Houthis hold mass rally for Gaza in Yemen capital/node/2436971/middle-east
Houthis hold mass rally for Gaza in Yemen capital
Demonstrators, one holding a Palestinian flag, take part in a march in solidarity with the people of Gaza in the Huthi-controlled capital Sanaa on January 5, 2024 amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the militant Hamas group in Gaza. (AFP)
The demonstrators held up pictures of Houthi fighters killed Sunday in a US strike on rebel vessels in the Red Sea
Updated 06 January 2024
AFP
SANAA: Thousands rallied in support of Gaza in the rebel-controlled Yemeni capital Sanaa on Friday, chanting anti-US and anti-Israeli slogans.
The Houthis have launched more than 20 attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea in recent weeks, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in the face of Israel’s war on Hamas.
Since the outbreak of the war on October 7, the Iran-backed rebels have organized weekly protests in Sanaa but Friday’s demonstration was the “largest” so far, spokesman Mohammad Abdel Salam said.
“Millions of people” took part, he said on social media platform X.
A photographer who collaborates with AFP witnessed a flypast over the crowds by rebel helicopters and warplanes.
Aerial footage released by the Houthis’ Ansarullah Media Center showed a sea of protesters flooding the capital’s Al-Sabeen Square, carrying Palestinian and Hezbollah flags.
“Allahu Akbar (God is greatest). Death to America. Death to Israel,” they chanted.
The demonstrators also held up pictures of Houthi fighters killed Sunday in a US strike on rebel vessels in the Red Sea.
The US military said it had sunk three Houthi boats following attacks on a container vessel run by shipping giant Maersk. The rebels said 10 of their fighters were killed.
“We challenge you, America, to approach our coasts,” Houthi supporter Abdulkarim Al-Marwani told AFP as he took part in the protest.
“We will make the sea, as we made the land, a graveyard for America and Israel. We will make the sea a sinking zone and an incinerator for America and Israel,” he added.
The attacks on shipping by the Houthis, who control much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, have caused major disruption to a waterway that carries about 12 percent of global trade.
Twelve nations led by the United States jointly warned the Houthis on Wednesday of unspecified consequences unless they immediately halt their attacks.
But Sanaa protester Hazaa Sarhan warned: “Even if you unite the forces of the entire world and the forces of all the European countries, they will never intimidate us.”
UN peacekeepers patrol southern Lebanon — what is their mandate?
Hezbollah is a heavily armed militant group that is Lebanon’s most powerful political force
Updated 5 sec ago
Reuters
UNITED NATIONS: United Nations peacekeepers were deployed to patrol Lebanon’s southern border with Israel in 1978 after Israel invaded south Lebanon.
The mandate for the operation — known as the UN Interim Force in Lebanon or UNIFIL — is renewed annually by the 15-member UN Security Council.
Following a month-long war between Israel and Lebanese militants Hezbollah in 2006, the mandate for UNIFIL was expanded when the council adopted resolution 1701.
WHAT IS THE BLUE LINE?
The Blue Line is a UN-mapped line separating Lebanon from Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli forces withdrew to the Blue Line when they left south Lebanon in 2000. Any unauthorized crossing of the Blue Line by land or by air from any side constitutes a violation of Security Council resolution 1701.
WHERE DO PEACEKEEPERS OPERATE?
The area of operations for UN peacekeepers is marked by the Litani River in the north and the Blue Line in the south. The mission has more than 10,000 troops from 50 countries and about 800 civilian staff, according to its website.
WHAT DOES RESOLUTION 1701 MANDATE?
It allows peacekeepers to help the Lebanese army keep the area of operations free of weapons or armed personnel other than those of the Lebanese state.
That has sparked friction with Iran-backed Hezbollah, which effectively controls southern Lebanon despite the presence of the Lebanese army. Hezbollah is a heavily armed militant group that is Lebanon’s most powerful political force.
The peacekeeping mission is also directed by resolution 1701 “to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind.”
