The Yemeni Army and Houthi rebels each exchanged 21 prisoners in a historic exchange on April 16 / credit: Anadolu Agency
Peace in Yemen One Step Closer After Historic Prisoner Exchange
The Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen and the rebel Houthis completed a three-day prisoner exchange on April 16. Close to 900 prisoners have been exchanged between the two warring sides through mid-April. The exchange is the result of an agreement reached in Switzerland in March as part of a round of ongoing peace and reconciliation talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia—the primary supporter of the Yemeni government.
The historic peace talks are seen as a result of the rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia brokered by China. A resolution toward ending the years-long war in Yemen was reportedly one of the key issues in the Saudi-Iran rapprochement.
The prisoner exchange has been widely recognized as an important step towards peace in a war that has already claimed over 1.5 million lives, according to the Houthi-backed administration in Sana’a, and displaced millions. As a consequence of the Saudi-imposed blockade, millions of people, including at least 2.2 million children, have also suffered from acute malnutrition and hunger.
UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, who helped broker the prisoner exchange agreement in Switzerland, commented, “This release operation comes at a time of hope for Yemen as a reminder that constructive dialogue and mutual compromises are powerful tools capable of achieving great outcomes. Today, hundreds of Yemeni families get to celebrate Eid with their loved ones because the parties negotiated and reached an agreement. I hope this spirit is reflected in ongoing efforts to advance a comprehensive political solution.”
Palestinian activists take part in a protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners / credit: MEMO
On Prisoners’ Day, Palestinians Stand in Solidarity With Their 5,000 Comrades in Israeli Occupation Jails
On April 16, the eve of Prisoners’ Day, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS) stated that a jailed Palestinian, Khader Adnan, is in a critical state and needs immediate hospitalization. Adnan is currently on an indefinite hunger strike against his unlawful detention by the Israeli occupation forces.
Adnan, aged 45, has completed over 70 days of his hunger strike and is currently inside Israel’s notorious Ramla prison clinic, despite repeated appeals to shift him to a proper hospital. The PPS claimed that Adnan is already suffering from serious health issues and “Israel’s refusal to move him to a hospital aims at causing him chronic diseases that are difficult to treat later.”
Adnan has been arrested 12 times in the last 20 years and has spent over eight years altogether in Israeli administrative detention. He has been on hunger strike since the beginning of his present incarceration, in the first week of February. This is his sixth hunger strike and his longest so far.
Palestinians mark Prisoners’ Day every year on April 17 to express solidarity with their freedom fighters inside Israeli prisons. According to a joint report published on the occasion, there are around 4,900 Palestinians inside different Israeli prisons, including 31 women and 160 children.
Most Palestinian prisoners face widespread atrocities from the Israeli prison authorities, including denial of family meetings, restrictions on interactions with other prisoners, and torture.
A camp for the displaced in the vicinity of the Yemeni city of Ma’rib / credit: Norwegian Refugee Council
Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in People’s Dispatch and has been lightly edited.
On Tuesday, February 15, United Nations officials issued a stark warning that incessant war in Yemen and a funding shortage for various aid programs could drastically exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in the country. UN special envoy Hans Grundberg and UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, while speaking at the UN Security Council (UNSC), said 8 million Yemenis are at imminent risk of being cut off from vital humanitarian aid in March if the international community fails to secure the required funds for the aid programs to continue. Funding for the aid programs in Yemen has been steadily decreasing, with the UN humanitarian office stating that for the year 2021, its humanitarian plan was only able to secure USD $2.27 billion out of the required USD $3.85 billion, the lowest funding level since 2015.
The two UN officials also expressed alarm at the rapid escalation in the war in Yemen, ongoing since 2014. They highlighted the drastic rise in civilian casualties over the last few months and the growth in new combat areas in the country, which is likely to add to the death toll and suffering of the civilian population. Since the war erupted following the Houthi movement’s routing of the Western-backed government from most of north Yemen—including the capital, Sanaa—followed by the intervention of the Saudi-led alliance, over 377,000 people have been killed, as per the latest UN estimates. Tens of millions of Yemenis have also been internally displaced, with over 24 million—approximately 80 percent of the total population of 30 million—dependent on international humanitarian aid for their survival.
Yemen is highlighted in red / credit: Google
Grundberg was quoted by news outlets as telling the UNSC that a series of air bombings by the Saudi-led military coalition targeting a detention facility in Yemen last month was the “worst civilian casualty incident in three years.” He also noted an increase in such devastating air bombing campaigns by the coalition that target even civilian areas in Sanaa and the strategically important port city of Hodeidah. Over 650 civilians were either killed or injured by air raids, shelling, small arms fire and other forms of violence in January, in what officials claimed was “by far the highest toll in at least three years.”
