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UN chief says seven more workers detained by Huthi rebels in Yemen

Yemen’s Huthi rebels have detained another seven UN employees, the United Nations chief said on Friday, their latest move to target aid workers.Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the “immediate and unconditional” release of all aid staff held in Yemen, which is suffering one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.”Their continued arbitrary detention is unacceptable,” Guterres said in a statement, adding that the United Nations was working to secure the release of those being held.The Iran-backed Huthis have detained dozens of staff from UN and other humanitarian organisations, most since the middle of last year.Guterres said the “continued targeting of UN personnel and its partners negatively impacts our ability to assist millions of people in need in Yemen.”Reeling from a decade of war, Yemen is mired in a humanitarian catastrophe with more than 18 million people needing assistance and protection, according to the United Nations.Following the latest swoop, the United Nations has suspended “all official movements into and within” areas held by Huthis, the office of the resident UN coordinator for Yemen said.The detentions come after United States President Donald Trump ordered the Huthis placed back on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.Re-listing the Huthis will trigger a review of UN agencies and other NGOs working in Yemen that receive US funding, according to the executive order signed on Wednesday.- ‘Pressure Trump’ -Mohammed al-Basha of the Basha Report, a US-based risk advisory, called the latest detentions “an expected reaction” to the “terrorist” designation.”They assume that by detaining UN staff they’re going to be able to pressure the international community to pressure the Trump administration.”No immediate comment was available from the Huthis, who seized the capital Sanaa in 2014 and rule large parts of the impoverished country.The rebels, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians, have been attacking the Red Sea shipping route and firing on Israel since the outbreak of the Gaza war, prompting reprisal strikes from US, Israeli and British forces.With a Gaza ceasefire starting last Sunday, the Huthis have made conciliatory moves including releasing the 25-strong international crew of the Galaxy Leader, a cargo ship they seized in the Red Sea in November 2023.The rebels have also promised to tone down the Red Sea attacks and have said they would stop targeting Israel if it sticks to the ceasefire.The Huthis have been at war with a Saudi-led coalition since 2015, although hostilities have fallen sharply since a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022.Since the start of the war, the Huthis have kidnapped, arbitrarily detained and tortured hundreds of civilians, including UN and NGO workers, according to rights groups.In June, the rebels detained 13 UN personnel, including six employees of the Human Rights Office, and more than 50 NGO staff plus an embassy staff member.They claimed they had arrested “an American-Israeli spy network” operating under the cover of humanitarian organisations — allegations emphatically rejected by the UN Human Rights Office.Two other UN human rights staff had already been detained since November 2021 and August 2023 respectively.In early August, the Huthis stormed the UNHCR office, forced staff to hand over the keys, and seized documents and property, before returning it later that month.

Gaza aid surge having an impact but challenges remain

Hundreds of truckloads of aid have entered Gaza since the Israel-Hamas ceasefire began last weekend, but its distribution inside the devastated territory remains an enormous challenge.The destruction of the infrastructure that previously processed deliveries and the collapse of the structures that used to maintain law and order make the safe delivery of aid to the territory’s 2.4 million people a logistical and security nightmare.In the final months before the ceasefire, the few aid convoys that managed to reach central and northern Gaza were routinely looted, either by desperate civilians or by criminal gangs.Over the past week, UN officials have reported “minor incidents of looting” but they say they are hopeful that these will cease once the aid surge has worked its way through.In Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, an AFP cameraman filmed two aid trucks passing down a dirt road lined with bombed out buildings.At the first sight of the dust cloud kicked up by the convoy, residents began running after it.Some jumped onto the truck’s rear platforms and cut through the packaging to reach the food parcels inside. UN humanitarian coordinator for the Middle East Muhannad Hadi said: “It’s not organised crime. Some kids jump on some trucks trying to take food baskets.”Hopefully, within a few days, this will all disappear, once the people of Gaza realise that we will have aid enough for everybody.”- ‘Prices are affordable’ – central Gaza, residents said the aid surge was beginning to have an effect.”Prices are affordable now,” said Hani Abu al-Qambaz, a shopkeeper in Deir el-Balah. For 10 shekels ($2.80), “I can buy a bag of food for my son and I’m happy.”The Gaza spokesperson of the Fatah movement of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said that while the humanitarian situation remained “alarming”, some food items had become available again.The needs are enormous, though, particularly in the north, and it may take longer for the aid surge to have an impact in all parts of the territory.In the hunger-stricken makeshift shelters set up in former schools, bombed-out houses and cemeteries, hundreds of thousands lack even plastic sheeting to protect themselves from winter rains and biting winds, aid workers say.In northern Gaza, where Israel kept up a major operation right up to the eve of the ceasefire, tens of thousands had had no access to deliveries of food or drinking water for weeks before the ceasefire.- UNRWA’s fate clouds aid surge  -With Hamas’s leadership largely eliminated by Israel during the war, Gaza also lacks any political authority for aid agencies to work with.In recent days, Hamas fighters have begun to resurface on Gaza’s streets. But the authority of the Islamist group which ruled the territory for nearly two decades has been severely dented, and no alternative administration is waiting in the wings.That problem is likely to get worse over the coming week, as Israeli legislation targeting the lead UN aid agency in Gaza takes effect.Despite repeated pleas from the international community for a rethink, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which has been coordinating aid deliveries into Gaza for decades, will be effectively barred from operating from Tuesday.UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler warned the effect would be “catastrophic” as other UN agencies lacked the staff and experience on the ground to replace it.British Foreign Secretary David Lammy warned last week that the Israeli legislation risked undermining the fledgling ceasefire.Brussels-based think tank the International Crisis Group said the Israeli legislation amounted to “robbing Gaza’s residents of their most capable aid provider, with no clear alternative”.Israel claims that a dozen UNRWA employees were involved in the October 2023 attack by Hamas gunmen, which started the Gaza war.A series of probes, including one led by France’s former foreign minister Catherine Colonna, found some “neutrality related issues” at UNRWA but stressed Israel had not provided evidence for its chief allegations.

