SANAA, Yemen: Yemen’s Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid Bin Daghar was preparing to flee to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday after separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates seized the area around the presidential palace in the southern city of Aden in fierce battles, security officials said.
A Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE has been battling rebels in northern Yemen for nearly three years on behalf of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government. But despite having a common enemy, the UAE and Hadi have been locked in a long-running power struggle, which boiled over on Sunday as clashes erupted across the government’s seat of power.
Elsewhere in Yemen, Al-Qaeda militants attacked a checkpoint in the southern Shabwa province, killing at least 12 soldiers in an area where Yemeni troops had claimed victory against the extremist group. The militants claimed the attack in a statement circulated on social media, saying it was in retaliation for abuses by US and UAE-backed forces.
The security officials said fighters loyal to the so-called Southern Transitional Council fought all way to the gates of the palace in central Aden, forcing Hadi’s troops to abandon their positions. The officials said Hadi’s prime minister and several Cabinet members would leave Yemen imminently for Riyadh, where Hadi is already based.
Saudi troops who have been guarding the palace for months stopped the separatists at the gate, preventing them from entering. A senior government official told The Associated Press that Prime Minister Ahmed Obaid Bin Daghar and several ministers remain inside. The official declined to say whether the prime minister was to leave Aden. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity under regulations.
In the northern district of Dar Saad, witnesses said coalition jets bombed a military camp of Hadi’s forces before separatists took control of it. Brig. Gen. Mahran Al-Qubati told the AP that his forces respected a cease-fire announced by the coalition earlier in the day but the separatists used the truce to attack his base using Emirati armored vehicles.
Col. Turki Al-Malki, the coalition spokesman, declined to comment on the bombing. “I am not able to discuss the details of an ongoing operation,” he told the AP.
The fighting had subsided by midday, when checkpoints run by both sides could be seen across the city.
The fighting in Aden erupted on Sunday, when a deadline issued by the separatists for the government to resign expired. Hadi, who has been in Saudi Arabia for most of the war, has described the separatists’ action as a “coup.” The violence has killed at least 36 people and wounded 185 since Sunday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
It has also exposed deep divisions within the Saudi-led alliance against the Iran-backed rebels, known as Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. The war has been locked in a bloody stalemate for the last three years, with more than 10,000 people killed and some 2 million displaced by the fighting.
The UAE has viewed Hadi with suspicion because of his alliance with the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Arab political movement that the Emirates and some other Arab states view as a terrorist organization. Over the past year, the UAE has trained and armed its own forces in Yemen, including the separatists, in a direct challenge to Hadi. Saudi Arabia has thus far avoided taking sides.
The US State Department has expressed concern and called on all parties to “refrain from escalation and further bloodshed.” Washington backs the Saudi-led coalition.
“We also call for dialogue among all parties in Aden to reach a political solution,” the statement said. “The Yemeni people are already facing a dire humanitarian crisis. Additional divisions and violence within Yemen will only increase their suffering.”
In the attack in Shabwa, the militants hit a checkpoint guarded by the so-called Shabwa Elite Force, which has also been trained by the UAE, near the southern city of Ataq, the provincial capital.
Tribesmen in the area say the attack started with a mortar round fired at the checkpoint, followed by heavy gunfire.
Tribesman Youssef Al-Khalifi, who lives nearby, said he helped carry the bodies of the wounded to a hospital but that only one survived. Al-Khalifi said the attackers had destroyed a building next to the checkpoint where some of the guards were sleeping and that he helped retrieve some of the bodies from under the rubble.
The UAE-trained Shabwa force was deployed to the region last year and later declared victory over Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, which had used Shabwa as a safe haven.
Yemen PM prepares to flee Aden as separatists advance
Yemen PM prepares to flee Aden as separatists advance
Biden speaks with Netanyahu as Israelis appear closer to Rafah offensive
The NSC spokesperson said Biden reiterated US concerns about an invasion of Rafah — where more than 1 million civilians from other parts of Gaza are sheltering after 7 months of war sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel — and said he believes reaching a ceasefire with Hamas is the best way to protect the lives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the call before an official White House statement was released.