Griffiths said that “the war is finding people in their homes, schools, mosques, hospitals and other places where civilians should be protected.” According to the officials, the retaliatory attacks by Houthis in Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) also “indicate how this conflict risks spiraling out of control unless serious efforts are urgently made by the Yemeni parties, the region and the international community to end the conflict.” Griffiths told the UNSC that he is continuously trying to mediate between the warring parties to agree to de-escalate the conflict, with more consultations to start next week aimed at achieving a mutual ceasefire.
Previous funding cuts have already forced the UN World Food Program to reduce the amount of rations supplied to 8 million Yemenis in December last year. If the funding requirement is not met, the rations for millions of Yemenis could stop completely and around 3.6 million people will be at risk of not having access to safe drinking water and several other critical social programs on tackling gender-based violence, reproductive health, and other such issues. The UN may also have to cancel most of its humanitarian flights in Yemen in March due to the funding shortage. News reports state that while the UN has not yet released its humanitarian plan for Yemen for 2022, Sweden and Switzerland are poised to co-host a pledging event on March 16.
Israeli military personnel push a Jewish activist from the United States amid a Palestinian-led protest on June 10 against the seizure of the Masafer Yatta region in the West Bank / credit: Emily Glick
MASAFER YATTA, OCCUPIED WEST BANK—On Tuesday, the Israeli military started training in Masafer Yatta, a rural, arid enclave south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. This comes after more than two decades of Palestinians using legal avenues to try to stop the seizure of their land.
The military training has involved the army sticking shooting targets onto tractors, windows and barrels of hay.
My voice shakes in this video. Tons of Israeli soldiers just started "training" in Masafer Yatta. They're driving war tanks near a school, as children watch, terrified, they're placing targets on cars and windows, they're doing this to evict us in the most brutal way possible. pic.twitter.com/kWV7JWEraB
Expected to last a whole month, this is the first such military training exercise in the Palestinian community in 20 years, and comes as Masafer Yatta is experiencing the largest mass expulsion of Palestinians since 1967.
Today the military launched its training in Masafer Yatta, which is planned to last a whole month, by positioning targets, pictured here, on the vehicles and property of Palestinians from the community of al-Majaz.
Demonstrations—regularly met with violence from soldiers and Israeli settlers—have occurred almost weekly since Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition in May against the expulsion of more than 1,000 Palestinians.
For example, on June 10, the Israeli army attacked a Palestinian-led protest. Soldiers beat protesters, fired tear gas that burned demonstrators, threw stun grenades and detained Israeli solidarity activists. More than 200 Palestinians, Israelis, and Jews from both the United States and the United Kingdom protested as part of the “Save Masafer Yatta” campaign.
“Our protests show the racism in how the Israeli army treats us,” said Basil Adra, an activist from the village of Tuwani in Masafer Yatta. “Soldiers who claim that they are not allowed to stop settlers from committing violence against us are then very aggressive towards protesters.”
Israeli military personnel push Palestinians and solidarity activists protesting on June 10 the seizure of the rural West Bank enclave of Masafer Yatta / credit: Emily Glick
The Culmination of a Decades-Long Legal Battle
In the 1980s, the Israeli army declared all 19 villages in Masafer Yatta as “Firing Zone 918,” a closed military training site. By 1999, the Israeli military rounded up more than 700 residents into trucks and expelled them off land they had cultivated for generations.
In response to the forcible transfer, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) in the year 2000 filed petitions with the Israeli Supreme Court on behalf of residents. The court then granted an interim injunction, permitting residents to temporarily return to their homes.
A 2012 state attorney decision allowed four villages—Tuba, Sirat ‘Awad Ibrahim, Sarura and Mufaqara—to remain based upon the Israeli Defense Ministry’s position that the land wasn’t needed for military training. Despite the decision, settler violence and land theft have plagued these villages.
From there, the high court continued hearings on various petitions for years. But last month, the court dismissed residents’ petitions. In its ruling, the court determined the Palestinian inhabitants—who live nomadically and depend on shepherding for their livelihoods—were not permanent residents when the military declared the area a firing zone.
The recent court opinion has given the army the green light to demolish eight villages and displace the Masafer Yatta residents once again.
The residents, along with ACRI, petitioned the Supreme Court on Sunday for an additional hearing and interim order to stop military training in Masafer Yatta.
“It is to be hoped that the high court will accept the request for additional hearing and reverse the ruling that war crimes can be committed under the court’s purview,” ACRI attorneys Dan Yakir and Roni Pelli said.
