KSrelief: Houthis Hamper Access of 632 Ships, Trucks

KSrelief spokesman Dr. Samer Aljetaily during a news conference in Riyadh on Monday. Asharq Al-Awsat
KSrelief spokesman Dr. Samer Aljetaily during a news conference in Riyadh on Monday. Asharq Al-Awsat
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KSrelief: Houthis Hamper Access of 632 Ships, Trucks

KSrelief spokesman Dr. Samer Aljetaily during a news conference in Riyadh on Monday. Asharq Al-Awsat
KSrelief spokesman Dr. Samer Aljetaily during a news conference in Riyadh on Monday. Asharq Al-Awsat

An official from King Salman Center for Humanitarian Aid and Relief (KSrelief) revealed on Monday that Houthis blocked 65 relief ships at Hodeidah and Saleef ports in addition to 567 relief-loaded trucks in various Yemeni regions between April 2015 and December 2017. 

KSRelief spokesman Dr. Samer Aljetaily said during a news conference in Riyadh that Houthi militias confiscated during the past four months around 363 relief trucks, looted 6,315 relief baskets and traded them in the black market in areas controlled by the insurgents.

He added that KSrelief’s total number of aid projects worldwide stands at 308 with 119 partners at the value of $967m while the total number of projects in Yemen stands at 175, implemented in association with 77 partners at the cost of $821m.

During the past two years, he said, the center provided 7,590 people with relief assistance by air and that 364,000 people from 85 nationalities were evacuated from Yemen.

In the first half of 2017, Houthi militias recruited 568 Yemeni children under the age of 18, and more than 8,000 children since 2015, he said.

The center launched the third phase of its Yemeni children rehabilitation program for those recruited by the Houthis, he stated, adding that the program, which targets 2,000 children, aims to help them integrate into the Yemeni community.

Commenting on cholera updates, Aljetaily declared that no cholera-related deaths were recorded in the past weeks, affirming that several organizations shut down their private clinics in multiple Yemeni provinces in an indicator on the successful efforts to halt the spread of the disease.



UN Envoy Condemns Intense Wave of Israeli Airstrikes on Syria

A Druze woman waves to relatives fleeing violence in Damascus, as they arrive in the buffer zone across from the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 3, 2025. (AFP)
A Druze woman waves to relatives fleeing violence in Damascus, as they arrive in the buffer zone across from the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 3, 2025. (AFP)
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UN Envoy Condemns Intense Wave of Israeli Airstrikes on Syria

A Druze woman waves to relatives fleeing violence in Damascus, as they arrive in the buffer zone across from the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 3, 2025. (AFP)
A Druze woman waves to relatives fleeing violence in Damascus, as they arrive in the buffer zone across from the village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on May 3, 2025. (AFP)

The United Nations special envoy for Syria on Saturday condemned an intense wave of Israeli airstrikes as Israel said its forces were on the ground in Syria to protect the Druze minority sect following days of clashes with Syrian pro-government gunmen.

The late Friday airstrikes were reported in different parts of the capital, Damascus, and its suburbs, as well as southern and central Syria, local Syrian media reported. They came hours after Israel’s air force struck near Syria’s presidential palace after warning Syrian authorities not to march toward villages inhabited by Syrian Druze.

Israel’s military spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, wrote on X that the strikes targeted a military post and anti-aircraft units. He also said the Israeli troops in Southern Syria were “to prevent any hostile force from entering the area or Druze villages" and that five Syrian Druze wounded in the fighting were transported for treatment in Israel.

The Israeli military issued another statement later Saturday saying that 12 warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes targeting infrastructure components and weapons across Syria, including anti-aircraft cannons and surface-to-air missile launchers.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported Saturday that four people were wounded in central Syria, and that the airstrikes hit the eastern Damascus suburb of Harasta as well as the southern province of Daraa and the central province of Hama.

UN Special Envoy for Syria, Geir O. Pedersen, denounced the strikes on X.

“I strongly condemn Israel’s continued and escalating violations of Syria’s sovereignty, including multiple airstrikes in Damascus and other cities,” Pedersen wrote Saturday, calling for an immediate cease of attacks and for Israel to stop “endangering Syrian civilians and to respect international law and Syria’s sovereignty, unity, territorial integrity, and independence.”

Four days of clashes between pro-government gunmen and Druze fighters have left nearly 100 people dead and raised fears of deadly sectarian violence.

The clashes are the worst between forces loyal to the government and Druze fighters since the early December fall of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family ruled Syria with an iron grip for more than five decades.

Israel has its own Druze community and officials have said they will protect the Druze of Syria and warned armed groups from entering predominantly Druze areas. Israeli forces have carried out hundreds of airstrikes since Assad’s fall and captured a buffer zone along the Golan Heights.

More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria.

Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus, mainly in Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya to the south.