HOW DO PEACEKEEPERS DEAL WITH VIOLATIONS OF RESOLUTION 1701?
The peacekeeping mission is required to report all violations to the UN Security Council. The UN secretary-general reports to the council every four months — “or at any time as he deems appropriate” — on the implementation of resolution 1701.
According to UNIFIL’s website, peacekeepers take preventive measures when monitoring the Blue Line, which includes the airspace above it, through coordination, liaising and patrolling to prevent violations.
Whenever there is an incident “UNIFIL immediately deploys additional troops to that location if needed to avoid a direct conflict between the two sides and to ensure that the situation is contained,” according to the UNIFIL website.
The mission also liaises with the Israeli and Lebanese military “to reverse and bring an end to the situation without any escalation.”
VIOLATIONS
The UN secretary-general has regularly reported violations of resolution 1701 by both sides.
A November 2022 report to the Security Council said that “the continued self-acknowledged maintenance of unauthorized weapons outside state control” by Hezbollah and other armed groups was a “persistent, grave violation.”
The same report also said “continued violations of Lebanese airspace by Israeli aircraft and uncrewed aerial vehicles remain of deep concern.”
UN peacekeepers’ freedom of movement has also been regularly impeded, according to UN reports.
The most recent report to the council by the secretary-general in July cites all the same issues.
NEW YORK: The escalation in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is of “grave concern” for the World Health Organization, and the agency is exerting substantial efforts in ensuring that countries in the region are “ready for the worst-case scenario when it comes to health preparation,” WHO’s regional chief has told Arab News.
Dr. Hanan Balkhy, a Saudi physician who was appointed to the role of director for the Eastern Mediterranean in January this year following a distinguished career in medicine, made the comment while she was in New York City last week to rally support for critical public health initiatives.
“When it comes to the health preparation, we were able over the past months to pre-place emergency kits within Lebanon and with a few other neighboring countries to at least sustain some of the commodities that would be needed in case the escalation reached a very high point,” she told Arab News.
“We work very closely with the ministers of health, within the ministries themselves, and we make sure that we can train people on certain skills that we know will be necessary.”
The agency has conducted “hundreds” of training sessions — including mass casualty training, health workforce training and EMT training — within Lebanon and other WHO member states in the region.
Some of those countries have already faced significant pressure on their healthcare systems as a result of Israel’s war in Gaza, Balkhy said.
An ambulance rushes wounded people to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around Lebanon. (AFP)
“There’s big pressure on the member states that are surrounding the Occupied Palestinian Territories, from receiving the (Palestinian) patients and taking care of them, but now there’s actual escalation of war in southern Lebanon.
“So, with that in mind, we’re trying to put together at least the basics that are needed for the worst-case scenario.”
Balkhy voiced concern over the recent pager and walkie-talkie explosions across Lebanon.
On 17 and 18 September 2024, thousands of handheld pagers and hundreds of walkie-talkies intended for use by Hezbollah operatives exploded simultaneously across Lebanon and Syria in an Israeli attack, killing dozens, including two children, and injuring thousands more.
Most of the dead are believed to have been fighters, based on death notices posted online by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite militia.
A photo taken on September 18, 2024, in Beirut’s southern suburbs shows the remains of exploded pagers on display. (AFP)
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has called for an “independent, thorough and transparent investigation” into the mass explosion, adding that “simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law.”
The device explosions led to “very complex injuries in the face and in the hands,” said Balkhy.
Doctors in Lebanon say they had never seen the kind of maiming that resulted from the pager attacks. Described some of the wounds as “horrific,” they said the injuries have ranged from puncture wounds in the face, amputated hands, ruptured eyeballs, abdominal wounds, ruptured bones, and broken jaws.
“We’re looking and seeking to find experts that can help us in identifying the best methods of treatment and how we can support the Lebanese Ministry of Health,” Balkhy said, pointing to “empathy” between member states and “a strong sense of solidarity.”
