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UN Data: Two-Thirds of Yemen’s Population Unable to Meet Food Needs  

Internally displaced Yemenis are among the most vulnerable groups, particularly those living in camps. (UNHCR)
Internally displaced Yemenis are among the most vulnerable groups, particularly those living in camps. (UNHCR)
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UN Data: Two-Thirds of Yemen’s Population Unable to Meet Food Needs  

Internally displaced Yemenis are among the most vulnerable groups, particularly those living in camps. (UNHCR)
Internally displaced Yemenis are among the most vulnerable groups, particularly those living in camps. (UNHCR)

When the Houthis closed UN offices in areas under their control about two months ago, two-thirds of Yemen's population were unable to meet their food needs, while half of households nationwide restricted adult food intake to prioritize children, recent humanitarian data showed last week.

In the government-controlled ports, food imports increased by 52% year-on-year, according to the same data.

In its Yemen Food Security Update, the World Food Program (WFP) said that in September, two months after Houthis suspended delivering and distributing aid in areas under their control, around 61% of surveyed households in Yemen struggled to meet their minimum food needs.

The 2025 Global Hunger Index indicates that hunger remains alarming in Yemen, with available indicators pointing to deteriorating conditions and that the country is likely to fall into the “extremely alarming” category, it said.

In Houthi-held areas, humanitarian agencies face crippling challenges in the operating environment, and all the program’s activities have been paused in northern Yemen as of August 31, it added.

“All governorates in Yemen remained above the ‘very high’ threshold of more than 20% for poor food consumption, with peaks recorded in Al-Bayda, Lahj, Raymah, Dhale, and Al-Jawf (43%-48%),” WFP said.

It added that to cope with food shortages, half of households nationwide restricted adult food intake to prioritize children.

Most vulnerable groups

Data also showed that internally displaced Yemenis (IDPs) are among the most vulnerable groups, particularly those living in camps.

In September, among IDPs, 42% reported moderate to severe hunger, while 26% among residents.

Begging was adopted by 8% of IDPs, with higher levels among those in camps (13%).

WFP remote monitoring data indicated a very low dietary diversity score among children aged 6-23 months, with a very high prevalence of severe child food poverty.

Self-reported diarrhea affected 34% of ill children under five, putting them at risk of acute malnutrition.

Meanwhile, in government-controlled areas, the cost of the minimum food basket (MFB) declined by 6% month-on-month and by 16% Year-on-year, the largest YoY drop recorded to date.

Key drivers include the market’s gradual self-correction following currency appreciation, continued decline in fuel prices, and strengthened market monitoring by the government.

However, economic challenges persist, as the IMF indicated critically low US dollar reserves in government-controlled areas, and public debt exceeded 100% of IRG GDP as of mid-2025.

WFP also noted that the 2025 Global Peace Index ranked Yemen as the fifth least peaceful country globally.

The continued attacks on Red Sea ports resulted in damage to infrastructure and reduced capacity, primarily triggering a 23% decline in food imports and 26% in fuel imports during January-September 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, it said.

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Arab World

UN Considers Response to Israeli Move to Build a Military Compound on Site of Relief Agency

The front gate of the east Jerusalem compound of UNRWA is seen in east Jerusalem, May 10, 2024. (AP)
The front gate of the east Jerusalem compound of UNRWA is seen in east Jerusalem, May 10, 2024. (AP)
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UN Considers Response to Israeli Move to Build a Military Compound on Site of Relief Agency

The front gate of the east Jerusalem compound of UNRWA is seen in east Jerusalem, May 10, 2024. (AP)
The front gate of the east Jerusalem compound of UNRWA is seen in east Jerusalem, May 10, 2024. (AP)

The United Nations is considering how to respond to Israel's announcement that it will build a military complex on the former headquarters of the UN relief agency for Palestinians in east Jerusalem, an official said Tuesday.

Israel at the weekend announced the government's approval for a defense ministry complex at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency ’s compound in Sheikh Jarrah, including a museum and enlistment office.

“The matter is currently under consideration at the level of the legal council, the highest legal authority of the United Nations in New York,” UNRWA Deputy Commissioner General Natalie Boucly told The Associated Press during a visit to Syria.

“These are UN premises and, at a minimum, this is a breach of the 1946 UN Convention on privileges and immunities,” she said.

Israel bulldozed part of the UNRWA compound in January, capping off a decades-long campaign against the agency, which became acute following the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel has accused the UN agency of harboring staff members affiliated with Hamas, accusing some of taking part in the attacks. UNRWA leaders have said they took swift action against the employees accused of taking part in the 2023 attacks, and have denied allegations that the agency tolerates or collaborates with Hamas.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said the plan to build a defense complex on the former UNRWA headquarters was “a decision of sovereignty, Zionism and security.”