The call comes hours before Biden is to host King Abdullah II of Jordan for a private lunch meeting at the White House on Monday.
On Sunday, Netanyahu rejected international pressure to halt the war in Gaza in a fiery speech marking the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day, declaring: “If Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand alone.”
“I say to the leaders of the world: No amount of pressure, no decision by any international forum will stop Israel from defending itself,” he said, speaking in English. “Never again is now.”
UN experts condemn Israel’s ‘sexual assault and violence’ in Gaza
- Statement pointed to “continued reports of sexual assault and violence against women and girls, including against those detained by Israeli occupation forces”
GENEVA: United Nations experts on Monday condemned “unacceptable” violence by the Israeli military against women and children during the ongoing war in Gaza, particularly sexual violence and enforced disappearances.
“We are appalled that women are being targeted by Israel with such vicious, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, seemingly sparing no means to destroy their lives and deny them their fundamental human rights,” the seven special rapporteurs said in a statement.
Special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. They do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
The statement pointed to “continued reports of sexual assault and violence against women and girls, including against those detained by Israeli occupation forces.”
They cited UN reports saying women and girls in Gaza were victims of enforced disappearances.
Referring to Hamas, which runs the besieged Palestinian territory, Israel’s mission in Geneva alleged the experts had “once again chosen to ignore Hamas’s systematic militarization of health facilities and civilian infrastructures in the Gaza Strip, voluntarily and actively using the population as human shields.”
“In issuing such a statement, the signatories try to create an alternative narrative, parroting the agenda of a terrorist organization that is actively destroying the lives of the Palestinian population in Gaza,” the Israeli mission said.
The bloodiest-ever Gaza war started after an unprecedented attack on southern Israel by militants from Hamas on October 7.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s relentless retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 34,700 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The UN experts said Israel’s widespread destruction of housing in Gaza and the fact that Palestinians were having to live in “precarious” conditions in makeshift tents had a disproportionate impact on women and girls, particularly on their personal security and privacy.
“The treatment of pregnant and lactating women continues to be appalling, with the direct bombardment of hospitals and deliberate denial of access to health care facilities by Israeli snipers,” they added.
More than 180 women per day were giving birth without pain relief, while hundreds of babies have died due to a lack of electricity for incubators, they said.
These conditions have led to a surge in miscarriages, the experts said.
They said Israeli forces had “destroyed Gaza’s largest fertility clinic,” which stored embryos, and estimated that 690,000 women and girls in Gaza were deprived of menstrual hygiene products.
The Israeli mission in Geneva said Israel “categorically rejects unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assaults and violence.”
It said Israel was ready to investigate “any concrete claims of misconduct by its security forces when presented with credible allegations and evidence.”
The UN experts said “the government of Israel has continuously failed to conduct an independent, impartial and effective investigation into the reported crimes.”
‘Where can we go?’ say Rafah residents as Israel demands evacuation
- Areas designated for evacuation currently shelter some 250,000 people
- Israel’s retaliatory offensive, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 34,683 people in Gaza, mostly women and children
Rafah: Palestinian civilians in the southern Gazan city of Rafah voiced despair on Monday as Israel dropped fliers urging them to evacuate for their own “safety” ahead of a “limited” military operation.
Israel’s army said it was instructing Palestinian families in eastern Rafah to flee in preparation for an expected ground assault on the city which abuts Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Residents of Rafah described emerging outside after a terrifying night in which around a dozen air strikes were carried out on Rafah, to find fliers falling from the sky telling them to “evacuate immediately.”
“The army is working with intensive power against the terrorist forces near you,” read a flier circulated in eastern Rafah.