Israeli military personnel push solidarity activists on June 10 amid the Palestinian-led protest in the West Bank enclave of Masafer Yatta / credit: Emily Glick
From Quiet Grazing Lands to an ‘Army Base’
Since the court ruling, residents say Masafer Yatta feels like it has transformed into the equivalent of a military base. Temporary army checkpoints have been established at entrances of the area’s eight villages deemed the firing zone. Soldiers with assault rifles strapped to their chests patrol the area daily—delivering demolition orders, as well as carrying out arrests and nightly raids. Military jeeps packed with soldiers roam the rocky terrain.
The Israeli military has already started carrying out demolitions since the court ruling.
BREAKING Imminent threat to the entire community of Khalet a-Thab’a in Masafer Yatta. From Sunday June 19, all but three of the village’s structures are at risk of being destroyed.
In May, 19 structures such as houses, tents, animal pens and water tanks were demolished. That left 45 people homeless in the villages of Al-Fakheit and Al-Mirkez. This month, the army bulldozed tents belonging to 21 residents of these villages, which they had set up after their homes were destroyed. On Thursday, all but three buildings in the village of Khalet a-Thab’a received demolition orders that can be enacted beginning Sunday.
Even areas of Masafer Yatta not part of the firing zone are at risk of being razed. The Israeli Civil Administration, which governs activities in the West Bank, issued on Thursday a demolition order for Palestinian activist group Youth of Sumud’s guest house and community center.
Just now the Israeli civil administration accompanied with army raided Tuwani village delivered a final demolition order for Youth Of sumud center in the village in Masafer Yatta /South Hebron Hills . #SaveMasaferYattapic.twitter.com/cJsLEsr0YZ
“This center, which we worked for years to complete, is a big step for the people of Masafer Yatta to organize and protect our lands. We use this place to host internationals, hold meetings and organize community gatherings,” Sami Huraini of Youth of Sumud told Toward Freedom. “This demolition order isn’t just about the Youth of Sumud—it is about crushing organizing efforts in solidarity with the vulnerable communities in the 918 firing zone.”
The center is located in Tuwani—the only village in Masafer Yatta with a zoning plan—meaning the law protects it from demolition. Sameeha Huraini, Sami’s sister who also is involved with Youth of Sumud, explained the Civil Administration gave the demolition order on the grounds the center is located outside of the zoning plan and on an archeological site—both claims are false, she said. The Israeli military and Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, which oversees the Civil Administration, did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
A stun grenade burned the pants and leg of an activist during a June 10 Palestinian-led protest against the seizure of the rural enclave of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank / credit: Emily Glick
‘Our Rights Have Become Dreams’
Army-enforced eviction isn’t Masafer Yatta’s only struggle. Several illegal, Jewish-only settlements encircle the region.
“Israeli illegal outposts inside Masafer Yatta are connected to resources and are not under imminent eviction,” said Ali Awad, a Palestinian activist from the village of Tuba. “Settlers in these outposts commit violence against neighboring Palestinians and work in tandem with the Israeli military to steal our resources and expel us from our homes.”
While the Palestinian villages are not connected to the electrical grid and water system, the illegal settlements are. Without these hookups, Palestinians are forced to survive on NGO-donated solar panels and expensive water tanks, which settlers often destroy and soldiers confiscate.
Israeli military personnel mingle on June 10 with settlers from the colony of Mitzpeh Yair / credit: Emily Glick
Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist from the village of Umm al-Khair in Masafer Yatta, lamented what will happen to his community if the army is successful in dismantling the eight villages.
“After that, what will be [the army’s] next mission? The other villages [in Masafer Yatta], and, unfortunately, my village will be one of them. Because if they succeed in this, they will just keep going,” Hathaleen told Toward Freedom. “We are humans. Humans who deserve basic rights. But our rights have become dreams. And now we have to work to make those dreams become reality.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
Ola Nababta prays at her son’s grave in east Jerusalem’s al-Yusufiya cemetery, over which Israel is threatening to build a park / credit: Jessica Buxbaum
EAST JERUSALEM — Surrounded by bulldozers, Ola Nababta clung to her son’s grave to prevent Israeli authorities from razing his remains.
“Pour the earth over me and bury me beside him,” the 54-year-old told Israeli soldiers.
