Timeline of Decades of Conflict Between Israel and Hezbollahhttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5268440-timeline-decades-conflict-between-israel-and-hezbollah
Timeline of Decades of Conflict Between Israel and Hezbollah
Mourners carry coffins during a funeral ceremony of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in the village of Maaroub, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
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Timeline of Decades of Conflict Between Israel and Hezbollah
Mourners carry coffins during a funeral ceremony of four Hezbollah fighters and two civilians, amid a temporary ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, in the village of Maaroub, southern Lebanon, April 26, 2026. (Reuters)
The ongoing war between Israel and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah is far from the first conflict between them. The two have an enmity that goes back more than four decades, with outbursts of fighting or outright war punctuated by periods of tense calm.
Here is a timeline of some significant events in the hostilities between the two:
1982: Israel invades Lebanon in an offensive against the Palestine Liberation Organization and allied groups. Hezbollah is formed, with Iranian backing and based on the Iran's revolution model, to fight Israel’s ensuing occupation of southern Lebanon. It launches a guerrilla war against Israel.
1992: Hezbollah leader Abbas Mousawi is killed by an Israeli helicopter attack. His successor is Hassan Nasrallah, who will lead the group for the next three decades.
1996: Israel launches an offensive aiming to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border. Israeli artillery shelling on a United Nations compound housing hundreds of displaced people in Qana kills at least 100 civilians and wounds scores more.
2000: After a long war of attrition, Israel withdraws its forces from southern Lebanon, which is heralded around the Arab world as a major victory for Hezbollah.
2006: Hezbollah fighters ambush an Israeli patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking two hostage in a cross-border raid, sparking a monthlong war between Hezbollah and Israel that ends in a draw. Israeli bombardment razes villages and residential blocks in southern Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs, a scorched-earth approach that is dubbed the “Dahiyeh Doctrine.”
2008: Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief, is killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in Damascus. The assassination is blamed on Israel.
2012: Hezbollah enters the Syrian civil war in support of then-President Bashar Assad. In the years that follow, Israel begins periodically carrying out airstrikes in Syria targeting Iranian and Hezbollah facilities and officials or weapons shipments that it said were bound for Hezbollah. Israel still avoided carrying out strikes on Hezbollah on Lebanese territory during this period.
OCT. 8, 2023: One day after the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel sparks the war in Gaza, Hezbollah fires missiles across the border. Israel responds with airstrikes and shelling and the two enter into a low-level conflict that initially remains mainly confined to the border area.
SEPT. 17, 2024: Israel launches an attack in Lebanon using remotely-triggered explosive-laden pagers issued to Hezbollah fighters and civilian employees. A day later, a similar attack targets walkie-talkies. The attacks kill dozens of people and maim thousands, most of them Hezbollah members but also including women and children.
SEPT. 27, 2024: Hassan Nasrallah is killed in a series of massive airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs.
NOV. 27, 2024: A US-brokered ceasefire nominally ends the Israel-Hezbollah war. Israel continues to carry out regular strikes in Lebanon that it says aim to stop Hezbollah from rebuilding.
MARCH 2, 2026: Two days after Israel and the US attacked Iran, triggering a wide-reaching war in the Middle East, Hezbollah launches missiles toward Israel. It says the salvo is in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and for “repeated Israeli aggressions” in Lebanon.
Sudanese Schoolchildren Race to Make Up for Years Lost to Warhttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5268443-sudanese-schoolchildren-race-make-years-lost-war
Displaced Sudanese students attend a class at an elementary school run by the Sudanese Coalition for Education in partnership with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), south of Port Sudan, on April 26, 2026. (AFP)
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Sudanese Schoolchildren Race to Make Up for Years Lost to War
Displaced Sudanese students attend a class at an elementary school run by the Sudanese Coalition for Education in partnership with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), south of Port Sudan, on April 26, 2026. (AFP)
Sudanese 13-year-old Afrah wants to become a surgeon, and nothing will stop her, not even the war that has ravaged her country and forced millions of children out of school.
Quiet and determined, she kept learning on her own for months, uprooted by the now three-year conflict between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
"I would study my lessons again and again," she told AFP at a displacement camp in Port Sudan, where she is again receiving an education thanks to UNICEF and local organization SCEFA.
