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Yemeni Activists Urge Int'l Intervention to Stop Houthi Plan to Demolish 500 Buildings in Old Sanaa

A general view showing the buildings included in the UNESCO list in the Old City of Sanaa (EPA)
A general view showing the buildings included in the UNESCO list in the Old City of Sanaa (EPA)
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Yemeni Activists Urge Int'l Intervention to Stop Houthi Plan to Demolish 500 Buildings in Old Sanaa

A general view showing the buildings included in the UNESCO list in the Old City of Sanaa (EPA)
A general view showing the buildings included in the UNESCO list in the Old City of Sanaa (EPA)

Yemeni intellectuals and activists urged interventions to stop the Houthi militia's plan to demolish 500 archaeological buildings in the Old City of Sanaa, included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.

They warned that the planned demolition includes four crucial markets intending to establish a sectarian shrine in the city.

Yemeni intellectuals fear that the behavior of the Houthis would remove the Old City from the World Heritage List, as the militias aim to change the demographic composition of the Yemeni capital.

A statement signed by dozens of Yemeni writers, authors, and activists expressed the Houthi militia's intention to destroy several homes and markets, urging the coup authority to refrain from building the shrine, which could damage the people and the area.

They expressed their solidarity with the residents of the Old City.

Residents described the plan as a "new Houthi crime against Yemen's land, history and heritage," saying it was complementary to previous steps targeting the city and changing its demographic composition.

The group previously hiked the rent of state-owned shops and homes and confiscated other facilities claiming they were public properties.

Yemen's Minister of Information, Culture, and Tourism, Moammar el-Eryani, warned that the militias have begun to draw up construction plans to remove the four ancient markets and turn them into a shrine.

Eryani pointed out that the Houthi militia previously demolished the historic al-Nahrain Mosque, one of the oldest ancient mosques in the world, and leveled it to the ground.

The minister affirmed that the Houthi militia's systematic targeting and destruction of archaeological and heritage sites fall within its plan to change Yemen's identity and cultural, civilizational, and historical heritage.

He warned that the group aims to replace the Yemeni culture with an identity imported from Iran, which violates all international laws and conventions.

Eryani urged the international community, the UN, and relevant international organizations, led by UNESCO and ALESCO, specialized studies and research centers, and all interested parties, to condemn the "heinous crime."

He called for international intervention to stop the massacre that the Houthi militia intends to commit against one of the World Heritage sites subject to international protection, as the property of all humankind and part of humanity's history and identity.

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Arab World

Separated for Decades, Assad's Fall Spurs Hope for Families Split by Golan Heights Buffer Zone

Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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Separated for Decades, Assad's Fall Spurs Hope for Families Split by Golan Heights Buffer Zone

Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

The four sisters gathered by the side of the road, craning their necks to peer far beyond the razor wire-reinforced fence snaking across the mountain. One took off her jacket and waved it slowly above her head.
In the distance, a tiny white speck waved frantically from the hillside.
“We can see you!” Soha Safadi exclaimed excitedly on her cellphone. She paused briefly to wipe away tears that had begun to flow. “Can you see us too?”
The tiny speck on the hill was Soha’s sister, Sawsan. Separated by war and occupation, they hadn’t seen each other in person for 22 years, The Associated Press said.
The six Safadi sisters belong to the Druze community, one of the Middle East’s most insular religious minorities. Its population is spread across Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Golan Heights, a rocky plateau that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981. The US is the only country to recognize Israel's control; the rest of the world considers the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory.
Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights split families apart.
Five of the six Safadi sisters and their parents live in Majdal Shams, a Druze town next to the buffer zone created between the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria. But the sixth, 49-year-old Sawsan, married a man from Jaramana, a town on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, 27 years ago and has lived in Syria ever since. They have land in the buffer zone, where they grow olives and apples and also maintain a small house.
With very few visits allowed to relatives over the years, a nearby hill was dubbed “Shouting Hill,” where families would gather on either side of the fence and use loudspeakers to speak to each other.
The practice declined as the internet made video calls widely accessible, while the Syrian war that began in 2011 made it difficult for those on the Syrian side to reach the buffer zone.
But since the Dec. 8 fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, families like the Safadis, are starting to revive the practice. They cling to hope, however faint, that regime change will herald a loosening of restrictions between the Israeli-controlled area and Syria that have kept them from their loved ones for so long.
“It was something a bit different. You see her in person. It feels like you could be there in two minutes by car,” Soha Safadi, 51, said Wednesday after seeing the speck that was her sister on the hill. “This is much better, much better.”
Since Assad’s fall, the sisters have been coming to the fence every day to see Sawsan. They make arrangements by phone for a specific time, and then make a video call while also trying to catch a glimpse of each other across the hill.
“She was very tiny, but I could see her,” Soha Safadi said. “There were a lot of mixed feelings — sadness, joy and hope. And God willing, God willing, soon, soon, we will see her” in person.
After Assad fell, the Israeli military pushed through the buffer zone and into Syria proper. It has captured Mount Hermon, Syria’s tallest mountain, known as Jabal al Sheikh in Arabic, on the slopes of which lies Majdal Shams. The buffer zone is now a hive of military and construction activity, and Sawsan can’t come close to the fence.
While it is far too early to say whether years of hostile relations between the two countries will improve, the changes in Syria have sparked hope for divided families that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to meet again.
“This thing gave us a hope ... that we can see each other. That all the people in the same situation can meet their families,” said another sister, 53-year-old Amira Safadi.
Yet seeing Sawsan across the hill, just a short walk away, is also incredibly painful for the sisters.
They wept as they waved, and cried even more when their sister put their nephew, 24-year-old Karam, on the phone. They have only met him once, during a family reunion in Jordan. He was 2 years old.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts in the heart,” Amira Safadi said. “It’s so close and far at the same time. It is like she is here and we cannot reach her, we cannot hug her.”