Houthis Besiege Thousands of Civilians South of Marib

A girl pictured at a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Marib, Yemen (Reuters)
A girl pictured at a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Marib, Yemen (Reuters)
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Houthis Besiege Thousands of Civilians South of Marib

A girl pictured at a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Marib, Yemen (Reuters)
A girl pictured at a camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Marib, Yemen (Reuters)

Houthi militias besieged thousands of civilians in the south of Marib, preventing food supplies, medicine, and fuel from entering the area, announced local and Yemeni human rights sources.

Clashes intensified between government forces and Houthi militias in the Harib district. The militias closed the roads leading to the al-Abdiya district after blocking all the streets from the al-Bayda governorate.

About 35,000 people live in tragic conditions and are unable to provide first aid.

Yemeni human rights advocates and the Executive Unit for the IDP Camps in Marib warned that the residents and shops had run out of wheat stocks due to the high demand.

They said that urgent intervention was required to save thousands of families after the militias isolated the district from the rest of the province.

The Executive Unit appealed to the Resident Coordinator of the UN, Humanitarian Coordinator William David Gresley and international organizations to open safe corridors for humanitarian aid to reach the displaced families in the al-Abdiya district.

It called on the UN and the international community to pressure the Houthi militia to stop its attacks on Marib and target the displaced.

It stressed the need for urgent action to provide relief and immediate aid to affected families.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) stated that about 3,800 individuals were displaced due to the clashes in Marib, Shabwa, and Abyan between September 19 and 25.

IOM said that 635 families were displaced at least once, and the largest number of displacement cases was recorded in Marib with 398 families, Shabwa with 85 families, and Abyan with 57 families.

According to the weekly update of the displacement movement, 12,000 families were displaced at least once, and 622 families were displaced two or three times due to the escalation of the conflict.

Yemeni Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Moammar el-Eryani, confirmed that the displaced in Maerib governorate amount to 7.5 percent of the country's total population.

Eryani warned of new waves of displacement of thousands of families, noting that families living in IDP camps in western Shabwa and southern Marib will be displaced for the second and third time.

The Yemeni minister pointed out that dozens of families were forced to flee the districts towards the overcrowded city of Marib, which includes more than two million displaced people, amounting to 60 percent of the total displaced people in various governorates and 7.5 percent of the total population of Yemen.

Estimates indicate that the displacement is the largest since the coup due to the continued Houthi escalation and the militia's indiscriminate bombing of populated areas and displacement camps.

He called on the international community, the UN, the US, international envoys, and human rights organizations to assume legal and humanitarian responsibilities.



Israelis Mark Three Years Since October 7 as Palestinians Mourn Gaza’s Destruction

A Palestinian man works amid the rubble of a building damaged during the war, overlooking a makeshift tent camp at the Islamic University, in Gaza City, October 3, 2026. (Reuters)
A Palestinian man works amid the rubble of a building damaged during the war, overlooking a makeshift tent camp at the Islamic University, in Gaza City, October 3, 2026. (Reuters)
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Israelis Mark Three Years Since October 7 as Palestinians Mourn Gaza’s Destruction

A Palestinian man works amid the rubble of a building damaged during the war, overlooking a makeshift tent camp at the Islamic University, in Gaza City, October 3, 2026. (Reuters)
A Palestinian man works amid the rubble of a building damaged during the war, overlooking a makeshift tent camp at the Islamic University, in Gaza City, October 3, 2026. (Reuters)

Israelis gathered in silence on Wednesday in a kibbutz near the Gaza border that was overrun by Hamas on October 7 three years ago, mourning victims of attacks that set off Israel's assault in Gaza and plunged the Middle East into war.

In the Gaza Strip, devastated by three years of Israeli bombardment, Palestinians sheltering among the ruins of destroyed cities recalled life before a war that displaced nearly the entire population and tore apart families.

The attacks of October 7, 2023, were the deadliest day in Israel's history. Militants led by Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, a cross-border incursion that traumatized Israelis who have demanded government accountability.

Israel's subsequent bombardment and ground operations in Gaza have killed more than 74,000 people, including at least 1,400 killed in the past year since a US-brokered ceasefire, which halted major fighting but has failed to stop Israeli attacks or secure the disarmament of Hamas.

Palestinian children walk amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during the war in Gaza City, October 7, 2026. (Reuters)

'A ‌VERY DIFFICULT DAY'

In ‌Kfar Aza, where Hamas fighters killed dozens of Israelis before taking 19 hostages back into Gaza, ‌residents ⁠held a vigil for ⁠those killed, standing in silence as a trumpet played a solemn bugle call. A resident read out a roll call of the dead.

Zion Regev, a community leader in the kibbutz, said most residents remain displaced and have yet to return, the trauma of October 7 continuing to shape their lives.

"This is the first time we are doing all the things here in the kibbutz," Regev said of the vigil. "It's a very emotional day, it's a very difficult day for our community, three years after October 7th."

Elsewhere in Israel, protesters against what they view as a lack of accountability for the security failure gathered outside parliament in Jerusalem, blaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for refusing an independent inquiry into the attack.

Some protesters held ⁠signs reading: "The people will remember October 7 on October 27," a reference to an Israeli general election ‌20 days away that is being viewed as a referendum on Netanyahu's long tenure ‌in power.

"We need the change and we need hope and we need to know that we have a government that cares about the public ‌and doesn't work also only for themselves," said protester Shaked Arrad.

Netanyahu has rejected blame for the security breach and resisted calls for an independent ‌investigation. That has frustrated many in Israel, including families of those killed in the attacks, some of whom have joined the election race.

In a statement released by his office, Netanyahu said: "The nation unites on this day in the longing for our dear ones."

