The loss of Marib, the last stronghold of Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi’s government in the north, would likely herald the president’s political demise.
Israel-Palestine
Last year saw the fourth war between Gaza and Israel in just over a decade, proving once again that the peace process is dead and that a two-state solution seems less likely than ever.
The trigger for this latest outbreak was the occupation of East Jerusalem.
The threat of eviction of Palestinian residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood coincided in April 2021 with clashes during Ramadan between stone-throwing youths and Israeli police using lethal force in the compound comprising the Haram Al-Sharif, holy to Muslims. , and the Temple Mount, sacred to the Jews.
This set off a chain reaction. Hamas, which controls Gaza, fired long-range missiles indiscriminately at Israel. Israel responded with a heavy airstrike, sparking an 11-day conflict that killed more than 250 people, nearly all of them Palestinians, and left what remained of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure in ruins.
Palestinians from the West Bank demonstrating in solidarity were met with gunfire by the Israeli army. In Israeli cities, Palestinian citizens took to the streets, sometimes clashing with West Bank settlers and other right-wing Jews, often supported by Israeli police.
The Palestinians, for the first time in decades, put aside their fragmentation by uniting their voices in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza and Israel itself.
However, the fundamental elements have not changed. Although the intensity of Hamas missile fire apparently took Israelis by surprise, the war did not cause a rethink of Israeli policy in Gaza (economic suffocation to weaken Hamas and divide Palestinians; “cut the grass” every some time to quell the attacks) nor its general treatment of Palestinians.