Afrah is one of more than 25 million minors in Sudan, or half the total population, of whom eight million are currently out of school, according to the UN children's agency.
At the Al-Hishan camp, tents arranged in a square function as an elementary school for more than 1,000 children -- nearly a third of whom required an accelerated curriculum to make up for lost time.
Laughter fills the camp now, but most of the children arrived traumatized by horrors including starvation and rocket fire.
Their drawings, educators said, were at first dominated by war: depictions of the tanks, weapons and death they saw as their families fled.
"They come here scared, exhausted, isolated, but over time you see their drawings change," UNICEF spokesperson Mira Nasser told AFP.
"They start to adapt and process."
In one tent, children repeated hand-washing instructions after a social worker, while in another, they recited a poem in choral unison.
Elsewhere, a teacher -- herself displaced and living at the camp -- explained chemical and physical reactions to her class, as her three-year-old son pulled at her skirt.
"These children's future is at stake, and education is itself a form of protection," Nasser said.
"Here they can at least get a sense of normalcy, even in a displacement site. They can resume their education, they can play, they can make friends."
Displaced Sudanese students attend a class at an elementary school run by the Sudanese Coalition for Education in partnership with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), south of Port Sudan, on April 26, 2026. (AFP)
- DIY operation -
Awatef al-Ghaly, a 48-year-old Arabic teacher who was displaced from North Darfur, remembered her first days at the site, when thousands of families were left listless with their kids in tow.
"There were 60 teachers here. We just got to work," she told AFP, at the same empty plot where they started, in the shadow of the Red Sea mountains.
They lined the students up by grade, threw together a schedule and started going through old lessons.
Soad Awadallah, 52, taught English for four decades in South Darfur before arriving in Port Sudan.
"It took a lot of patience, we had the kids all sat on the ground at first," she said, gesturing towards the rows of desks that now fill the tents, a welcome addition even if students have to squeeze in four to a bench.
According to Nasser, because of the time that students lost, ranging from months to years, "some even forgot how to read and write".
But their determination was indomitable, and the makeshift school recently graduated its first class from elementary to middle school, Ghaly said with pride.
"Even when things were difficult, in the heat of summer with bugs everywhere, the kids wanted to learn," she said.
Before the final exam, "some of them would follow us teachers home begging for more review sessions".
Sudanese students leave a school operated by the Sudanese Coalition for Education for All, in partnership with the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), south of Port Sudan on April 26, 2026. (AFP)
- 'Want to help people' -
Fatma, 16, wants to become a psychiatrist to help those hurt by the fighting in Sudan.
"This war has destroyed people emotionally... My father was in the main market in Khartoum when the RSF went through killing people. He ran away, and he still feels that pain," she told AFP.
"When I sit with the social worker, I feel better. I want to help people like that."
One little girl, who came up to an AFP journalist's hip, was missing her right arm, amputated after she was wounded in the capital Khartoum.
She high-fived with her left hand.
Across Sudan, five million children are internally displaced, according to UNICEF. Millions are going hungry, including over 825,000 children under five suffering severe acute malnutrition.
The use of child soldiers has been reported across the country, and rampant sexual violence against minors has prevented many from returning to school even in areas now safe from the fighting.
Many just want to go home.
"I miss my friends and my family, I miss my school in Khartoum -- it was full of trees," 14-year-old Ibrahim said.
But he has a goal. "I want to become a petroleum engineer," he told AFP, as the sound of children playing outside filled the tent.
During recess, dozens of pupils dashed around their teachers, laughing, playing and making hearts at AFP's cameras.
One boy named Rizeq, clad in a red Manchester United jersey, steeled himself and walked up to the adults.
His voice a little shaky but his chest puffed out, he said: "I want more English classes in the evening."
Why Iran’s Oil Industry Is Increasingly Threatened by US Blockadehttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5268290-why-iran%E2%80%99s-oil-industry-increasingly-threatened-us-blockade
People walk in a local market in Tehran, Iran, April 28, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
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Why Iran’s Oil Industry Is Increasingly Threatened by US Blockade
People walk in a local market in Tehran, Iran, April 28, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Even as Iran squeezes world energy supplies with its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, its own oil industry is increasingly being threatened by an American blockade.
With no way to export the oil it is pumping out and diminishing room to store it at home, Iran may be forced to dramatically reduce or cease production from some of its wells, perhaps beginning in as little as two weeks, experts say.
