Yemen Reviews Options to Counter Houthi Escalation, Vows Punishment

The Yemeni government meeting in the interim capital, Aden. (Saba News Agency)
The Yemeni government meeting in the interim capital, Aden. (Saba News Agency)
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Yemen Reviews Options to Counter Houthi Escalation, Vows Punishment

The Yemeni government meeting in the interim capital, Aden. (Saba News Agency)
The Yemeni government meeting in the interim capital, Aden. (Saba News Agency)

Yemen’s government vowed to punish Houthi militias for stepping up terrorist activities in the governorates of Marib, Shabwah and Taiz. This came during a meeting in the interim capital Aden on Monday.

Late last week, Houthis staged an assassination attempt targeting the governor of Taiz. Moreover, the militia’s leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, threatened another year of naval and aerial terror attacks against Yemenis and neighboring countries using Iranian drones and missiles.

At the meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik, the Yemeni cabinet reviewed local and foreign developments considering the Houthi escalation. It also discussed issues related to improving public services and the economy.

“The cabinet extensively discussed available options for dealing with the military escalation of terrorist Houthi militias in the Hareb district in Marib, Merkhah district in Shabwa, and other fronts,” reported the official Saba News Agency.

The meeting, according to Saba, also tackled dealing with Houthi crimes and repeated attacks on civilian targets and public roads.

Warning Houthis against their hostile behavior, the cabinet said that the group’s crimes will not go “unpunished” and that it is unacceptable for Yemenis to remain hostage to crimes and violations of terrorist militias.

The cabinet advised against betting on the militias yielding to peace and said that the Houthis’ history affirms that the group will not submit to reconciliation efforts.

Additionally, the cabinet reiterated that the sole solution to the crisis in Yemen lies in restoring the state and ending the Houthi-waged coup.

Abdulmalik briefed cabinet members on the latest developments at the political, military, security, economic and service levels.

The premier stressed the importance of everyone shouldering their responsibilities and the need to redouble efforts from ministries and relevant authorities to overcome exceptional challenges and focus on implementing tasks that affect the lives and livelihood of citizens.



Gaza Population Down by 6% Since Start of War, Says Palestinian Statistics Bureau

 The body of a victim of an Israeli army strike on a house in the Bureij refugee camp is carried for the funeral at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)
The body of a victim of an Israeli army strike on a house in the Bureij refugee camp is carried for the funeral at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)
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Gaza Population Down by 6% Since Start of War, Says Palestinian Statistics Bureau

 The body of a victim of an Israeli army strike on a house in the Bureij refugee camp is carried for the funeral at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)
The body of a victim of an Israeli army strike on a house in the Bureij refugee camp is carried for the funeral at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip town of Deir al-Balah Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2025. (AP)

The population of Gaza has fallen 6% since the war with Israel began nearly 15 months ago as about 100,000 Palestinians left the enclave while more than 55,000 are presumed dead, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS).

Around 45,500 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, have been killed since the war began but another 11,000 are missing, the bureau said, citing numbers from the Palestinian Health Ministry.

As such, the population of Gaza has declined by about 160,000 during the course of the war to 2.1 million, with more than a million or 47% of the total children under the age of 18, the PCBS said.

It added that Israel has "raged a brutal aggression against Gaza targeting all kinds of life there; humans, buildings and vital infrastructure... entire families were erased from the civil register. There are catastrophic human and material losses."

Israel's foreign ministry said the PCBS data was "fabricated, inflated, and manipulated in order to vilify Israel".

Israel has faced accusations of genocide in Gaza because of the scale of death and destruction.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations' highest legal body, ruled last January that Israel must prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians, while Pope Francis has suggested the global community should study whether Israel's Gaza campaign constitutes genocide.

Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of genocide, saying it abides by international law and has a right to defend itself after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 killed 1,200 Israelis and precipitated the current war.

The PCBS said some 22% of Gaza's population currently faces catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, according to the criteria of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a global monitor.

Included in that 22% are some 3,500 children at risk of death due to malnutrition and lack of food, the bureau said.