Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha Commences Mission as Head of UNMHA

United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths beside Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha of India. (Twitter account of Griffiths)
United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths beside Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha of India. (Twitter account of Griffiths)
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Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha Commences Mission as Head of UNMHA

United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths beside Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha of India. (Twitter account of Griffiths)
United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths beside Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha of India. (Twitter account of Griffiths)

Lieutenant General Abhijit Guha of India has commenced his mission as head of United Nations Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement (UNMHA), announced United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths.

He will succeed Lieutenant General Michael Lollesgaard, amid the shrinking possibility of implementing the Stockholm Agreement that goes 10 months back between the legitimate government and the Iranian-supported Houthi group.

Griffiths tweeted welcoming the Lieutenant General, saying that he looks forward to cooperating with him.

Guha is the third head of UNMHA since Stockholm Agreement, signed in December.

Redeployment Coordination Committee (RCC) for Yemen managed to let the two parties meet in six rounds of talks for the sake of implementing the agreement. However, it achieved no breakthrough except for the fragile truce that concurred with thousands of breaches.

The UN announced, last month, appointing Guha after the conclusion of Lollesgaard's term. There are hopes that he succeeds in resuming the agreement’s implementation, fixing the ceasefire, completing the second phase of redeployment, and achieving a breakthrough in the most complex issues such as security, resources, and local authority.

Despite Houthis' claims that they finished more than 90 percent of their obligations related to the Hodeidah agreement, the legitimate government affirmed that the withdrawal of the group from three ports of Hodeidah was fictitious.

The local authority, local security forces, and the ports’ resources are the main three topics hindering any tangible progress to implement Hodeidah agreement.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Mohammad al-Hadrami stressed earlier the government’s keenness to achieve peace based on the three references – he also affirmed to Griffiths in their most recent meeting that moving to political consultations regarding the comprehensive settlement with Houthis is hinged to the implementation of the Stockholm Agreement.

Hadrami called on the international community to pressure Houthis to implement it, saying that the government doesn’t expect those who didn’t respect earlier agreements to abide by the coming ones.



94 Palestinians Killed in Gaza, Including 45 People Waiting for Aid

A Palestinian inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an overnight Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, July 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an overnight Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, July 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
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94 Palestinians Killed in Gaza, Including 45 People Waiting for Aid

A Palestinian inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an overnight Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, July 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
A Palestinian inspects the damage at a school sheltering displaced people, following an overnight Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, July 3, 2025. REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Airstrikes and shootings killed 94 Palestinians in Gaza overnight, including 45 while attempting to get much-needed humanitarian aid, hospitals and the Health Ministry said Thursday.

Israel’s military did not have immediate comment on the strikes, The Associated Press reported.

Five people were killed while outside sites associated with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the newly created, secretive American organization backed by Israel to feed the Gaza Strip’s population, while 40 others were killed waiting for aid trucks in other locations across the Gaza Strip.

Dozens of people were killed in airstrikes that pounded the Strip Wednesday night and Thursday morning, including 15 people killed in strikes that hit tents in the sprawling Muwasi zone, where many displaced Palestinians are sheltering, and a strike on a school in Gaza City sheltering displaced people.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza has passed 57,000, including 223 missing people who have been declared dead. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its death count but says that more than half of the dead are women and children.

The deaths come as Israel and Hamas inch closer to a possible ceasefire that would end the 21-month war.

Trump said Tuesday that Israel had agreed on terms for a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza and urged Hamas to accept the deal before conditions worsen. But Hamas’ response, which emphasized its demand that the war end, raised questions about whether the latest offer could materialize into an actual pause in fighting.

The Israeli military blames Hamas for the civilian casualties because it operates from populated areas. The military said it targeted Hamas members and rocket launchers in northern Gaza that launched rockets towards Israel on Wednesday.

The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages.

The war has left the coastal Palestinian territory in ruins, with much of the urban landscape flattened in the fighting. More than 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population has been displaced, often multiple times. And the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, leaving hundreds of thousands of people hungry.