The situation likely isn’t as dire as US President Donald Trump recently described, colorfully suggesting pipelines could start exploding within days. But once shut down, production from the aging wells may not be restarted so easily, if at all, undermining Iran’s future oil output. Iran appears to have begun dialing back production already, analysts say, to avert outright shutdowns.
The pressure is building as the US Treasury Department ratchets up sanctions on Iranian oil shipments already at sea. The US military has seized at least two tankers off Asia believed to be carrying Iranian oil.
With its oil trade constrained, Iran is seeing less hard currency flow back into an economy mauled by weeks of war, months of unrest and decades of international sanctions. But with fewer tankers shipping Iranian oil, the effects of the Strait of Hormuz shutdown are only being magnified, leading to shortages of jet fuel and rising gasoline prices around the world.
Iran's leaders “are really resisting” shutting down oil wells because of how painful that would be long-term, said Miad Maleki, a former sanctions expert at the US Treasury who is now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“They’ve been under sanctions, they’ve been isolated for 47 years now. Those oil wells are not maintained well. Their machinery is not maintained well," Maleki said. Once shut off, he added, the wells won't easily “snap back after a few months.”
The squeeze on Iran intensifies
Iran had been pumping over 3 million barrels of crude oil a day before the war, with a little more than half going toward its domestic market. But since the American blockade began on April 13, ships have been filled with oil and unable to get out.
“It looks like there’s been a significant slowdown in production,” said Antoine Halff, the co-founder and chief analyst at Kayrros, an environmental intelligence company that tracks emissions and energy supply chains. He pointed to signs that storage is not filling as fast as usual at Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export terminal in the Gulf.
Iran is likely storing some of its oil in tankers positioned around Kharg Island, Halff noted.
Kpler, a firm monitoring commodities markets, said it believes Iran has enough capacity left to store about two weeks worth of oil production, even after reducing output.
“While the immediate revenue impact is limited, operational constraints are now forcing production cuts and setting up a delayed but significant financial squeeze,” wrote Homayoun Falakshahi, an analyst at Kpler.
Wood Mackenzie, another oil analysis firm, estimates Iran will run out of storage capacity in about three weeks.
“If the blockade persists, cuts become inevitable,” wrote Alexandre Araman of Wood Mackenzie. Shutdowns of more than a month “risk long-term damage” to Iran’s oil reservoirs, he wrote, adding that recovering older fields “remains uncertain.”
Iran’s oil industry long a shaky lifeline
From the moment it first struck oil in 1908, Iran’s oil industry has been entangled in the region’s politics. A move to nationalize Iran’s oil fields and wrest control from the British sparked the CIA-backed 1953 coup that cemented Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s rule.
That also lit a long fuse to Iran’s 1979 revolution that toppled the shah. During the revolution, oil workers went on strike and brought production down from 6 million barrels a day to around 1.5 million.
Iran’s oil industry never recovered and faced decades of international sanctions, during which its infrastructure aged and faltered.
In his first term, Trump exerted a “maximum pressure” campaign, hiking sanctions to severely cut Iran’s oil exports. Forced to store oil in tankers at sea, the Iranian government lost tens of billions of dollars in revenues. Still, the pressure failed to push Tehran into reaching a nuclear deal with the US.
Now Iran faces a combination of hiked sanctions and the blockade. Trump on Tuesday claimed that Iran was “in a ‘State of Collapse.’”
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent piled on, writing on X, “Iran’s creaking oil industry is starting to shut in production thanks to the US BLOCKADE. Pumping will soon collapse. GASOLINE SHORTAGES IN IRAN NEXT!”
There have been no immediate signs of any gasoline shortages in Iran. However, Iran does seem to be acknowledging some of the pain indirectly.
A segment on state TV, which is run by hard-liners, included journalists discussing the possibility of an oil storage crisis. One noted that if empty tankers get blocked from returning to Iran, “we won’t be able to export.” Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad on Monday praised oil terminal staff for their “continuous perseverance."
Maleki, the analyst from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that if the blockade continues and production slows further or halts, oil workers could potentially lose their jobs — which could cause new unrest.