“For your safety, the IDF (Israeli military) tells you to evacuate immediately toward the expanded humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi,” it said, with a map indicating the location to the north of Rafah.
Osama Al-Kahlout, of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, told AFP that the areas designated for evacuation currently shelter some 250,000 people, many of whom have already been displaced from other areas in the Gaza Strip.
“The evacuation process has begun on the ground, but in a limited manner,” he said.
An Israeli militark spokesman, when asked how many people should move, said: “The estimate is around 100,000 people.”
About 1.2 million people are currently sheltering in Rafah, according to the World Health Organization, most having fled there during the seven-month war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants.
Amid pouring rain, some of those sheltering in Rafah said they had begun packing up their things from the densely packed tents and preparing to leave even before Israel’s directive arrived.
“Whatever happens, my tent is ready,” a resident told AFP.
But others said the area they were being told to flee to was already overcrowded, and they did not trust that it would be safe.
Abdul Rahman Abu Jazar, 36, said he and 12 family members were in the designated evacuation area.
Jazar and his family did not know what to do, he said, because the “humanitarian zone” they were told to head for “does not have enough room for us to make tents because they are (already) full of displaced people.”
“Where can we go? We do not know,” he told AFP.
“There are also no hospitals and it is far from any services many need,” he said, adding that one of his family members relied on dialysis at the Al-Najar hospital, in the area of Rafah instructed to evacuate.
“How will we deal with her after that? Should we watch her die without being able to do anything?“
An Israeli military spokesman told reporters that the evacuation “is part of our plans to dismantle Hamas ... we had a violent reminder of their presence and their operational abilities in Rafah yesterday.”
On Sunday, four Israeli soldiers were killed and others wounded, the army said, when a barrage of rockets was fired toward the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza.
The army said the rockets were fired from an area adjacent to Rafah.
International aid organizations have voiced alarm at the expected invasion of Rafah.
“From the humanitarian perspective, no credible humanitarian plan for an attack on Rafah exists,” said Bushra Khalidi, advocacy director for Oxfam in the Palestinian territories.
She said she could “not fathom that Rafah will happen,” asking where displaced Palestinians will go “when most of their surroundings have been reduced to death and rubble?“
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war broke out following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized some 250 hostages, with Israel estimating that 128 of them remain in Gaza, including 35 whom the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive, aimed at destroying Hamas, has killed at least 34,683 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
US weapon system identified in Israeli-Lebanon strike may breach international law
- Guardian investigation with Human Rights Watch identifies Boeing-made Joint Direction Attack Munition fragments at site where aid workers were killed
- US bans export of such systems to foreign militaries where ‘credible information’ of human rights breaches exists
LONDON: An Israeli airstrike in Lebanon that killed seven aid workers in March may have been conducted with a US-supplied weapon system, according to an investigation by The Guardian.
The incident claimed the lives of seven paramedics aged 18-25, all volunteers, at an ambulance center in Al-Habariyeh in southern Lebanon on March 27.
It came five days before an Israeli strike in Gaza killed seven aid workers working for World Central Kitchen.
Debris found at the scene in Al-Habariyeh was identified by The Guardian, an independent expert and Human Rights Watch as having belonged to a 500-pound Israeli MPR bomb and a Boeing-made Joint Direction Attack Munition, a system attached to explosives to turn them from “dumb bombs” into GPS-guided weapons.
HRW’s Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss told The Guardian: “Israel’s assurances that it is using US weapons lawfully are not credible. As Israel’s conduct in Gaza and Lebanon continues to violate international law, the Biden administration should immediately suspend arms sales to Israel.”
The US government is legally unable to help or arm foreign militaries where “credible information” of human rights abuses exists, under the terms of the 1997 Leahy law.
A spokesperson for the US National Security Council told The Guardian: “The US is constantly working to ensure defense articles provided by the US are being used consistent with applicable domestic and international law. If findings show violations, we take action.”
