UN Reports Warn Floods Threaten Quarter of IDP Sites in Yemen

Yemeni women collect water from an irrigation pipe next to empty tanks on the outskirts of Sanaa. (EPA)
Yemeni women collect water from an irrigation pipe next to empty tanks on the outskirts of Sanaa. (EPA)
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UN Reports Warn Floods Threaten Quarter of IDP Sites in Yemen

Yemeni women collect water from an irrigation pipe next to empty tanks on the outskirts of Sanaa. (EPA)
Yemeni women collect water from an irrigation pipe next to empty tanks on the outskirts of Sanaa. (EPA)

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) warned of floods threatening one-quarter of the Internally displaced persons' sites in Yemen.

There are more than half a million individuals in these camps.

Climate change and civil turbulences have widely impacted food item prices in Yemen and made millions become victims of food insecurity.

FAO prepared an update for the yearly National IDP Site Flood Hazard Analysis. In total, 571 (25 percent) of assessed IDP sites have a High Flood Hazard covering a total of 603,000 site residents.

The top 5 governorates with assessed IDP sites having High Flood hazards include Hodeidah (29 percent), Hajjah (27 percent), Al Jawf (22 percent), Marib (13 percent), and Taiz (9 percent).

“An estimated 77 percent of the 4.3 million people displaced in Yemen are women and children, while approximately 26 percent of displaced households are now headed by women, compared to 9 percent before the escalation of the conflict in 2015,” according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

“An estimated 8.1 million women and girls of childbearing age require help accessing reproductive health services, including antenatal care,” it added.

“One Yemeni woman dies every two hours during childbirth,” according to the Fund.

The UNFPA added: “Over 1 million pregnant and breastfeeding women are projected to experience acute malnutrition sometime in the course of 2022.”

“People in informal displacement sites are the worst affected, with women and girls, especially female-headed households, people with disabilities, and the elderly the most vulnerable to protection risks.

“Women and girls in the host community must walk more than two hours twice a day to collect drinking water. The journey can be unsafe, leaving them facing increased risks, including forms of gender-based violence (GBV), on the way to or at crowded water points.”



Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Israeli Defense Minister Says He Will End Detention without Charge of Jewish Settlers

Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)
Palestinians look at damaged cars after an Israeli settlers attack in Al-Mazraa Al-Qibleyeh near Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, November 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Israel’s new defense minister said Friday that he would stop issuing warrants to arrest West Bank settlers or hold them without charge or trial — a largely symbolic move that rights groups said risks emboldening settler violence in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Israel Katz called the arrest warrants “severe” and said issuing them was “inappropriate” as Palestinian militant attacks on settlers in the territory grow more frequent. He said settlers could be “brought to justice” in other ways.

The move protects Israeli settlers from being held in “administrative detention,” a shadowy form of incarceration where people are held without charge or trial.

Settlers are rarely arrested in the West Bank, where settler violence against Palestinians has spiraled since the outbreak of the war Oct. 7.

Katz’s decision was celebrated by far-right coalition allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. National Security Minister and settler firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir applauded Katz and called the move a “correction of many years of mistreatment” and “justice for those who love the land.”

Since Oct. 7, 2023, violence toward Palestinians by Israeli settlers has soared to new heights, displacing at least 19 entire Palestinian communities, according to Israeli rights group Peace Now. In that time, attacks by Palestinian militants on settlers and within Israel have also grown more common.

An increasing number of Palestinians have been placed in administrative detention. Israel holds 3,443 administrative detainees in prison, according to data from the Israeli Prison Service, reported by rights group Hamoked. That figure stood around 1,200 just before the start of the war. The vast majority of them are Palestinian, with only a handful at any given time Israeli Jews, said Jessica Montell, the director of Hamoked.

“All of these detentions without charge or trial are illegitimate, but to declare that this measure will only be used against Palestinians...is to explicitly entrench another form of ethnic discrimination,” said Montell.