MANAMA: Yemen’s warring parties and beleaguered people cannot wait indefinitely for a roadmap to peace before the country slips back to war, the UN special envoy told AFP.
Hans Grundberg insisted it was “still possible” to solve the conflict in impoverished Yemen, where Iran-backed Houthi militants control much of the country.
But any chance of implementing a roadmap has effectively been put on hold by escalating regional crises sparked by the war in Gaza.
Although preparatory discussions are continuing with all sides, “obviously... it cannot stay like this forever,” Grundberg said in an interview at the Manama Dialogue conference in Bahrain.
“At a certain point, there is an expected delivery that the parties want to see happen. And if that doesn’t take place, you risk losing the necessary momentum that you have, and that danger is clear.”
He added: “There are belligerent voices in the region. What I’m saying is, don’t go down that road — it’s possible to settle this conflict.”
Yemen has been at war since March 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition began a campaign to dislodge the Houthis who had seized control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, months earlier.
A UN-brokered ceasefire in April 2022 calmed fighting and in December last year, even after the Israel-Hamas war had started, the warring parties committed to a peace process.
But US and British strikes on Houthi targets in January, after the militants began attacking shipping on the vital Red Sea trade route, “complicated the mediation space tremendously.”
“On the basis of that, we have not been able to take the step forward from the commitments that were agreed to in 2023 to the assigned roadmap,” Grundberg said.
The UN envoy said it’s not “possible to move forward with the roadmap right now, because I don’t think that the implementation of that roadmap would be possible.”
But he added: “I still believe that the foundation for a roadmap in Yemen is there because the conflict between Yemenis is solvable.
“However, the complicating factor now is the regional destabilization, where Yemen has become an integral part through the attacks in the Red Sea.”
Grundberg said the roadmap is “not a magic wand” for Yemen, which has been plunged into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises with two-thirds of the population dependent on aid.
The roadmap is intended as a structure for implementing humanitarian and economic commitments, and steps toward a permanent ceasefire and political process, over a nominal period of three years.
“So here I think the responsibility that lies on our side is to ensure that this momentum is upheld and that the parties understand the necessity to... trust in the fact that this is possible to achieve,” Grundberg said.
“If not, the consequences are known. If you slip back into a violent confrontation internally, I think the consequences of that are pretty well known and I don’t think that they would be in favor of anyone.”
He added: “I would guess that the Yemeni people should be impatient as a whole. I think that they have been waiting for peace for far too long.
“Everyone wants this to come to an end.”
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Yemen can’t wait ‘forever’ for peace roadmap, UN envoy says
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Yemen can’t wait ‘forever’ for peace roadmap, UN envoy says
- Any chance of implementing a roadmap has effectively been put on hold by escalating regional crises sparked by the war in Gaza
- Although preparatory discussions are continuing with all sides, “obviously... it cannot stay like this forever,” Grundberg said
Israel demolishes residential building in east Jerusalem
- Israeli bulldozers tore through a four-story residential building displacing scores of Palestinians
JERUSALEM: Israeli bulldozers tore through a four-story residential building in east Jerusalem on Monday, displacing scores of Palestinians in what activists said was the largest such demolition in the area this year.
The building, located in the Silwan neighborhood near the Old City, comprised a dozen apartments housing approximately 100 people, many of them women, children and elderly residents.
It was the latest in a series of buildings to be torn down as Israeli officials target what they describe as unauthorized structures in annexed east Jerusalem.
“The demolition is a tragedy for all residents,” Eid Shawar, who lives in the building, told AFP.
“They broke down the door while we were asleep and told us we could only change our clothes and take essential papers and documents,” said the father of five.
With nowhere else to go, Shawar said his seven-member family would have to sleep in his car.
Three bulldozers began ripping into the structure early on Monday as residents looked on, their clothes and belongings scattered across nearby streets, an AFP journalist saw.
Israeli police cordoned off surrounding roads, with security forces deployed across the area and positioned on rooftops of neighboring houses.