شاهد| المقدسية أم علاء نبابتة تحتضن قبر ابنها لحمايته من عمليات النبش والتجريف التي يجريها الاحتلال في المقبرة اليوسفية في القدس المحتلة. pic.twitter.com/ER2n0fJ3vD
That particular day in October, she was successful in stopping the Israeli government from exhuming her son’s grave. But more than six months later, al-Yusufiya cemetery in East Jerusalem remains under threat as the city’s government plans to build a promenade over the land, as part of a proposed “Bible Trail,” a string of national parks.
In February, the Jerusalem Municipality’s planning board rejected objections from Muslim religious authorities and Palestinian landowners against the municipality’s seizure order for part of the cemetery to construct the park. Court hearings are still ongoing as the parties debate the ownership of the cemetery and objections to the confiscation order.
‘Picnics Alongside Graves’
Mustafa Abu Zahra, head of the Committee for the Care of Islamic Cemeteries, described the municipality’s actions as an attack against graveyards and a violation of the Palestinian people’s rights.
“How can people go and have picnics on the side of graves?” Abu Zahra told Toward Freedom.
According to Abu Zahra, seven graves are located in the area set to be expropriated, with many more that are unmarked.
Part of the cemetery belongs to the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a Muslim body responsible for managing holy sites in East Jerusalem. The other section belongs to the el-Uweisat family. While the family’s section was a sheep market during most of the 20th century, it has since become a parking lot.
The Jerusalem Development Authority together with Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority (INPA) began construction in the cemetery last year, telling Toward Freedom they have received all of the necessary permits and court approvals for construction. In October, human bones were found during excavation works at the cemetery, sparking widespread protest. Nababta was one of those protecting their loved ones’ graves from Israeli bulldozers. Despite Palestinian resistance to the project, authorities finished building a fence dividing the cemetery and demolished a staircase in late 2021.
The municipality argues the area in question is defined as a public green space. “The graves that were shown in the media were built in the open public area outside the cemetery,” a spokesperson for the Jerusalem municipality told Toward Freedom. In 2014, Israel banned Palestinians from being buried in the cemetery and later poured concrete over around 40 graves.
“Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that no tomb was damaged during the works, and there is no intention to displace any grave, even if built illegally,” the spokesperson continued, adding the park is meant to improve Muslim residents’ quality of life and make the area more accessible.
Israeli authorities erected a fence in 2021, dividing al-Yusufiya cemetery / credit: Jessica Buxbaum
‘Zero Trust’
Al-Yusufiya cemetery was established at the beginning of Muslim rule over Jerusalem and expanded during the reign of Al-Nasir Salah Al-Din Yusuf—the landmark’s namesake. The graveyard is an extension of Bab al-Rahma cemetery, located next to Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound. It became known as Martyrs’ Cemetery after Palestinian and Jordanian soldiers who fought during the 1967 Six-Day War were buried there. A monument to the deceased soldiers is located inside the graveyard.
Abu Zahra explained the Waqf has a document dated before 1967 from the Arab municipality of Jerusalem’s master plan stating the land surrounding Al-Aqsa will be designated as a burial site. Israeli authorities, however, are using evidence from before 1963 in court. Abu Zahra asserted the master plan is the latest decision, thereby eliminating all prior rulings.
Nababta, a widow whose husband and son are buried in al-Yusufiya cemetery and whose other two sons are buried in Bab al-Rahma, said she received permits from the Waqf to bury her relatives in the graveyards. Even with the legal documentation, INPA spent years summoning Nababta for interrogation about her sons’ graves. The Israeli authorities alleged her sons were buried on property belonging to INPA.
After her son, Alaa Nababta, was laid to rest in al-Yusufiya in 2017, the Israeli Ministry of Health contacted her, demanding her son’s body be removed.
The communications stopped, though, when her husband passed away in 2019. Then, in 2021, her concerns resumed when she saw Israeli authorities exhuming graves on social media.
“Most of my sons were ex-prisoners. They suffered. One of them was killed [by Israeli forces]. One of my sons was a prominent activist within Jerusalem. So, I know all of these stories and I have zero trust toward Israelis,” Nababta said.
‘We’re Always Threatened’
Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, authorities have confiscated roughly 70 percent of Mamilla cemetery, a burial ground in West Jerusalem, to create a municipal park called Independence Park, plus main roads and a school. In recent years, the government has built tourist facilities and begun constructing the Museum of Tolerance over the burial ground.
Several other cemeteries have also been dug up around Jerusalem.
“We’re always threatened, even when we are dead,” Nababta said.
While construction in al-Yusufiya cemetery has subsided, the 54-year-old mother said she will not stay silent if the bulldozers return.
“[Israel] says it’s a park and I’m not sure who it’s going to be serving,” she said. “But what I know now is that, as Muslims, it’s serving us as a graveyard.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