“In a place where an organization that became part of the terror and incitement mechanism against Israel operated, institutions will be established that will strengthen Jerusalem, the (Israeli army), and the State of Israel,” Katz said in a statement on Sunday.

The decision came on Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel’s capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel considers the entire city of Jerusalem its capital, while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state.

The UNRWA compound was shut down in May 2025 after far-right protesters, including at least one member of parliament, overran its gate in view of the police.

UNRWA’s mandate is to provide aid and services to some 2.5 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as 3 million refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Its operations were curtailed last year when Israel’s Knesset passed legislation severing ties and banning it from functioning in what it defines as Israel — including east Jerusalem.

Boucly said the humanitarian situation in Gaza “remains absolutely dire.” While UNRWA international staff have been barred by Israel from entering Gaza, about 10,000 local staff continue to work in the enclave, including teachers, health workers and sanitation workers, she said.

Despite a tenuous ceasefire, “there are issues with insufficient aid coming in,” she said. “It is not coming in at scale and reconstruction is not starting fast enough for the people to see a real change on the ground.”

Boucly spoke to the AP from Syria's Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, where the situation is somewhat more hopeful as former residents who fled during the country's 14-year civil war have been gradually returning.

Taken over by a series of armed groups then bombarded by the military of then President Bashar al-Assad, the camp was all but abandoned after 2018. The buildings that were not destroyed by bombs were demolished by the government or stripped by thieves.

After Assad's ouster in 2024, former residents began to trickle back and repair their damaged homes. As of April, some 60,000 people had returned to the camp, of which 80% are Palestinian refugees, Boucly said.

Assistance to those returning to the camp has been limited, she acknowledged. UNRWA has received donor aid to rehabilitate schools and health centers, but has been unable to provide more than minor assistance to people needing to repair their damaged homes, she said.

Despite anxieties about shrinking funding, she said, “I think there is a situation of hope for Palestine refugees” in Syria.

Arab World

Sudan's RSF Denies Reports of Abu Lulu's Release

This handout picture released by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 30, 2025, shows RSF members reportedly detaining a fighter known as Abu Lulu (L) in al-Fashir in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region. (RSF / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 30, 2025, shows RSF members reportedly detaining a fighter known as Abu Lulu (L) in al-Fashir in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region. (RSF / AFP)
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Sudan's RSF Denies Reports of Abu Lulu's Release

This handout picture released by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 30, 2025, shows RSF members reportedly detaining a fighter known as Abu Lulu (L) in al-Fashir in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region. (RSF / AFP)
This handout picture released by the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on October 30, 2025, shows RSF members reportedly detaining a fighter known as Abu Lulu (L) in al-Fashir in war-torn Sudan's western Darfur region. (RSF / AFP)

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) denied on Tuesday reports about the release of RSF Brigadier General al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, known as Abu Lulu, who was arrested late last year following global outrage over videos of him executing unarmed people in al-Fashir.

In a statement, the RSF “categorically” denied the reports, slamming them as “baseless” and being part of a “campaigns of incitement.”

Two sources – a Sudanese intelligence official and a commander with the RSF – said they personally saw Abu Lulu on the battlefield in Kordofan in March, said a Reuters report on Monday.

The RSF stressed that Abu Lulu and a number of individuals, accused of violations against civilians in al-Fashir, have been detained since their arrest in October.

“They remain in prison and have never left,” it added.

RSF officers had pleaded for Abu Lulu to be returned to the field to boost the morale of forces engulfed in heavy fighting there, a Chadian military officer told Reuters.

Reuters spoke with 13 sources who said they knew of Abu Lulu’s release. They include three RSF commanders, an RSF officer, a relative of Abu Lulu, a Chadian military officer close to RSF command and seven other sources with contacts in RSF leadership or access to intelligence on RSF field operations.

The RSF-led coalition government, in response to questions from Reuters, issued a statement on Monday denying the group had released Abu Lulu.

A special court will try him and others accused of violations during the al-Fashir offensive, according to the statement from Ahmed Tugud Lisan, spokesman for the RSF-led Tasis government.

The RSF imprisoned Abu Lulu in late October 2025, a few days after its bloody takeover of al-Fashir, a large city in North Darfur.

Multiple videos had surfaced of him executing unarmed people during the offensive. His actions earned him the nickname “the butcher of al-Fashir,” a moniker noted by the UN Security Council when sanctioning him on February 24 for human rights abuses.

