Houthis Deprive Locals of Healthcare in Sanaa

Sanaa, EPA
Sanaa, EPA
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Houthis Deprive Locals of Healthcare in Sanaa

Sanaa, EPA
Sanaa, EPA

Healthcare sources based in Yemen’s Sanaa, which is overrun by coup militias, revealed that Houthis have deprived locals from primary and secondary healthcare.

Sources added that the Iran-backed Houthi militias loot state assets and employ them to their war effort.

Houthis have marginalized and banished cadres and employees who do not believe in their adopted Khomeinist ideals. Those expelled were replaced by Houthi followers from Saada, a Houthi stronghold.

The replacements were found to be devoted to looting properties of citizens and merchants, unrightfully imposing royalties and taxes and shuttering projects and companies that refuse to donate to the Houthi war effort.

Houthis, according to sources, worked to collapse the health system, staging armed attacks against hospitals, where they seized medical equipment and drugs.

More so, in areas under their control, Houthis prevent the entry of medical supplies and life-saving drugs, especially those used to treat patients with chronic diseases.

Houthi practices have left millions of citizens with no access to basic healthcare, humanitarian relief and food.

The number of health institutions and facilities either affected or totally shuttered by Houthi actions reached 600, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The sources, speaking under the conditions of anonymity, also accused Houthi leaders of inhibiting the maintenance of medical devices and equipment.
Militia leaders, for their part, considered maintenance not a priority for the stage.

Medical sources indicate that there are 40,000 cancer patients who do not receive adequate medical care in the group's control areas.

At least 50% of the patients are dying as a result of the disruption of the radiation apparatus for oncology, and the lack of medicines due to the group preventing a number of drugs and confiscating most of the aid.

Sources at Al Thawra Modern General Hospital (TMGH) revealed that Houthis have restricted healthcare privileges to its own fighters and loyalists mainly.



Palestinians mourn teenager shot dead in the occupied West Bank

A police officer stands next to a banner at a polling station during the municipal council election, in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
A police officer stands next to a banner at a polling station during the municipal council election, in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
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Palestinians mourn teenager shot dead in the occupied West Bank

A police officer stands next to a banner at a polling station during the municipal council election, in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
A police officer stands next to a banner at a polling station during the municipal council election, in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma

Mourners carried the body of a teenager killed by Israel’s military through the hills of the West Bank ’s largest city on Thursday, the latest victim in a surge of violence this month.

Ibrahim Al-Khayyat died after being shot and wounded in his chest and abdomen in Hebron, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Relatives told The Associated Press he was heading to a minimarket when he was shot on Wednesday.

Israel’s military said soldiers had fired on Palestinians during an operation in Hebron after Palestinians hurled rocks toward them.

Mumtaz Shabaneh, al-Khayyat’s schoolteacher, said the killing reflected a wider pattern of violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, describing it as an attempt “to break our will and undermine our perseverance to remain steadfast on this land.”

Al-Khayyat was the second Palestinian to be killed on Wednesday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Abdulhalim Hamad died during an Israeli raid in Silwad, northeast of Ramallah. WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, reported Hammad, 37, was killed at home by Israeli soldiers.

The two deaths add to the more than 40 Palestinians to have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank so far this year, according to the UN. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Teenagers have borne a large share of the violence, with three killed last week.


Syria Arrests Former General Accused of Chemical Attack involvement

A photo posted by Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab on X shows Adnan Abboud Hloua, one of the most prominent officers responsible for the chemical massacre in Ghouta.
A photo posted by Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab on X shows Adnan Abboud Hloua, one of the most prominent officers responsible for the chemical massacre in Ghouta.
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Syria Arrests Former General Accused of Chemical Attack involvement

A photo posted by Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab on X shows Adnan Abboud Hloua, one of the most prominent officers responsible for the chemical massacre in Ghouta.
A photo posted by Syrian Interior Minister Anas Khattab on X shows Adnan Abboud Hloua, one of the most prominent officers responsible for the chemical massacre in Ghouta.

Syria's interior minister on Wednesday said it detained an Assad-era general accused of involvement in the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack.

In a post on X, Anas Khattab said that "Adnan Abboud Hilweh, one of the most prominent officers responsible for the chemical massacre in Eastern Ghouta in 2013, is now in the custody of the Counter-Terrorism Department", AFP reported.