“In 1979 when the oil industry was disrupted, in the 1980s war with Iraq ... you can go and look at to see how effective they were in really pressuring the regime,” he said. “It’s really going to affect some of the most strategic provinces in Iran and the most strategic industry.”
Houthi Summer Centers: A 'Mandatory' School Passage to the Front Lineshttps://english.aawsat.com/features/5268210-houthi-summer-centers-mandatory-school-passage-front-lines
Houthi Summer Centers: A 'Mandatory' School Passage to the Front Lines
“School trip” for children at a Houthi-run summer camp in Amran (Asharq Al-Awsat)
In a corner of the courtyard of a public school in Sanaa, a woman dressed in black stands, once used to seeing her son in the morning assembly line. Today, she returns to the same place not as a mother, but as a cleaner trying to keep what remains of her life intact. She wipes the ground in heavy silence, as if whispering to the courtyard gravel: I had a son here. He left a child and came back a corpse.
She sees her son’s face in the student lines, hearing chants and slogans that were once unfamiliar. Quietly, she realizes many of them may follow the same path, but she says nothing. Two years ago, Umm Amer lost her only son. He was 17. He was returned to her a lifeless body, his image raised atop a coffin. They told her: “Ululate, he has attained martyrdom.”
She recalls how he began to change gradually after joining that summer camp. He became quieter, sometimes sharper, shouting and repeating phrases she had never known, about “jihad” and “victory,” as if they were his only path. She did not understand what was happening, but she saw in his eyes a look that was carrying him away from her.
Today, she does nothing but wipe her tears in secret and continue cleaning, in a job she obtained as the “mother of a martyr,” to support her three daughters after losing the family’s provider.
From Summer Activity to Mobilization Apparatus
The Houthi summer centers did not emerge with the group’s takeover of Sanaa in 2014. They are an extension of a historical trajectory tied to the group’s origins. Their beginnings date back to the early 1990s, specifically 1991, when activities were organized under what was known as the “Believing Youth” in Saada. These included youth programs and seasonal courses aimed at transmitting ideological messaging through study circles and summer camps, serving as early tools to build a social and organizational base by combining education with ideological formation.
With the outbreak of the Saada wars in 2004, these activities underwent a qualitative shift. They were no longer limited to religious or educational aspects but became tools of mobilization and recruitment, benefiting from public sympathy during the conflict and expanding their reach among youth.
By 2008, the group began spreading these activities beyond Saada using nontraditional means, including distributing digital materials on SD cards and USB drives. These contained Houthi doctrinal lectures and lessons tied to the summer centers, as well as what is known as the “Malazim” - Houthi doctrinal lectures delivered by the group’s founder, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, transcribed into booklets.
A supervisor in Sanaa said he received such memory devices in 2008, distributed among selected students. Upon reviewing their contents, he found recordings and Houthi doctrinal lectures by Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, noting that these materials marked a turning point in his adoption of the group’s ideas and support for it.
He attended closed gatherings to listen to these Houthi doctrinal lectures in private meeting spaces with individuals close to the group in Sanaa and nearby areas such as Bani Hushaysh, Khawlan, and Sanhan.
Following the developments of 2011, particularly the February protests and sit-ins and the broader moment of political opening, these activities expanded to a number of provinces. More organized centers and courses appeared outside the group’s main stronghold, with clearer administrative oversight under the appealing slogan “regime change.” They moved beyond narrow circles to fill libraries and kiosks with the Malazim, establishing stalls in multiple locations to distribute booklets, posters, and slogans free of charge, and installing loudspeakers to continuously broadcast chants.
The most significant transformation came after the takeover of Sanaa in 2014, when summer centers shifted from limited activities into a wide-ranging program formally administered through state institutions, within an organizational structure that includes central, technical, and supervisory committees, with the involvement of multiple ministries.
A security source said the group had, in earlier stages, relied on what it called “cultural courses” and religious seminaries to attract youth, gain their sympathy, and integrate them into its project before the current model of summer centers emerged. The source added that these centers “are no longer limited, but have become an institutional program managed within an integrated organizational structure,” noting that they are used as a tool to influence youth orientations, ultimately pushing some toward the front lines.
Students in a classroom perform a military salute and chant the Houthi slogan (al-sarkha) (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Types of Summer Camps
According to available information, the group divides these centers or camps into three types: closed, model, and open. Closed camps function as ideological military courses. They are held in military barracks and focus primarily on preparing participants to become fighters within the group. They are trained both militarily and ideologically for this purpose and are considered reserve forces. Once enrolled, their phones are confiscated, contact with their families is cut off, and they are transported at night between training camps that change periodically.
