Category: ARAB WORLD

Iranian-backed Houthis detained two dozen UN employees Sunday, a day after they raided another UN facility in the capital Sanaa, a UN official said.

Jean Alam, a spokesman for the UN resident coordinator for Yemen, told The Associated Press that the UN staffers were detained inside the facility in Sanaa’s southwestern neighborhood of Hada.

He said those detained Sunday include five Yemenis and 15 international staff. He said the Houthis released another 11 UN staffers after questioning.

He said the UN was contact with the Houthis and other parties to “to resolve this serious situation as swiftly as possible, end the detention of all personnel, and restore full control over its facilities in Sanaa.”

A second UN official, speaking spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the raid, said the Houthis confiscated all communications equipment from the facility, including phones, servers and computers.

The official said the detained employees belong to multiple UN agencies including the World Food Program, UNICEF and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The Houthis have launched a long-running crackdown against the UN and other international organizations working in Houthi-held areas in Yemen including Sanaa, the coastal city of Hodeidah and the Houthi stronghold in Sadaa province in northern Yemen.

Dozens of people, including over 50 UN staffers, have been detained so far. A World Food Program worker died in detention earlier this year in Sadaa.

The Houthis have repeatedly alleged without evidence that the detained UN staffers and those working with other international groups and foreign embassies were spies. The UN fiercely denied the accusations.

The crackdown forced the UN to suspend its operations in Saada province in northern Yemen following the detention of eight staffers in January. The UN also relocated its top humanitarian coordinator in Yemen from Sanaa to the coastal city of Aden, which serves as seat for the internationally recognized government.

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The Israeli military launched an attack on Gaza on Sunday, Israeli media reported, dimming hopes that a week-old US-mediated ceasefire would lead to lasting peace in the enclave as Israel traded blame with Palestinian militant group Hamas.

An Israeli military official said on Sunday that Hamas had carried out multiple attacks against Israeli forces inside Gaza, including a rocket-propelled grenade attack and a sniper attack against Israeli soldiers. “Both of the incidents happened in an Israeli-controlled area…This is a bold violation of the ceasefire,” the official said.

Senior Hamas official Izzat Al Risheq said on Sunday that the Palestinian militant group remained committed to the ceasefire, which he accused Israel of repeatedly violating.

Neither Al Risheq nor the Israeli military official made any mention of the reported Israeli strikes in Gaza.

The government media office in Gaza said on Saturday that Israel had committed 47 violations after the ceasefire deal, leaving 38 dead and 143 wounded.

The impact of the Israeli strikes on Sunday, the most serious test since an already fragile ceasefire took effect on October 11, was not immediately clear.

The Israeli government and Hamas have been accusing each other of violations of the ceasefire for days, with Israel saying the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will remain closed until further notice.

Rafah has largely been shut since May 2024. The ceasefire deal also includes the ramping up of aid into the enclave, where hundreds of thousands of people were determined in August to be affected by famine, according to the IPC global hunger monitor.

Israel and Hamas have been engaged in a dispute over the return of the bodies of deceased hostages. Israel demanded that Hamas fulfill its obligations in turning over the remaining bodies of all 28 hostages.

Hamas has returned all 20 live hostages and 12 of the deceased but said the process needs effort and special equipment to recover corpses buried under rubble.

Formidable obstacles to Trump’s plan to end the war still remain. Key questions of Hamas disarming, the governance of Gaza, the make-up of an international “stabilization force”, and moves towards the creation of a Palestinian state have yet to be resolved.

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About a month ago, Ali B., 46, sold his apartment in the Rweis neighborhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, for $105,000, roughly $30,000 less than its value a year earlier.

“I wanted to sell it and recover part of its price before losing it entirely if Israel targets the area,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“That apartment represents my life savings, earned over years of working abroad.”

Like Ali, many homeowners in Beirut’s southern suburbs are rushing to sell their properties amid fears of renewed Israeli strikes or a possible new war in Lebanon, a scenario that most Lebanese dread, especially as the war in Gaza winds down, raising concerns that the conflict could spill over to their country.

Online real estate pages are now flooded with listings for apartments in the southern suburbs, a sharp contrast to previous years. The surge began after Israel resumed airstrikes on the area in late March and has intensified in recent weeks as fears of renewed conflict have grown following the Gaza ceasefire.

Selling to Avoid Losing Everything

Abu Hussein, another resident, decided to sell his apartment in Saint Thérèse.
“I’ve had it on the market for over a month,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat. “I need the money to pay rent.”

