Yemen Archives - Page 4 of 11

No World Flights to Israel!

CrossFireArabia
May 6, 2025

Multiple international airlines on Monday extended flight suspensions to and from Israel after a missile launched from Yemen hit Ben Gurion Airport, severely disrupting air traffic and leaving thousands of Israelis stranded overseas, according to Israeli media reports.

The missile, claimed by the Yemeni Houthi group, struck near the airport in central Israel on Sunday, injuring eight people and prompting a wave of flight cancellations by foreign carriers.

According to the Israeli financial outlet Calcalist, the Lufthansa Group—including SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings—will extend the suspension of flights to Israel until 11 May. Similarly, ITA Airways (Italy) suspended all Tel Aviv routes through the same date.

United Airlines extended cancellations until 9 May, while Wizz Air (Hungary) will halt flights until 8 May. Aegean Airlines, British Airways, Delta Airlines, and Ryanair announced extensions through 6 May.

Several carriers, including Air Canada, Air France, Air India, Aeroméxico, and Air Europa, also canceled scheduled flights on Monday.

The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that thousands of Israeli citizens remain stranded abroad due to the widespread disruptions in international flights.

On Monday, Israel carried out airstrikes in Yemen a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened retaliation over a missile fired by the Houthi group that landed near Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.

The airstrikes marked Israel’s first direct military response after the Houthis fired a missile at Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, wounding eight people.

Yemen has faced an intensified US military campaign since mid-March, including around 1,300 air and naval strikes, resulting in hundreds of civilian casualties, according to the Houthis.

The Houthis have targeted ships passing through the Red and Arabian seas, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Gulf of Aden since November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where nearly 52,600 people have been killed in a brutal Israeli assault for more than 19 months, most of them women and children.

The group halted attacks when a Gaza ceasefire was declared in January between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas but resumed them after Israel’s renewed airstrikes on Gaza in March according to Anadolu.

Opinion

Trump’s War in The Red Sea

Dr Khairi Janbek
April 28, 2025

Dr Khairi Janbek

The US foreign policy in the Red Sea today is characterized by a robust military response to Houthi threats, aiming to protect critical maritime trade routes and assert influence in a geopolitical strategic area. While these military operations garnered international support, the ongoing conflict underscores the complexities and challenges of Middle East interventions.

The US military’s increased involvement in the Red Sea, including the deployment of two aircraft carriers, signals a commitment to ensuring freedom of navigation and countering the Iranians in the region. However, the present ongoing escalation also risks entangling the US in a prolonged conflict.

This is reminiscent of past Middle East engagements which the Americans should be well-aware of, and may put additional strain on the US military resources amid other pressing global priorities if faces.

That said, the present military strikes on Yemen are not just about the Houthis. They are also widely seen as demonstration of US strength towards the group’s main backer: Iran.

The Washington administration is currently locked in a series of negotiations regarding Iran’s nuclear programme and Trump has not ruled out military action if those talks fail, yet, it is possible still, that the US, and judging by recent history, the Americans may change their mind and everything is put on hold yet again.

But we need to wait and see! The US has already moved its patriot and THAAD missiles from Asia to the Middle East, and only in the first month of the preparedness campaign, $200 million of ammunition has been used and this is making military officials greatly concerned about the impact on stocks the US Navy might use in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

At the same time, there are various Yemeni groups opposed to the Houthis with regional backing, and dare one say with some international backing, reportedly considering taking advantage of the situation to launch a ground campaign to oust the Houthis once and for all, but Washington is yet to make a decision on whether to back such operations or not.

Most analysts and officials say that, American troops participating in any ground operations in Yemen is highly unlikely, moreover, even more limited support for ground operations would still be another case of the US backing armed groups in a messy middle Eastern war; exactly the sort of situation Trump blasted previous administrations for falling into.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian analyst based in Paris, France.