All participants are high school students who have completed weapons dismantling training in schools. Their trainers nominate them for military courses as a reward for excellence and distinction, in addition to some members of school scout groups whose activities have been shifted from scouting to military.
In these camps, participants are trained to use light and medium weapons, RPGs, mortars, grenades, and camouflage and concealment techniques.
Model camps, typically for those over the age of 10, are considered “specialized camps.” Top-performing students in various school activities are recruited to them. These are closed camps where students remain throughout the week, but they are allowed to communicate with their families and their phones are not confiscated. They may return home weekly or every two weeks.
These camps are usually held in provincial capitals, where students receive intensive ideological lectures from senior group leaders, watch films on “jihad,” and study the biographies of the group’s leaders, Hezbollah, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. They also receive limited training in dismantling and using certain types of weapons.
Open camps are for children aged 5 to 10. They begin in the morning and end at noon, appearing to the public as Quran memorization centers and summer activities. As a result, the group spreads them across schools and mosques to make them widely accessible. However, children in these camps are taught the “pledge of allegiance,” to chant the Houthi slogan (al-sarkha), and to obey the group’s leader.
Girls are not excluded. There are dedicated centers for females, managed by the General Women’s Cultural Authority, which designs and implements programs, recruits students through field networks, supervises female staff, and prepares unified guidance materials.
These centers are presented as educational and recreational spaces, but they also include intensive religious programs, mobilization-oriented lectures, and group activities that reinforce discipline and belonging.
Embedding a “Conspiracy Theory” Narrative
In its messaging, the group promotes the idea that the summer centers are a fortress against “conspiracies” targeting religion and the nation. They are presented as a means of instilling what it calls “Quranic culture” in younger generations and building a generation armed with knowledge and awareness.
The group also emphasizes that the “battle with the enemy” is not limited to the military dimension but extends to “targeting awareness.” These centers are framed as a safeguard against what is described as “soft war” and “cultural invasion,” and as part of a long intellectual struggle aimed at preparing a generation capable of confrontation.
Alongside this messaging, educational sources indicate that organizers rely on a set of material and moral incentives, such as providing meals, basic supplies, organizing trips, and offering activities, to attract as many students as possible each year.
According to one of the Malazim, a Houthi doctrinal lecture by founder Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi titled “Lessons in Knowing God,” delivered at the Believing Youth forum in Saada, the overarching objective is to “develop students’ knowledge of God and entrench doctrine within their souls and consciences, in a way that propels them toward fighting and confronting enemies.”
Lessons Outside the Official Curriculum
In this year’s season, which began on March 28, the group distributed its own curricula for the summer centers, printed in high quality with a distinct visual identity. This reflects the scale of resources allocated to these programs compared to formal education, which continues to suffer from declining support and capacity.
Students are often forced to purchase their official textbooks from the black market, while teachers struggle to obtain their salaries. Each year, as preparations for the summer centers begin, the group’s leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, delivers an annual speech calling for enrollment, a call that has itself evolved significantly over time.
These materials carry no reference to the Republic of Yemen or the Ministry of Education. Instead, they are issued under the title “The Quranic March – General Administration of Summer Courses.”
This extends to the naming of the centers, which are not attributed to the schools hosting them but are instead given symbolic names such as “Al-Hadi,” “Al-Hussein,” “Fatima,” “Martyr Taha al-Madani,” and “Martyr Saleh al-Sammad.”
Morning assembly for children in uniform at Houthi summer camps (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Administrative Structure with a Ministerial Character
The administrative structure of the summer courses and activities in areas under Houthi control reflects a multi-level system, led by the Ministries of Education and Youth and Sports, alongside the General Mobilization Authority, which plays a central role in mobilization and guidance, and the Ministry of Endowments, responsible for religious content.
At the executive and technical levels, local authorities in Houthi-controlled provinces oversee field implementation and coordinate activities within districts and centers through education offices and supervisory committees. Daily activities are managed, staff are assigned, and program implementation is monitored, reflecting a system that extends from central leadership down to neighborhoods.