The four Israeli women hostages to be freed on Saturday

Four young women soldiers, abducted by Palestinian militants on October 7, 2023 while serving near the Gaza border, are set to be released on Saturday, according to a list provided by Hamas as part of its ceasefire agreement with Israel.Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa and Naama Levy were captured together while deployed in a surveillance unit at the Nahal Oz military base, close to the Gaza border. Their abduction was filmed by the militants.Three other women soldiers were taken hostage with them: Agam Berger, who is still held in Gaza and presumed alive; Noa Marciano, whose body has since been repatriated to Israel; and Ori Megidish, who was freed alive by the Israeli military in late October 2023.- Liri Albag, 19 -Liri Albag was doing her military service on the border with the Gaza Strip when she was abducted from the Nahal Oz base.According to press reports, hostages who were released earlier told her parents that Albag was forced by her captors to cook, clean and babysit.The Jerusalem Post reported in July that she had passed messages to her family via hostages who had been released, telling her sister Shai not to cancel her traditional post-army trip and most of all not to touch her favourite shoes.In January, she appeared in a video of around three and a half minutes released by Hamas.”She loves travelling, singing,  photography and cooking,” Israeli campaign group the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement.Her parents Shira and Eli Albag have campaigned for the hostages’ release.- Karina Ariev, 20 -Karina Ariev was abducted while doing her military service at the border with Gaza. A video of her capture showed her being wounded. She was shown in January 2024 in a new video released by Hamas on Telegram, alongside hostage Daniella Gilboa. She turned 20 in captivity.”She dreams of becoming a psychologist and is known for being compassionate and for bringing people together,” the Hostage and Missing Families Forum said.- Daniella Gilboa, 20 -Daniella Gilboa from Petah Tikva was abducted while doing her military service along the border with Gaza. She was identified as a hostage by the clothes she was wearing in videos she sent to her boyfriend on the morning of the attack.Gilboa, who turned 20 in captivity, was shown, alongside hostage Karina Ariev, in January 2024 in a video published by Hamas on the social network Telegram.Gilboa “is a passionate musician who studies piano and singing, aspiring to pursue a professional career in music,” the forum said.- Naama Levy, 20 -Naama Levy, now 20, was abducted while doing her military service along the border with Gaza. In a video of her capture released by Hamas, she is shown being escorted to a vehicle wearing trousers which appeared to be covered with blood. In other images, the granddaughter of survivors of the Nazi death camps appears with a swollen face.The second child of four, she grew up in India where she studied at a US international school. As a child, she took part in the Hands of Peace programme, which promotes peace between young Israelis and Palestinians.She is a keen triathlete.”Family and friends describe her as gentle and quiet, yet full of light, joy, strength and determination,” the forum said.