US intelligence says more than 1,000 people were killed with sarin nerve gas in the suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus, in 2013 during Syria's civil war.

The attack was attributed to the Syrian government under the rule of Bashar al-Assad, who was toppled in late 2024.

The government at the time denied involvement and blamed opposition forces.

Hilweh was one of three Syrian generals accused by the US State Department in 2022 of involvement in "gross violations of human rights, namely the flagrant denial of the right to life of at least 1,400 people in Ghouta", banning them along with their immediate family from entering the country.

Hilweh was sanctioned by the European Union, the United Kingdom and other countries.

Syria's 13-year civil war killed more than half a million people and displaced millions of others. Tens of thousands of people disappeared, many into the country's brutal prison system.

Syria's new authorities have repeatedly vowed to provide justice and accountability for Assad-era atrocities, while activists and the international community have emphasised the importance of transitional justice in the war-ravaged country.

On Monday, a Syrian court conducted the first hearing in the trial of Assad, in absentia, and senior figures from his government, one of whom appeared in person.

Former security official Atif Najib, a relative of Assad's, was in the dock in handcuffs.

Assad fled to Moscow with only a handful of confidants as opposition-led forces closed in on Damascus in December 2024, abandoning senior officials and security officers, some of whom reportedly went abroad or took refuge in the coastal heartland of Assad's Alawite minority.


Israel Arrests 175 Activists from Gaza Flotilla Far from its Waters

Global Sumud Flotilla vessels prepare to depart for Gaza at the port of Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 12 April 2026. EPA/MARTA PEREZ
Global Sumud Flotilla vessels prepare to depart for Gaza at the port of Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 12 April 2026. EPA/MARTA PEREZ
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Israel Arrests 175 Activists from Gaza Flotilla Far from its Waters

Global Sumud Flotilla vessels prepare to depart for Gaza at the port of Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 12 April 2026. EPA/MARTA PEREZ
Global Sumud Flotilla vessels prepare to depart for Gaza at the port of Barcelona, northeastern Spain, 12 April 2026. EPA/MARTA PEREZ

Israel's army arrested around 175 activists from a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in international waters off Greece, the Israeli foreign ministry and the flotilla's organizers said Thursday.

"Approximately 175 activists from more than 20 boats of the condom flotilla are now making their way peacefully to Israel," the ministry said in a statement, using its latest epithet to poke fun at the flotilla after prophylactics were found in a previous convoy.

The statement included a video of the activists aboard an Israeli navy ship.

The organizers of the latest flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists seeking to break Israel's blockade on Gaza had announced shortly beforehand that their boats were surrounded by Israeli military ships while off the coast of the Greek island of Crete.

"At the time of publishing this statement (06:30 Paris time, 04:30 GMT), at least 22 of the flotilla's 58 boats have been stormed by Israeli forces in complete violation of international law," AFP quoted the Global Sumud Flotilla as saying in a statement.

The flotilla set sail in recent weeks from Marseille in France, Barcelona in Spain and Syracuse in Italy.

Overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the flotilla said its boats had been "illegally surrounded" by Israeli vessels.

The remaining boats in the flotilla are currently near Crete, according to the organization’s live tracking on its website.

"Our boats were approached by military speedboats, self-identified as 'Israel', pointing lasers and semi-automatic assault weapons ordering participants to the front of the boats and to get on their hands and knees," the organization had said.

"Boat communications are being jammed and a SOS was issued."

In the summer and autumn of 2025, a first voyage by the Global Sumud Flotilla across the Mediterranean towards Gaza drew worldwide attention.

The boats in that flotilla were intercepted by Israel off the coasts of Egypt and the Gaza Strip in early October.

The Israeli operation, described as illegal by the organizers and by Amnesty International, drew international condemnation.

Crew members, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, were arrested and then expelled by Israel.

Israel controls all entry points to Gaza, and has been accused by the United Nations and foreign NGOs of strangling the flow of goods into the territory, causing shortages since the start of the war in October 2023.

The Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas, has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007, and the war triggered by the Palestinian movement's attack on Israel has led to severe shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel.

A fragile ceasefire was reached last October after two years of devastating conflict.