Other ministries participate as technical partners in sectoral programs: the Ministry of Interior runs “Aware Youth... Safe Society,” Agriculture oversees the “Green Army,” Health manages “Health Ambassadors,” the communications sector supervises “Awareness in the Age of Communications,” and Technical Education and Vocational Training oversees “My Profession is My Future.”
The Ministry of Information plays an ongoing supporting role through annual coordination ahead of the launch of the courses, setting the framework for media coverage, including promotion and field reporting, as part of a plan to strengthen the centers’ presence in society.
These centers are managed by the “Supreme Committee for Summer Courses and Activities,” chaired by the prime minister in the Houthi administration, with membership including the ministers of education and youth and sports, a representative of the Endowments Authority, and representatives from the group’s mobilization and cultural apparatus.
Subcommittees are headed by provincial governors, with mobilization officials as deputies, and include directors of education, youth and sports, and endowments offices.
A Turning Point in 2026
While expansion of the summer centers had occurred gradually in previous years, 2026 marks a decisive turning point. Summer schooling is no longer optional; the group has moved to a new phase in which attendance is effectively compulsory. According to testimonies from students, parents, and teachers, a network of direct and indirect pressures is being applied, at times reaching the level of threats, placing families before a stark equation: comply or risk their children’s future.
Although this shift has not been officially announced, it has become a daily reality. Multiple sources confirm that, with preparations for this year’s summer centers underway, the group has escalated practices linking school procedures to participation in these programs.
For example, student results and admission for the next academic year are tied to participation, alongside pressure on school administrations to push students into the camps under threat of penalties. If a student wants their academic record to remain free of marks that could affect their future, including university admission, they must register in these centers.
In some schools, the release of results or acceptance into the following year is tied to a certificate of attendance from the summer center. Messages circulated on communication groups include implicit warnings that absence may negatively affect academic progression.
One message sent by a school administrator to mothers in a WhatsApp group contains a veiled threat that any student who does not attend the summer centers will be denied enrollment next year: “Dear mothers, please be informed that registration will not be accepted without a certificate from the summer center. We ask that students who have not yet registered do so and join the center to benefit.”
In another group, a teacher urged students: “Come early tomorrow, those registered and those not yet registered should register. The administration will not accept them at the start of the school year without the summer center certificate.”
A message attributed to a school principal in northern Ibb indicated that attendance at the summer centers is a condition for receiving exam results, while failing students are enticed with additional marks if they join the courses.
Extracurricular activities titled “My Profession is My Future” at a Houthi-run summer camp (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Declining Participation and Criminalization
According to sources, these measures were introduced out of concern that the summer centers might face declining turnout, as families are increasingly aware of their outcomes. Teacher A. Abdul Karim, who works in these centers, said that despite the group’s efforts to mobilize as many students as possible, participation has recently declined.
He noted that turnout has become very weak, and that recruiting students now requires significant time, sustained persuasion, and financial incentives.
The Yemeni Teachers’ Syndicate warned of the dangers posed by these centers, stating they have become organized tools for sectarian ideological mobilization and the recruitment of children and youth, as part of a systematic targeting of national identity and the education system in Yemen.
In a statement dated Sunday, April 12, 2026, the syndicate said the group has expanded these centers since taking control of Sanaa to attract the largest number of students, using them to instill doctrinal ideas based on concepts of lineage-based selection that conflict with national and religious values and serve a political project threatening Yemen’s security and stability.
Neglected Schools, Flourishing Centers
In its messaging, the group describes the summer centers as an “educational support channel” to compensate for gaps caused by war. However, according to many teachers, this is nothing more than a worse excuse than the offense itself. Schools themselves could serve that role if there were genuine intent to reform education.
Teachers argue that the group’s insistence on these centers reveals that the goal is not education, but the production of a generation prepared for early recruitment and ideological mobilization. They pose a central question: if the group holds full control over formal education and has successfully inserted its ideology into school curricula, why deliberately neglect schools, leaving them in a state of near collapse, without teachers, salaries, or basic educational resources?
This contradiction between stagnating schools during the academic year and their sudden revival in summer raises serious questions.
While significant attention, funding, and effort are directed toward summer centers that quickly turn into active and crowded spaces, formal education remains in a state of severe stagnation and resource deprivation, with thousands of schools lacking even the most basic requirements for learning.
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