Abu Hussein and his family fled the area about a year ago and have been renting a home in Bchamoun since. He said he would rather sell at a loss than risk losing everything.

“My apartment was damaged several times during and after the wider war between September and November 2024,” he said. “If another round of fighting or strikes break out, I could lose it completely.”

He added that he asked a broker to handle the sale: “He told me there are many apartments on the market right now.”

Israel has carried out several airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs even after a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel took effect in November 2024, damaging numerous residential buildings.

A Widespread Trend

Property listings in the southern suburbs have become common.

“There are many apartments for sale,” said Ahmad, a resident of Burj al-Barajneh. “It’s what everyone talks about now – how to sell and move somewhere else.”

He said many families have fled to the mountains or Beirut’s outskirts, fearing the deteriorating security situation, and are now trying to sell their homes to avoid losing them entirely.

“Prices have dropped dramatically, by 20% to 40% compared to before,” Ahmad said. “It’s shocking. We’ve never seen such a decline. People just don’t know when things will stabilize.”

Prices Drop by More Than Half

Real estate brokers confirmed the trend. “The number of apartments for sale has risen sharply recently,” one broker told Asharq Al-Awsat. “But actual purchases are rare, despite the steep price drops.”

He said current buyers are mainly wealthy investors “waiting for the war to end so they can resell the properties at double the price.”

Prices have plummeted, in some cases to less than half their previous levels.
“The price per square meter in the heart of the southern suburbs has fallen from $1,300–$1,500 to $500–$700,” the broker said.

“In higher-end areas like Hayy al-Amerkan and Saint Thérèse – where prices used to range from $2,000 to $3,000 per square meter – listings now start around $1,000.”

A Preemptive Move

Lama sold her apartment just before the war erupted.

“I left my home in the southern suburbs and moved to Hazmieh,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat. “I felt the security situation was unstable and that something could happen at any moment.”

Asked why she left the area where she was born and raised, Lama said: “I wanted my children to live safely, and I think I made the right choice. They went through very difficult times during the Israeli war on Lebanon – before, during, and after – with drones constantly overhead and Israeli fighter jets regularly violating our skies.”

Ten months after the war ended, homeowners have yet to receive full compensation – only temporary housing and furniture allowances.

The World Bank estimates that more than 162,000 housing units were damaged or destroyed, while Hezbollah-linked Jihad al-Binaa says the figure exceeds 348,000. Israel continues to strike Lebanon almost daily, meaning those numbers are likely to rise.

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In a development that initially bore the hallmarks of a Houthi attack, two British maritime security agencies reported on Saturday that a Cameroon-flagged oil tanker named Falcon was hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Aden, igniting a fire on board.

Two sailors were reported missing, while the remaining 24 crew members were evacuated to Djibouti.

Al-Masirah TV, the media arm of Yemen’s Houthi movement, cited a source at the Ministry of Defense in the group’s self-styled government denying reports that Houthi forces had targeted a ship in the Gulf of Aden, insisting they had “no connection” to the incident.

The denial marked the second signal from the Houthis that they may be halting maritime attacks, coming two days after the group’s leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, declared in a televised speech the phrase “If you return, we will return” – an implicit indication of a pause in hostilities following calm in Gaza.

The Houthi denial aligned with data from the oil tanker tracking service TankerTrackers, which said the MV FALCON, sailing under the Cameroon flag and carrying Iranian liquefied gas, was likely bound for the Houthi-controlled port of Ras Issa in Hodeidah, western Yemen, to supply the group.

The European naval mission, EUNAVFOR Aspides, said two of the tanker’s 26 crew members were missing. All were Indian nationals except one Ukrainian.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said it had received a report of a projectile attack on a vessel 116 nautical miles east of Aden, sparking a fire on board. It said maritime authorities were “verifying details of the incident” and urged ships in the area to exercise caution and report any suspicious activity.

Separately, the British maritime security firm Ambrey said the tanker had issued a distress call after an onboard explosion about 60 nautical miles south of Ahwar, a district in Yemen’s Abyan governorate.

Ambrey said the blast was caused by a projectile fired from an unknown source off the Yemeni coast in the Gulf of Aden. No injuries were reported among the crew, and there was no immediate comment from the Houthis.

The incident came less than three weeks after a Houthi attack on Sept. 29 killed a Filipino sailor when a Dutch-flagged merchant vessel was struck in the Gulf of Aden.

The European naval mission said it successfully carried out a rescue operation for the ship’s 19 crew members.