People gather outside a hospital in the city of Baalbeck in eastern Lebanon on September 17, 2024, after explosions hit locations in several Hezbollah strongholds around the country. (AFP)
Balkhy also oversees WHO operations in Gaza, where the healthcare system is “on its knees” according to the UN.
“None of the healthcare facilities are fully functioning,” said Balkhy who witnessed the stark reality of the situation during a visit to Gaza and the West Bank in July.
Over 500 healthcare workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the war in October last year, and where out of 36 hospitals, 17 remain only partially functional. Primary healthcare and community-level services are frequently suspended in the battered enclave, due to insecurity, attacks and repeated evacuation orders.
More than 22,500 Palestinians have suffered life-changing injuries since Israel launched its military campaign in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7 during which militants gunned down civilians and snatched people in towns, along highways and at a techno music festival.
A man sits near the destroyed Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on September 17, 2024. (AFP)
Medical staff operating in Gaza are under “significant amounts of pressure and stress,” Balkhy said, with surgeons forced to operate in increasingly makeshift facilities, often without access to basic medical equipment.
“The healthcare facilities are not just buildings. They are buildings, they are medication and instruments, and commodities, they are also the health workforce.
“There’s not one single individual (in Gaza) who has not been faced (with) being asked to move from one point to another.
“Many of them have moved many, many times, but also with the deaths and the losses within their family.”
Yet healthcare workers “continue to stand on their feet and provide care when appropriate,” Balkhy added.
IN NUMBERS
1.9m Palestinians who have fled their homes since Oct. 7, 2023.
41,150+ People killed in Gaza in fighting and Israeli bombardment.
1,200 People killed in Israel during Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack.
However, the type of traumas and injuries inflicted on Palestinians have been “unprecedented” and “devastating,” requiring “very complex healthcare systems” of the type that Gaza lacks, she said.
“Those who have been working in the humanitarian field for over a decade have acknowledged that the types of compound fractures, soft tissue injuries, skull injuries … need neurosurgeons.
“You need very sophisticated orthopedic surgeons. You need very sophisticated equipment.”
In response, the WHO has worked in tandem with member states to organize medical evacuations across the Middle East and beyond.
Since October 2023, over 5,000 patients have been evacuated for treatment outside Gaza, with over 80 percent receiving care in Egypt, Qatar and the UAE, and a further 10,000 patients are currently in need of medical evacuation for specialized care.
This includes newborn babies requiring intensive care whose families are trying to evacuate them following the bombing of specialist maternity units across Gaza.
An injured Palestinian man is set for evacuation from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders for the area on August 26, 2024. (AFP)
Another major concern of health officials has been the growing lack of clean water and sanitary conditions in Gaza.
Hundreds of the enclave’s water filtration and sanitation facilities were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes since the beginning of the war.
Balkhy said that the lack of clean water makes it “very difficult” to provide the basics of healthcare.
She also highlighted the worrying proliferation of mental trauma among the population in Gaza.
“The last thing that worries me and that I saw of significance was what we will be facing from the mental stress disorders among the people who remain there and that will continue to work there.
“We will need, as the WHO, with partners, to help support, rehabilitate and address some of these issues.
“So, there’s a lot. The environment, which is a crucial part of the health and wellbeing of individuals, is extremely disturbing.
A boy walks through a puddle of sewage water past mounds of trash and rubble along a street in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on August 14, 2024. (AFP)
Balkhy described scenes of sewage “running in the streets” as well as endless rubble, adding: “It’s extremely devastating to be there on the ground.”
A significant breakthrough in the WHO’s Gaza campaign came earlier this month with the completion of the first round of a polio vaccination campaign.
A month earlier, a 10-year-old baby had been left partly paralyzed by the disease, in what was the enclave’s first reported case in 25 years.
The WHO’s campaign in central Gaza involved more than 2,000 health workers operating across 143 sites.
“We’re very happy that we were able to secure these days of tranquillity to ensure that we conducted the first round of the polio campaign,” said Balkhy.
“The whole world has their eyes on this polio campaign because the success is not just a success for the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Gazans, it’s a success for the world, because pathogens know no borders, and there’s a risk that polio might again spread.”
