Yemen Parliament Approves Budget as Presidential Council Stresses Partnership

PLC Chairman Rashad al-Alimi is sworn in before PM Abdulmalik in Aden. (Saba)
PLC Chairman Rashad al-Alimi is sworn in before PM Abdulmalik in Aden. (Saba)
TT

Yemen Parliament Approves Budget as Presidential Council Stresses Partnership

PLC Chairman Rashad al-Alimi is sworn in before PM Abdulmalik in Aden. (Saba)
PLC Chairman Rashad al-Alimi is sworn in before PM Abdulmalik in Aden. (Saba)

The Yemeni parliament approved on Thursday the state budget that was submitted by the government.

The budget was approved after extensive deliberations. The government was requested to present answers to inquiries posed by the lawmakers.

A senior Yemeni official told Asharq Al-Awsat that state institutions are now functioning in an official and legal manner. The parliament is monitoring the situation and holding sides and individuals to account.

Meanwhile, the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), chaired by Rashad al-Alimi, held its first meeting with the consultation and reconciliation body in the interim capital, Aden, revealed official sources.

The body is comprised of 50 figures, representing all national forces. The meeting was attended by the seven members of the PLC, Aydarous al-Zubaidi, Sheikh Sultan al-Aradah, Tariq Saleh, Abdel-Rahman al-Mahrami, Abdullah al-Alimi, Otham Majaly and Faraj al-Bahsani.

They all stressed that the "spirit of consensus and partnership" will mark the transitional period.

Chairman Alimi hoped during the meeting that that the consultation body would assist the PLC and for its members, who are experienced in politics and administrative work, to be up to the task assigned to them.

"Our people expect you to embody consensus in order to help the PLC and this, in turn, will reflect on the interests of the Yemenis and their aspirations for peace and development," he added, according to the Saba news agency.

The PLC had convened on Wednesday to address services and living conditions throughout Yemen, especially in Aden.

Official sources said the meeting was attended by Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik and Aden Governor Ahmed Lamlas.

The officials tackled various pressing issues that needed to be addressed, especially electricity, healthcare, education, and the state of roads. Several urgent decisions were taken.



Women and Children Scavenge for Food in Gaza, UN Official Says

 Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
TT

Women and Children Scavenge for Food in Gaza, UN Official Says

 Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians walk on a destroyed street after Israeli forces withdrew from a part of Nuseirat, following a ground operation amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, November 29, 2024. (Reuters)

Large groups of women and children are scavenging for food among mounds of trash in parts of the Gaza Strip, a UN official said on Friday following a visit to the Palestinian enclave.

Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights office for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, expressed concern about the levels of hunger, even in areas of central Gaza where aid agencies have teams on the ground.

"I was particularly alarmed by the prevalence of hunger," Sunghay told a Geneva press briefing via video link from Jordan. "Acquiring basic necessities has become a daily, dreadful struggle for survival."

Sunghay said the UN had been unable to take any aid to northern Gaza, where he said an estimated 70,000 people remain following "repeated impediments or rejections of humanitarian convoys by the Israeli authorities".

Sunghay visited camps for people recently displaced from parts of northern Gaza. They were living in horrendous conditions with severe food shortages and poor sanitation, he said.

"It is so obvious that massive humanitarian aid needs to come in – and it is not. It is so important the Israeli authorities make this happen," he said. He did not specify the last time UN agencies had sent aid to northern Gaza.

US WARNING

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin set out steps last month for Israel to carry out in 30 days to address the situation in Gaza, warning that failure to do so may have consequences on US military aid to Israel.

The State Department said on Nov. 12 that President Joe Biden's administration had concluded that Israel was not currently impeding assistance to Gaza and therefore was not violating US law.

The Israeli army, which began its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after the group's attack on southern Israeli communities in October 2023, said its operating in northern Gaza since Oct. 5 were trying to prevent militants regrouping and waging attacks from those areas.

Israel's government body that oversees aid, Cogat, says it facilitates the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and accuses UN agencies of not distributing it efficiently.

Looting has also depleted aid supplies within the Gaza Strip, with nearly 100 food aid trucks raided on Nov. 16.

"The women I met had all either lost family members, were separated from their families, had relatives buried under rubble, or were themselves injured or sick," Sunghay said of his stay in the Gaza Strip.

"Breaking down in front of me, they desperately pleaded for a ceasefire."