Houthis Deprive Locals of Healthcare in Sanaa

Sanaa, EPA
Sanaa, EPA
TT

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.



With Nowhere Else to Hide, Gazans Shelter in Former Prison

24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
TT

With Nowhere Else to Hide, Gazans Shelter in Former Prison

24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)
24 July 2024, Palestinian Territories, Khan Younis: Displaced Palestinians stay in Asda prison in Khan Younis after the Israeli army ordered them to leave their homes in the towns of Abasan, Bani Suhaila, Ma'an, Al-Zana and a number of other villages, amid Israel-Hamas conflict. (dpa)

After weeks of Israeli bombardment left them with nowhere else to go, hundreds of Palestinians have ended up in a former Gaza prison built to hold murderers and thieves.

Yasmeen al-Dardasi said she and her family passed wounded people they were unable to help as they evacuated from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis towards its Central Correction and Rehabilitation Facility.

They spent a day under a tree before moving on to the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room. It offers protection from the blistering sun, but not much else.

Dardasi's husband has a damaged kidney and just one lung, but no mattress or blanket.

"We are not settled here either," said Dardasi, who like many Palestinians fears she will be uprooted once again.

Israel has said it goes out of its way to protect civilians in its war with the Palestinian group Hamas, which runs Gaza and led the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the latest conflict.

Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced several times, say nowhere is free of Israeli bombardment, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.

An Israeli air strike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in the Al-Mawasi area on July 13, the territory's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas' elusive military chief Mohammed Deif.

On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis had killed 14 people.

Entire neighborhoods have been flattened in one of the most densely populated places in the world, where poverty and unemployment have long been widespread.

According to the United Nations, nine in ten people across Gaza are now internally displaced.

Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family that they should flee for safety as tanks were on their way, she said. The family had no time to change so they left in their prayer clothes.

After sleeping outside on sandy ground, they too found refuge in the prison, among piles of rubble and gaping holes in buildings from the battles which were fought there. Inmates had been released long before Israel attacked.

"We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, with children walking with us," she said, adding that many of the women had five or six children with them and that water was hard to find.

She held her niece, who was born during the conflict, which has killed her father and brothers.

When Hamas-led gunmen burst into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 they killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the air and ground offensive Israel launched in response, Palestinian health officials say.

Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived at the prison after being displaced six times.

If Egyptian, US and Qatari mediators fail to secure a ceasefire they have long said is close, she and other Palestinians may be on the move once again. "Where should we go? All the places that we go to are dangerous," she said.