But Josh Paul, a non-resident fellow with Democracy for the Arab World Now and a former State Department employee, said: “The State Department has approved several of these (weapons) transfers on a 48-hour turnaround. There is no policy concern on any munitions to Israel other than white phosphorus and cluster bombs.”
He added that JDAMs have been “key items” regularly requested by Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken will deliver a report on Wednesday to Congress on Israel’s use of American weapons and whether they may have been involved in violations of this or other laws.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen told The Guardian that the findings from Al-Habariyeh are “deeply concerning and must be fully investigated by the Biden administration, and their findings should certainly be included in the NSM-20 report that is due to be submitted to the Congress on May 8.”
The airstrike on the ambulance center in Al-Habariyeh came without warning before 1 a.m. on March 27. No fighting had been reported in the area.
The victims had been at the center for the night shift, and were named as twin brothers Hussein and Ahmad Al-Shaar, aged 18; Abdulrahman Al-Shaar, 19; Mohammad Hamoud, 21; Mohammad Al-Farouk Aatwi, 23; Abdullah Aatwi, 24; and Baraa Abu Kaiss, 24.
The Israeli military claimed that the strike, which leveled the two-storey building, killed a “prominent terrorist belonging to Jamaa Islamiya,” an armed Lebanese political group with ties to Hezbollah. It did not identify the person by name.
A Jamaa Islamiya spokesman acknowledged that some of the ambulance volunteers were members of the group, but denied that they were part of its armed wing.
Samer Hardan, head of the local Civil Defense center who was among the first responders, told The Guardian: “We examined every centimetre looking for parts of bodies and their possessions. We saw nothing military-related. We knew (the victims) personally, so we could identify their remains.”
Since Oct. 7, 16 medical workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, and a further 380 people have died including 72 civilians. Eleven Israeli soldiers and eight civilians have also been killed.
Kassem Al-Shaar, father of Ahmad and Hussein, said he had warned his sons not to volunteer.
“I told them that it was dangerous to do this type of work, but they said that they accepted the risk. I don’t know what Israel was thinking — these were young people excited to help others,” he said.
“My sons wanted to do humanitarian work, and look what happened to them. Israel wouldn’t dare to do what they did if it wasn’t for the US standing behind them.”
Aid groups issue urgent appeal for Yemen funds
- UN agencies warned that 18.2 million people in need of help after nine years of war
Dubai: Nearly 200 aid groups appealed on Monday for funds to bridge a $2.3 billion shortfall in assistance for war-torn Yemen, warning of potentially “catastrophic consequences” for the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country.
A joint statement from 188 humanitarian organizations, including several UN agencies, warned that 18.2 million people — more than half the population — were in need of help after nine years of war.
Their appeal came a day before a meeting of high-ranking EU officials in Brussels to discuss the aid program for Yemen, which is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
“Inaction would have catastrophic consequences for the lives of Yemeni women, children and men,” the statement said, calling Tuesday’s meeting a “critical moment.”
“The humanitarian community appeals to donors to urgently address existing funding gaps, and provide sustainable support to enhance resilience and reduce aid dependency.”
Yemen has been gripped by conflict since the Iran-backed Houthis overran the capital Sanaa in 2014, triggering the Saudi-led military intervention in support of the government the following year.
Hundreds of thousands have died in the fighting or from indirect causes such as a lack of food, the United Nations says.
Hostilities slowed considerably in April 2022, when a six-month, UN-brokered ceasefire came into effect, and they have remained at a low level since.
But only $435 million of the $2.7 billion called for in Yemen’s 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan requirement has been raised, the aid groups said, warning of threats including food insecurity, cholera and unexploded ordnance.
“Underfunding poses a challenge to the continuity of humanitarian programming, causing delays, reductions and suspensions of lifesaving assistance programs,” it said.
“These challenges directly affect the lives of millions who depend on humanitarian assistance and protection services for survival.”