Hamas says four women soldiers to be freed in next swap with Israel

Hamas on Friday said it would release the following day four Israeli women soldiers held hostage since October 7, 2023, in a second exchange under a ceasefire deal that has halted the Gaza war.Israel confirmed it had received the list of names of the captives, and the Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group later named them as Karina Ariev, Daniella Gilboa, Naama Levy and Liri Albag. Albag turned 19 while in captivity, while the other women are all now 20 years old.All four were taken captive from Nahal Oz military base, just a kilometre (less than a mile) from the Gaza border, during Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.If all goes according to plan, after Hamas releases the four women on Saturday, Israel should free a group of Palestinian prisoners, though neither side has specified how many they will be.Palestinian sources told AFP the exchange could happen before noon. According to the Israel Prison Service, some of them will be released to Gaza, with the rest to return to the occupied West Bank.The exchange is part of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza war, which took effect on Sunday and saw three women hostages and 90 Palestinian prisoners freed.The fragile truce is intended to pave the way for a permanent end to the war in Gaza.Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said on Telegram that “as part of the prisoners’ exchange deal, the Qassam brigades decided to release tomorrow four women soldiers”.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed it had received the names through mediators.Bassem Naim, a member of Hamas’s political bureau based in Qatar, on Friday told AFP that Palestinians displaced by the war to southern Gaza should be able to begin returning to the north of the devastated territory following the releases.”An Egyptian-Qatari committee will oversee the implementation of this part of the agreement on the ground,” he said.While displaced Gazans longed to return home after more than a year of war, many found only rubble where houses once stood.”Even if we thought about returning, there is no place for us to put our tents because of the destruction,” Theqra Qasem, a displaced woman, told AFP.- ‘Eating away at us’ -The ceasefire agreement, brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States after months of fruitless negotiations, should be implemented in three phases.US President Donald Trump, who has claimed credit for the agreement, said Thursday he believed that “the deal should hold”.During the first, 42-day phase, 33 hostages Israel believes are still alive should be returned in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The next phase should see negotiations for a more permanent end to the war, while the last phase should see the reconstruction of Gaza and the return of the bodies of dead hostages.The first swap on Sunday saw the release of Israeli hostages Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher. Hours later, 90 Palestinian prisoners were freed from Israeli jails, most of them women and minors.In Israel, families of hostages held for more than 15 months in Gaza fear that the ceasefire could collapse.”The worry and fear that the deal will not be implemented to the end is eating away at all of us,” said Vicky Cohen, the mother of hostage Nimrod Cohen.”Even these days, there are elements in the government who are doing everything in their power to torpedo the second phase.”Some far-right members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition opposed the deal, with firebrand Itamar Ben Gvir pulling his party out of the coalition in protest.- Lebanon withdrawal delay -During their 2023 attack on Israel, Hamas militants took 251 hostages, 91 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military has confirmed are dead.The attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.Israel’s retaliatory response has killed at least 47,283 people in Gaza, a majority civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, figures which the UN considers reliable.The war sparked a major regional crisis, with Israel’s northern neighbour Lebanon dragged into the conflict for more than a year.Just a day after Hamas staged its attack on southern Israel, its Lebanese ally Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on the north of the country, sparking a near-daily exchange of fire between the two sides.The hostilities then escalated into a full-scale war that a November 27 ceasefire brought to a halt.Under the agreement, Israeli forces were to withdraw from southern Lebanon by January 26, while the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers deployed in the area.Hezbollah, meanwhile, was to withdraw north of the Litani river in south Lebanon and dismantle its military assets in the area.But Israel on Friday said its withdrawal would continue beyond Sunday.”Since the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state, the gradual withdrawal process will continue in full coordination with the United States,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. 

Israel says Lebanon troop pullout ‘will continue’ beyond 60-day deadline

Israel announced on Friday that the withdrawal of its forces from southern Lebanon would continue beyond the 60-day period stipulated in a November ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the ceasefire agreement had been drafted “with the understanding that the withdrawal process might extend beyond the 60-day period”.The comment comes despite earlier calls from UN peacekeepers and French President Emmanuel Macron for “accelerated” implementation of the deal.”The withdrawal process is conditional upon the Lebanese army deploying in southern Lebanon and fully and effectively enforcing the agreement, with Hezbollah withdrawing beyond the Litani River,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said, ahead of the Sunday deadline.”Since the ceasefire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by the Lebanese state, the gradual withdrawal process will continue in full coordination with the United States.” Under the terms of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire, the Lebanese army is to deploy alongside United Nations peacekeepers in the south as the Israeli army withdraws over a 60-day period.Hezbollah is to pull back its forces north of the Litani River — about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the border — and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south.The Israeli military on Friday also said that in the past days it had “conducted strikes to remove threats and to dismantle weapons storage facilities and active observation posts” used by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.It said soldiers “remain deployed in southern Lebanon… and will operate against any threat” posed to the military and Israel.The fragile truce, which took effect on November 27 after two months of full-blown war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, has been marked by accusations of violations from both sides.Hezbollah began a low-intensity exchange of fire in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attack by its Palestinian ally Hamas on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.Israel escalated its campaign against Hezbollah in September, launching a series of devastating blows against the group’s leadership structure that saw its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah killed in an air strike on Beirut that month.- Hezbollah warning -Hezbollah on Thursday said that “any violation of the 60-day deadline will be considered a flagrant violation of (ceasefire) agreement, an infringement on Lebanese sovereignty and the occupation entering a new chapter”.This would require the Lebanese state to act using “all means necessary… to restore the land and wrest it from the clutches of the occupation”, Hezbollah said in a statement.A committee composed of Israeli, Lebanese, French and US delegates and a representative of UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL is tasked with ensuring any ceasefire violations are identified and dealt with.The UN peacekeeping force has reported Israeli violations of the ceasefire terms.On January 17, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for Israel to end its military operations and “occupation” in the south. He also said peacekeepers had found more than 100 weapons caches belonging “to Hezbollah or other armed groups”.Last Saturday Lebanon’s new President Joseph Aoun said it was necessary for “Israeli forces to withdraw from occupied territories in the south within the deadline set by the agreement reached on November 27”.More than 4,000 people died in Lebanon since the cross-border hostilities began in October 2023, while over 130 died on the Israeli side.