Built on privately owned Palestinian land, the building had been slated for demolition for lacking a permit, activists said.
Palestinians face severe obstacles in obtaining building permits due to Israel’s restrictive planning policies, according to activists, an issue that has fueled tensions in east Jerusalem and across the occupied West Bank for years.
- ‘Ongoing policy’ -
The building’s destruction “is part of a systematic policy aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinian residents and emptying the city of its original inhabitants,” the Jerusalem governorate, affiliated with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, said in a statement.
“Any demolition that expels residents from their homes constitutes a clear occupation plan to replace the land’s owners with settlers.”
The Jerusalem municipality, which administers both west and east Jerusalem, has previously said demolitions are carried out to address illegal construction and to enable the development of infrastructure or green spaces.
In a statement, the municipality said the demolition of the building was based on a 2014 court order, and “the land on which the structure stood is zoned for leisure and sports uses and construction, and not for residential purposes.”
Activists, however, accuse Israeli authorities of frequently designating areas in east Jerusalem as national parks or open spaces to advance Israeli settlement interests.
The demolition was “carried out without prior notice, despite the fact that a meeting was scheduled” on Monday to discuss steps to legalize the structure, the Israeli human rights groups Ir Amin and Bimkom said in a statement, calling it the largest demolition of 2025.
“This is part of an ongoing policy. This year alone, around 100 east Jerusalem families have lost their homes,” they added.
The status of Jerusalem remains one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel occupied east Jerusalem, including the Old City, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and swiftly annexed the area.
Silwan begins at the foot of the Old City, where hundreds of Israeli settlers live among nearly 50,000 Palestinians.
The building, located in the Silwan neighborhood near the Old City, comprised a dozen apartments housing approximately 100 people, many of them women, children and elderly residents.
It was the latest in a series of buildings to be torn down as Israeli officials target what they describe as unauthorized structures in annexed east Jerusalem.
“The demolition is a tragedy for all residents,” Eid Shawar, who lives in the building, told AFP.
“They broke down the door while we were asleep and told us we could only change our clothes and take essential papers and documents,” said the father of five.
With nowhere else to go, Shawar said his seven-member family would have to sleep in his car.
Three bulldozers began ripping into the structure early on Monday as residents looked on, their clothes and belongings scattered across nearby streets, an AFP journalist saw.
Israeli police cordoned off surrounding roads, with security forces deployed across the area and positioned on rooftops of neighboring houses.
Built on privately owned Palestinian land, the building had been slated for demolition for lacking a permit, activists said.
Palestinians face severe obstacles in obtaining building permits due to Israel’s restrictive planning policies, according to activists, an issue that has fueled tensions in east Jerusalem and across the occupied West Bank for years.
- ‘Ongoing policy’ -
The building’s destruction “is part of a systematic policy aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinian residents and emptying the city of its original inhabitants,” the Jerusalem governorate, affiliated with the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, said in a statement.
“Any demolition that expels residents from their homes constitutes a clear occupation plan to replace the land’s owners with settlers.”
The Jerusalem municipality, which administers both west and east Jerusalem, has previously said demolitions are carried out to address illegal construction and to enable the development of infrastructure or green spaces.
In a statement, the municipality said the demolition of the building was based on a 2014 court order, and “the land on which the structure stood is zoned for leisure and sports uses and construction, and not for residential purposes.”
Activists, however, accuse Israeli authorities of frequently designating areas in east Jerusalem as national parks or open spaces to advance Israeli settlement interests.
The demolition was “carried out without prior notice, despite the fact that a meeting was scheduled” on Monday to discuss steps to legalize the structure, the Israeli human rights groups Ir Amin and Bimkom said in a statement, calling it the largest demolition of 2025.
“This is part of an ongoing policy. This year alone, around 100 east Jerusalem families have lost their homes,” they added.
The status of Jerusalem remains one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel occupied east Jerusalem, including the Old City, in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and swiftly annexed the area.
Silwan begins at the foot of the Old City, where hundreds of Israeli settlers live among nearly 50,000 Palestinians.
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