Human and Material Losses

Western data show that Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since November have sunk four ships, seized one, and killed at least nine sailors, while 12 crew members remain in Houthi custody.

The attacks have forced several global shipping companies to reroute vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, driving up transport and insurance costs and delaying supply chains.

Yemen’s internationally recognized government says the ongoing assaults reflect the Houthis’ attempt to evade any political settlement, warning that the operations have directly affected the interests of more than 55 countries and threaten freedom of global trade in the Red Sea, one of the world’s key maritime arteries.

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi has previously claimed responsibility for more than 228 naval operations over the past two years, describing them as part of what he called “support for the Palestinian people.”

In his recent speeches, al-Houthi voiced concern about the post-Gaza ceasefire phase between Israel and Hamas, saying his group was “closely monitoring” whether the agreement would lead to a permanent truce and warning that it could be “a deception.”

He urged his followers to continue mobilization and military preparedness, stressing the need to “enhance defensive capabilities against any potential Israeli or American aggression,” as he put it.

In May, the Houthis stopped attacking US vessels under a deal brokered by Oman, which led to the suspension of a large-scale military campaign ordered by President Donald Trump against the group.

However, the agreement did not cover Israeli-linked ships or vessels the Houthis claim are associated with Tel Aviv.

Original Post

A senior Palestinian official said rival factions are expected to meet in Cairo soon to overcome obstacles to national reconciliation and sustain the fragile ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, warning that the truce is “in danger” of collapsing at any time.

Wasel Abu Yousef, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), told Asharq Al-Awsat that “a Palestinian-Palestinian dialogue is planned to take place in Cairo in the coming period, and we expect it to happen very soon.”

He added: “We look forward to its success amid concerns that the agreement could fall apart.”

Abu Yousef underscored that “the Palestinian side values Egypt’s role,” noting that an earlier understanding had been reached to form a 15-member committee of independents, technocrats, and qualified figures. “The committee will be announced once consensus is reached on several pending issues during the factions’ meeting,” he said.

The PLO Executive Committee member said the agreement stipulates that the committee will operate under government supervision and reject any form of foreign guardianship. He also stressed that “security responsibility in Gaza must rest with legitimate Palestinian security forces under the authority of the PLO.”

“The Palestinian government is the body authorized to assume security control in Gaza,” Abu Yousef said. “I believe this will happen in the near stages, as arrangements are being made for the government to take charge of Gaza, including matters related to the Rafah crossing and the 2005 EU-Palestinian agreement, as well as recovery efforts, strengthening Palestinian resilience, delivering aid, and advancing reconstruction.”

A well-informed Palestinian source told Asharq Al-Awsat that several factions are already in Cairo, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Reformist Current led by Mohammad Dahlan.

“Cairo will invite all factions to a broad meeting within days, and preparations are currently underway,” the source said.

On Thursday, Diaa Rashwan, chairman of Egypt’s State Information Service, wrote on Facebook that “the Palestinian-Palestinian dialogue sessions are about to resume in Cairo under the coordination of the Egyptian government.”

He called on Hamas and other Palestinian factions to join the PLO and use the upcoming sessions to make a preliminary announcement before delving into the details later.

Earlier this month, on October 10, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP issued a joint statement confirming that the three groups were working with Egypt to convene a comprehensive national meeting “to unify the Palestinian position and determine the next steps after the ceasefire in Gaza.”

The meeting comes as the Gaza ceasefire begins to take hold under a plan proposed by US President Donald Trump. The plan’s first phase includes the release of hostages and bodies in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, followed by the disarmament of Hamas and the formation of an administrative body to govern the enclave.

Commenting on the truce’s fragility, Abu Yousef said: “We know the occupation intends to resume fighting, particularly since there are signs it might return to destruction and reimpose control. We recognize that obstacles remain in the next phases, and we seek to overcome them both internationally and through the factions’ meeting to eliminate any threat to the agreement.”

Palestinian media reported on Saturday that Israeli forces opened “heavy fire” east of Gaza City. Medical sources and witnesses said 11 Palestinians from one family – including seven children and three women – were killed in an Israeli strike targeting a civilian vehicle east of Gaza City on Friday night, marking the deadliest incident since the ceasefire took effect two weeks ago.

The truce’s first phase has faced setbacks amid Israel’s insistence on the full return of Israeli bodies held by Hamas, while the movement says the task is complicated and requires special equipment to retrieve remains from the rubble.

On Thursday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum urged the Israeli government to delay the implementation of subsequent phases of the agreement with Hamas unless the remaining bodies are handed over.

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