“So, I’m very happy that that has happened.”
A child receives a vaccination for polio at a makeshift camp for people displaced by conflict in a school run by the UNRWA in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024. (AFP)
A second round of vaccination is still needed, however, to ensure optimal levels of immunization, Balkhy added.
“Every child needs to receive those two doses, between one to two months apart,” she said.
A second round is set for mid-October, and the WHO will look to “replicate what we did in the first round.
“The WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA and the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority did amazing work to make this happen together,” Balkhy said.
“But also significant credit goes to the workers on the ground.
“All those lessons learned from the first round of the polio campaign will be very much looked at in order to have a more successful and efficient second round for the polio.”
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of Israeli strikes on a makeshift displacement camp in Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip on September 10, 2024. (AFP)
However, Balkhy gave warning that health authorities are only at the beginning of the campaign to rehabilitate living conditions in Gaza.
“As an infectious disease person, as an epidemiologist and as a pediatrician, we have a long way to go to rehabilitate the environment for the people in Gaza to to be living with dignity and with appropriate methods to have proper hygiene, instruments, clean water, soap and so on,” she said.
Balkhy is also focused on Sudan, where millions of people have been displaced by the country’s raging civil war, and famine has been declared in the North Darfur region.
Her latest visit to the country came two weeks ago, when she called for warring factions to abide by international law and end their attacks on healthcare facilities and workers.
The WHO reported in July that since the outbreak of the war in April 2023, more than 88 attacks in Sudan had targeted health facilities, ambulances, patients and workers.
People inspect a destroyed medical storage in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur province, on May 2, 2023. (AFP)
“It’s very important to sustain the regular people, the civilians who are not engaged in any of these wars, to be able to feel secure and that the humanitarians and the health workers can do their job,” Balkhy said.
“We have been able to work with the Ministry of Health of Sudan to come up with very good plans on rehabilitating primary health care and some of the secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities.”
Balkhy also visited a site for internally displaced people, warning that the level of access to clean water and sanitation, as well as the risk of cholera, are “huge challenges.”
She added: “It came also during the rainy season. It was expected — none of this is a surprise. We’ve been talking about this for quite a while.
“We’ve been able to, of course, with the Ministry of Health, establish cholera treatment centers and rehydration centers.
“So, the immunization program is is moving forward. We’re trying our best — it’s not optimal. But we do hope that we will be able to access as many children as possible.”
Cholera patients are treated at a clinic in Sudan’s Red Sea State on September 25, 2024. (AFP)
At the General Assembly in New York City, Balkhy eyed a breakthrough resolution in a high-level meeting on antimicrobial resistance.
“It’s the silent pandemic. I have led the Directorate of Antimicrobial Resistance as the first assistant director general in Geneva for close to five years,” she said.
“The fruition of reaching to this point of a high-level meeting — hopefully the resolution has clear, objectives, clear commitments and targets for the member states to focus.”
Despite the combined burden of Gaza and Sudan, and fears mounting over a new war in Lebanon, the WHO is “ready to do its full job and its full role in supporting the elevation of health and leaving nobody behind,” Balkhy said.
That, however, requires heads of state to meet their own responsibilities, she said.
“Secure peace for the world so that we can move on with our agendas and truly walk the talk of leading to our SDGs, leaving nobody behind.
“But without peace and without everybody working together, that is not possible.
Germany flies out Beirut embassy staff, vulnerable citizens
At the weekend, Berlin raised its alert level for the missions in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank
Updated 47 min 4 sec ago
AFP
BERLIN: Germany on Monday flew out its Beirut embassy’s non-essential staff, their dependants and some of its citizens in Lebanon with medical conditions, officials said.
About 110 passengers were aboard the German air force A321 plane, including diplomats, other personnel and some citizens considered in a vulnerable condition.
The plane landed late Monday in the capital Berlin, the foreign ministry said.