Referring to his country's ongoing attacks in Gaza, he added: "We will complete the mission: we have settled the score and will continue settling the score with all the murderers."

Election polls show neither Netanyahu nor ‌his main competitors would muster enough seats in parliament to form a coalition if a vote were held today.

People carrying Israeli flags walk through a commemorative installation set up on the beach in Tel Aviv to mark the third anniversary of Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel, on October 7, 2026. (AFP)

DISPLACED GAZANS RECALL LIFE BEFORE ISRAELI ASSAULT

The anniversary is the first since the ⁠October 10, 2025, ceasefire deal, which has ⁠left Israel in control of around two-thirds of Gaza, where it has demolished remaining buildings and ordered residents out.

Hamas controls the remaining third of the territory, a narrow strip on the coast where the 2 million population mostly live in makeshift tents and bombed-out buildings.

In the latest violence, Gaza medics said on Wednesday Israel's military had carried out air strikes in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza and in Khan Younis in the south, killing at least two Palestinians and wounding others.

The Israeli military said it struck and killed two people it described as militants with Hamas, which did not immediately provide comment. The military did not provide comment on the strike in Khan Younis.

Umm Mohammad, a mother of five displaced from Gaza City and now living with her husband and children in a tent encampment in Deir Al-Balah, said the war had ripped her family apart.

"We were one happy family. The war displaced us. My son left Gaza, the other went to a separate tent, my daughters left with their husbands to other parts of the Strip and we rarely meet," she said.

On this day, she said, "we recall how happy, despite all problems, we were before the war broke out, destroying everything we loved."


Syria Says Northeast Pipeline Damaged in Sabotage Attack

Security forces in Syria. (SANA file)
Security forces in Syria. (SANA file)
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Syria Says Northeast Pipeline Damaged in Sabotage Attack

Security forces in Syria. (SANA file)
Security forces in Syria. (SANA file)

Syria's state petroleum company said on Wednesday that an oil pipeline in the country's northeast was damaged in a "sabotage attack", the third such incident in recent weeks.

Years of civil war before the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in late 2024 devastated Syria's oil, gas and electricity sectors, with the country becoming heavily reliant on imports to meet its needs.

In a statement, the Syrian Petroleum Company said the pipeline near "the Tal Hamis area in Al-Hasakeh Governorate was subjected to a sabotage attack at 6:00 am on Wednesday, October 7, resulting in damage to the pipeline".

It added that maintenance crews were working to "isolate the damaged section and begin repair and maintenance work".

The company said authorities arrested the alleged perpetrators and referred them to the judiciary.

On September 29, sabotage targeting a gas pipeline in eastern Syria caused an explosion, according to state news agency SANA.

In early October, an explosion at a gas pipeline near the capital Damascus took three power stations offline.

The incidents come after demonstrations last month over rising fuel prices, which authorities linked to price hikes caused by the Middle East war.


IMF Announces Policy Advisory Program for War-Ravaged Yemen

An internally displaced Yemeni woman cooks a meal for her children at a makeshift camp for the internally displaced who fled their homes due to renewed clashes between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi militants in the northern Hajjah governorate on October 7, 2026. (AFP)
An internally displaced Yemeni woman cooks a meal for her children at a makeshift camp for the internally displaced who fled their homes due to renewed clashes between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi militants in the northern Hajjah governorate on October 7, 2026. (AFP)
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IMF Announces Policy Advisory Program for War-Ravaged Yemen

An internally displaced Yemeni woman cooks a meal for her children at a makeshift camp for the internally displaced who fled their homes due to renewed clashes between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi militants in the northern Hajjah governorate on October 7, 2026. (AFP)
An internally displaced Yemeni woman cooks a meal for her children at a makeshift camp for the internally displaced who fled their homes due to renewed clashes between Yemen's government forces and the Houthi militants in the northern Hajjah governorate on October 7, 2026. (AFP)

The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday it had approved an 18-month program to help war-ravaged Yemen achieve economic stabilization and strengthen its macroeconomic frameworks, even as its war rages on.

The IMF's "Staff-Monitored Program" offers technical assistance but does not have a financial component.

Yemen is among the poorest countries in the world and has been combatting a Houthi coup for years. The war has caused a humanitarian crisis that has left most of the population dependent on aid to survive.

The Iran-backed Houthis, who control most of northwest Yemen, captured swathes of coastal land from Yemen's pro-government forces in September after the war reignited in July.

The new fighting has displaced more than 200,000 people within the country, the United Nations said Wednesday. In total, the country has more than 5.2 million internally displaced people, with nearly two-thirds of the total population in need of humanitarian aid.

Yemen's legitimate government says it is aiming to retake all Houthi-controlled territory.

The IMF noted that Yemen's economic outlook was "challenging," after five straight years of contraction.

Real GDP contracted by 1.5 percent in 2026 "amid deteriorating terms of trade linked to the conflict in the Middle East, persistent energy shortages, and weak domestic demand," the Fund said in its statement.

The IMF noted that the country remained heavily dependent on remittances and donor assistance to finance its humanitarian-driven import bill.

The country's reserves are slated to remain below adequate levels, even with Saudi budgetary support.

The Fund said the new program aims to "strengthen public finances" in the next year, focusing on increasing domestic revenue mobilization and rationalizing government spending.

Even before the latest round of violence and displacement, Yemeni faced one of the most serious humanitarian crises in the world, according to the UN.

More than 18 million people nationwide face acute food insecurity, with around 2.2 million children under five classified as acutely malnourished, as per World Food Program figures.

The WFP warned on Friday of an "absolutely devastating" food crisis and said it needed $109 million to provide emergency food and nutrition assistance for up to 1.5 million people affected by the escalation.