The three-year civil war between the Sudanese army and the RSF is a brutal power struggle to control the country and its financial resources. It has created what aid groups say is the world's largest humanitarian ‌crisis.

Arab World

Blank Ballots Impede Vote for New Hamas Leader

Hamas leaders, from right: Rawhi Mushtaha, Saleh al-Arouri and Ismail Haniyeh, all of whom were assassinated, Khaled Meshaal and Khalil al-Hayya. Hamas media)
Hamas leaders, from right: Rawhi Mushtaha, Saleh al-Arouri and Ismail Haniyeh, all of whom were assassinated, Khaled Meshaal and Khalil al-Hayya. Hamas media)
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Blank Ballots Impede Vote for New Hamas Leader

Hamas leaders, from right: Rawhi Mushtaha, Saleh al-Arouri and Ismail Haniyeh, all of whom were assassinated, Khaled Meshaal and Khalil al-Hayya. Hamas media)
Hamas leaders, from right: Rawhi Mushtaha, Saleh al-Arouri and Ismail Haniyeh, all of whom were assassinated, Khaled Meshaal and Khalil al-Hayya. Hamas media)

While many were waiting to learn who would become the new head of Hamas’s political bureau, the movement issued a rare and surprising statement last Saturday saying the result could not be decided in the first round and that a second would be held.

Asharq Al-Awsat asked Hamas sources inside and outside Gaza why the process of electing a new leader had stalled.

Speaking separately, they cited several factors, including “blank ballots” cast by some voters to show they were not backing either of the two contenders, Khalil al-Hayya, head of Hamas’s office in Gaza, and Khaled Meshaal, his counterpart abroad.

Hamas is facing its worst crisis since it was founded in 1987. Israeli strikes that began after the October 7, 2023, attack have hit its various wings and leaderships.

Israel assassinated its political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024. He was succeeded by Yahya al-Sinwar in Gaza in October of the same year.

For about a year and a half, a “leadership council” has been running Hamas’s affairs. At the start of this year, a new push began to elect a chief to lead the movement for the remaining period of the current political bureau’s term. The term had been due to end in 2025 but was extended by one year, pending general elections at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

Two options

Three Hamas sources, including two outside Gaza, told Asharq Al-Awsat that since the result was not decided in favor of either al-Hayya or Meshaal, the movement’s internal regulations offer “two options: either the candidate with fewer votes withdraws in favor of the one with more, or a second round is held within 20 days of the first.”

The vote to elect the head of the political bureau is conducted through the 71-member Shura Council.

The two sources outside Gaza said many voters submitted blank votes, meaning they did not name any candidate. This prevented either contender from winning the first round.

Both sources, who are senior leaders in the movement, said this was “the first time” they had seen such a situation in a vote for the head of the bureau.

One source said the situation suggested “dissatisfaction with the two competing figures, and perhaps a protest against the movement’s policies and an attempt to push toward a younger leadership.”

The other source said: “This is not necessarily a protest against the contenders, as much as it indicates that there is real rejection of some policies on several files, or a desire to postpone the idea of electing an interim chief, wait until comprehensive elections are held, and keep the current leadership council in place.”

Hard-fought contest

Assessments inside and outside Hamas suggest that the competition between al-Hayya and Meshaal reflects diverging trends between two camps within the movement.

Al-Hayya is believed to be closer to support from the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, and to advocates of closer ties with Iran.

Meshaal is seen as representing a current that is more independent from tying the movement’s path to Tehran, as reflected in his dispute over the events of the Syrian revolution and in distancing the movement from involvement in it.

One source outside Gaza described the election as a very tight contest between Meshaal and al-Hayya, saying Hamas’s leadership in Gaza had controlled the movement’s most important files over the past two election cycles.

The source inside Gaza said only that “decisions within the movement are made by consensus, regardless of the standing or historical role of whoever leads Hamas.”

Previous elections

In previous years, elections for the head of Hamas’s political bureau were held as part of broader elections for the entire bureau and its various bodies.

In the last comprehensive elections, held in 2021, Haniyeh secured the leadership of the political bureau for a second term. His closest rivals were Saleh al-Arouri and Mohammed Nazzal, respectively.

In his first term as head of the movement in 2017, Haniyeh ran for the leadership with relative ease after Meshaal, who led Hamas’s political bureau between 2013 and 2017, was unable to run.

In the last election, held in Gaza, there was a fierce contest between Sinwar and Nizar Awadallah. It was heading for a second round before Awadallah withdrew in favor of Sinwar.