The foreign and defense ministries earlier announced the special flight “to support the departure of the colleagues and their families” as well as staff of some German partner organizations from strife-torn Lebanon.
“German nationals who are particularly at risk due to medical circumstances are also being taken,” said the statement.
Israel has been bombing targets of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Beirut and eastern and southern Lebanon, in strikes that have killed hundreds and forced hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes.
The Beirut embassy remained operational to help the estimated 1,800 German citizens in the country.
“The embassy continues to support the remaining Germans in Lebanon in their departure via commercial flights and other means,” the statement added.
At the weekend, Berlin raised its alert level for the missions in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
A German government spokesman on Monday said that “we are currently at a stage where we support the departure (of citizens) but we are explicitly not in an evacuation scenario.”
The statement reiterated that “all Germans in Lebanon have been urged to leave the country since October 2023.”
Hezbollah began low-intensity cross-border strikes on Israeli troops a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas staged its unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.
Israel said earlier this month it was shifting its focus from Gaza to securing its northern border with Lebanon, in order to allow Israelis displaced since October to return to their homes.
Hezbollah vowed on Monday to keep fighting Israel and said it was ready to face any ground operation into Lebanon, after its leader was killed in an air strike that dealt the group a seismic blow.
UK’s Lammy repeats calls for ceasefire after talk with Blinken on Middle East
David Lammy: ‘The best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution’
David Lammy: ‘I urge UK nationals to leave, because the situation on the ground is fast moving’
Updated 30 September 2024
Reuters
LONDON: British foreign minister David Lammy repeated calls for an immediate ceasefire amid reports of a potential escalation in the Israel-Lebanon conflict, after discussing the matter with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the phone on Monday.
“We’ve both seen the reports in the media about a next phase for Israel in Lebanon,” Lammy told Sky News, amid growing indications that Israel was on the verge of sending ground troops into Lebanon.
“We both agreed the position that we had at the UN last week that the best way forward is an immediate ceasefire and to get back to a political solution.”
Earlier in the day a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged “all parties to show restraint.”
Lammy also repeated the government’s advice that British citizens leave Lebanon.
“We have secured places on commercial flights that are flying tomorrow so that UK nationals can get out. I urge them to leave, because the situation on the ground is fast moving,” he said.
“Whilst we will do everything we can to protect British nationals and those plans are in place to do so, we cannot anticipate the circumstances and the speed with which we could do that if things escalate in a major way over the coming hours and days.”
Israel court says Palestinian body can be held for hostage deal
There are currently more than 9,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israel, according to civil society organizations monitoring prisons
Israel has been holding the bodies of dozens of Palestinians for years, including the remains of members of armed groups killed during clashes that caused Israeli casualties
Updated 30 September 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israel’s Supreme Court on Monday ruled authorities have the right to hold the body of a Palestinian prisoner to aid hostage negotiations, rejecting an appeal for return of the corpse.
Walid Daqqa — a Palestinian of Israeli nationality — died from cancer while still in custody in April.
He had spent 38 years in detention for the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli soldier in 1984.
After his death, his remains were held by Israeli authorities due to negotiations then underway for an exchange between Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons, and hostages as well as the bodies of dead captives held by Hamas militants in Gaza.
“The military command has the authority to order the holding of the bodies of terrorists for the purposes of negotiations, including the bodies of terrorists who are citizens of Israel,” the court said in a statement.
Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people on the Israel side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 hostages seized by militants, 97 are still held in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
There are currently more than 9,600 Palestinian prisoners in Israel, according to civil society organizations monitoring prisons.
The court’s decision drew criticism from Adalah, an advocacy group for Arab minority rights in Israel, which had filed the appeal.
“The Israeli Supreme Court has sanctioned the government’s brutal policy of withholding the bodies of Palestinians, including citizens of Israel, purely based on security assessments of their potential value to be exploited as bargaining chips in negotiations for Jewish Israeli hostages,” the group said in a statement.
Israel has been holding the bodies of dozens of Palestinians for years, including the remains of members of armed groups killed during clashes that caused Israeli casualties.
