Houthis Expel UN Official from Sanaa

The Houthi-led war in Yemen led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis (AFP)
The Houthi-led war in Yemen led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis (AFP)
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Houthis Expel UN Official from Sanaa

The Houthi-led war in Yemen led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis (AFP)
The Houthi-led war in Yemen led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis (AFP)

The Yemeni government on Sunday accused the international community of inaction in the face of Houthi terrorism, after the militia group expelled a UN official from Sanaa.

Yemeni Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said in a statement that the “Iran-linked Houthi terrorist militia has expelled the Deputy Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Sana, Safir Al-Din Sayed, from its controlled areas.

He said the move is part of Houthi militia’s restrictions on UN agencies in Yemen.

AL-Eryani said this comes three years after the group has banned the OHCHR’s Representative Renaud Detalle, who was appointed in 2020, from entering the agency’s office in Sanaa, just as it did with the former representative Al-Obaid Ahmad.

The Yemeni minister said the Houthi move also came weeks after the group has killed Hisham Al-Hakimi, the security and safety director at the international charity Save the Children. Hakimi was in Houthi detention for two months.

He recalled that three month ago, the militia group kidnapped three UN employees, including two since November 2021 and one since August 2023, not to mention three former and current US embassy staffers.

Al-Eryani condemned Houthis’ actions as having been the result of the failure of the international community, mainly the UN and its agencies, to shoulder their duties to address them.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.