seen it.
Gaza aid situation not much improved, US says as deadline for Israel looms
- Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza
WASHINGTON: Israel has taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but has so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday, as a deadline set by the US to improve the situation approaches.
The Biden administration told Israel in an Oct. 13 letter it had 30 days to take specific steps to address the dire humanitarian crisis in the strip, which has been pummeled for more than a year by Israeli ground and air operations that Israel says are aimed at rooting out Hamas militants.
Aid workers and UN officials say humanitarian conditions continue to be dire in Gaza.
“As of today, the situation has not significantly turned around. We have seen an increase in some measurements. We’ve seen an increase in the number of crossings that are open. But just if you look at the stipulated recommendations in the letter, those have not been met,” Miller said.
Miller said the results so far were “not good enough” but stressed that the 30-day period had not elapsed.
He declined to say what consequences Israel would face if it failed to implement the recommendations.
“What I can tell you that we will do is we will follow the law,” he said.
Washington, Israel’s main supplier of weapons, has frequently pressed Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza since the war with Hamas began with the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
The Oct. 13 letter, sent by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, said a failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing the measures on aid access may have implications for US policy and law.
Section 620i of the US Foreign Assistance Act prohibits military aid to countries that impede delivery of US humanitarian assistance.
Israel on Monday said it was canceling its agreement with the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA), citing accusations that some UNRWA staff had Hamas links.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini said Israel had scaled back the entry of aid trucks into the Gaza Strip to an average of 30 trucks a day, the lowest in a long time.
An Israeli government spokesman said no limit had been imposed on aid entering Gaza, with 47 aid trucks entering northern Gaza on Sunday alone.
Israeli statistics reviewed by Reuters last week showed that aid shipments allowed into Gaza in October remained at their lowest levels since October 2023.
Israel hostages forum demands probe in secrets leak case
- “The (hostage) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement
JERUSALEM: A Gaza hostages campaign group called Monday for an investigation into the alleged leak of confidential documents by an ex-aide to Israel’s premier, which may have undermined efforts to secure their release.
A court announced Sunday that Eliezer Feldstein, a former aide to Benjamin Netanyahu, had been detained along with three others for allegedly leaking documents to foreign media.
The case has prompted the opposition to question whether Netanyahu was involved in the leak — an allegation denied by his office.
“The (hostage) families demand an investigation against all those suspected of sabotage and undermining state security,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.
“Such actions, especially during wartime, endanger the hostages, jeopardize their chances of return and abandon them to the risk of being killed by Hamas terrorists.”
The forum represents most of the families of the 97 hostages still held in Gaza after they were seized in the unprecedented October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war.
The Israeli military says 34 of them are dead.
“The suspicions suggest that individuals associated with the prime minister acted to carry out one of the greatest frauds in the country’s history,” the forum said.
“This is a moral low point like no other. It is a severe blow to the remaining trust between the government and its citizens.”
Critics have long accused Netanyahu of stalling in truce negotiations and prolonging the war to appease his far-right coalition partners.
Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet and the army launched an investigation into the breach in September after two newspapers, British weekly The Jewish Chronicle and Germany’s Bild tabloid, published articles based on the classified military documents.
One article claimed a document had been uncovered showing that then Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — later killed by Israel — and the hostages in Gaza would be smuggled into Egypt through the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border.
The other was based on what was said to be an internal Hamas leadership memo on Sinwar’s strategy to hamper talks toward the liberation of hostages.
The Israeli court said the release of the documents ran the risk of causing “severe harm to state security.”
“As a result, the ability of security bodies to achieve the objective of releasing the hostages, as part of the war goals, could have been compromised,” it added.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,206 people on Israeli soil, mostly civilians, according to AFP’s count based on official Israeli data, including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 43,341 people, a majority of them civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN considers these figures as reliable.
Meanwhile, late on Monday Netanyahu asked the attorney general to begin investigating other alleged leaks from cabinet meetings during the war.
“Since the beginning of the war, we have witnessed an incessant flood of serious leaks and revelations of state secrets,” he said in a letter to the attorney general, which was posted on his Telegram channel.
“Therefore, I am appealing to you to immediately order the investigation of the leaks in general.”
UNRWA ban in Gaza ‘will not make Israel safer’: WHO
- “This ban will not make Israel safer. It will only deepen the suffering of the people of Gaza and increase the risk of disease outbreaks,” Tedros says
GENEVA: The chief of the World Health Organization on Monday denounced Israel’s decision to cut ties with the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, saying it would not make the country safer while increasing civilian suffering in Gaza.
“Let me be clear: There is simply no alternative to UNRWA,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a video posted on X.
“This ban will not make Israel safer. It will only deepen the suffering of the people of Gaza and increase the risk of disease outbreaks,” Tedros added.
His comments came after Israel said it had formally notified the UN of its decision to sever ties with UNRWA, after Israeli lawmakers backed the move last week.
The suspension of the agency, which coordinates nearly all aid in war-ravaged Gaza, sparked global condemnation including from key Israeli backer the United States.
The move is expected to come into force in late January, with the UN Security Council warning it would have severe consequences for millions of Palestinians.
Israel has accused a dozen UNRWA employees of taking part in the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, the deadliest in Israeli history.
A series of probes found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but said Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.
The agency, which employs 13,000 people in Gaza, fired nine employees after an internal probe found that they “may have been involved in the armed attacks of 7 October.”
UNRWA, which was established in 1949 after the first Arab-Israeli conflict following Israel’s creation a year earlier, provides assistance to nearly six million Palestinian refugees across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
“Every day, it provides thousands of medical consultations and vaccinated hundreds of children,” Tedros said, adding that many humanitarian partners rely on UNRWA’s logistical networks to get supplies into Gaza.
He said that the UNRWA staff his organization had worked with were “dedicated health and humanitarian professionals who work tirelessly for their communities under unimaginable circumstances.”
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 43,374 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which the United Nations considers to be reliable.
GCC’s chief urges regional collective action at counter-terrorism conference in Kuwait
- Meeting gathers ministers, UN agency representatives, international organizations
KUWAIT CITY: Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem Al-Budaiwi addressed a high-level conference on counter-terrorism and border security on Monday.
The conference, which is being held in Kuwait and ends on Tuesday, has been organized by Kuwait in partnership with Tajikistan and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism.
It gathered ministers, UN agency representatives, and international and regional organizations to help bolster international counter-terrorism efforts.
Al-Budaiwi said: “This important regional conference focuses on border security and combating terrorism, which are vital issues requiring collective action.”
Al-Budaiwi spoke of the GCC’s achievements in security collaboration, including information-sharing and laws targeting terrorism financing.
He added: “The GCC countries have built a common security system through joint agreements, enhancing cooperation in border protection and addressing security threats.”
He stressed the region’s proactive approach in utilizing technology and training personnel to safeguard borders against transnational threats like arms and human trafficking.