Analyses

Analysts: US Fails on Houthis After Six Weeks of Bombing

CrossFireArabia
April 27, 2025

After nearly six weeks of intensive US airstrikes on different areas and cities of Yemen the Houthi Ansar Allah continues to assert that its military operations in the Red Sea and against Israeli targets will not stop until the ongoing Israeli war on the Gaza Strip ends.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, Saturday, announced the targeting of the Israeli Nevatim Air Base in the Negev with a ballistic missile, as well as two other sites in the Tel Aviv and Ashkelon areas and the targeting of warships on the US aircraft carrier SS Harry Truman in the northern Red Sea are just part of the continuing ongoing military strikes.

However in response to these attacks the US aircraft launched two airstrikes last Friday night on the Ras Isa oil port in the coastal province of Al Hudaydah, which Washington considers a major source of fuel used to finance the Ansar Allah group’s activities.

According to Dr Liqaa Makki, senior researcher at the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, the USA has failed miserably in its strikes against the Houthis because of its inability to move to the second phase. He said that as a result they are discussing an alternative scenario for this military campaign against the Houthis.

Makki believes that US President Donald Trump has reached a dead end, and that the ceiling he set regarding the Houthis is proven unrealistic, pointing out the United States, despite its military strength, is failing in Yemen because it is fighting a group, not a state.

On the other hand, military and strategic expert Brigadier-General Elias Hanna, believes that both sides are losing, whilst the image of the United States is being damaged, given the scale of the US military campaign and Trump’s engagement with the Houthis, who previously declared that “we [US] will withdraw from all the world’s wars.”

Reports estimate the cost of the airstrikes carried out by the US military on Houthi positions amounted to approximately $1 billion in the first three weeks of the military campaign alone.

The Associated Press reported the value of the seven downed American drones made by the Houthis exceed $200 million, and the continued loss of American drones makes it difficult for the US leadership to accurately determine the extent of the damage to the Houthis’ weapons stockpiles.

Brigadier-General Hanna said that Washington lacks a comprehensive strategy in its dealings with the Houthis, and that the political goal it announced—restoring deterrence and opening shipping lanes—has not been achieved.

He also pointed out the US military is targeting the centers of gravity within the Houthi military system to disrupt it, a strategy Israel has used with the Palestinian resistance but has failed to achieve.

Appeasing the Houthis

In light of Washington’s inability to achieve its goals against the Houthis, Brigadier-General Hanna believes the pressure being exerted on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip is part of an effort to appease the Houthis so that they will halt their operations in the Red Sea and against Israeli targets.

Trump’s upcoming visit to the region also requires a de-escalation. According to the military and strategic expert, the US president cannot arrive while the Houthis are launching missiles.

In the same context, the senior Al Jazeera’s Makki expects that a Gaza ceasefire will soon be reached before Trump’s visit, allowing the Houthis to halt their operations as they have initially linked the cessation of their operations to an end to the war on Gaza and to the cessation of US strikes against them.

American officials have previously revealed to CNN that the US military has struck more than 700 Houthi targets and carried out 300 airstrikes since the campaign began in mid-March, “forcing them underground and creating confusion and chaos within their ranks.”

News

US Warplanes Makes 1200 Strikes on Yemen Since 15 March

CrossFireArabia
April 26, 2025

US warplanes launched 1200 airstrikes on Yemen since 15 March the Houthis announced on Friday. The Houthis stated the airstrikes resulted in the killing and wounding hundreds of civilians.

In a statement by the Houthi Foreign Ministry stated the United States ” launched more than 1,200 airstrikes and naval bombardments since mid-March, resulting in the death and injury of hundreds of civilians and the destruction of numerous civilian objects, including residential neighborhoods, ports, health facilities, water tanks, and archaeological sites, in flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”

It indicated that what the USA is doing in Yemen is “full-fledged aggression and a flagrant violation of the UN Charter and all international norms and conventions.”

The statement considered that Washington is trying, in a “miserable attempt to evade its responsibility for the crimes it is committing in Yemen.”

The group accused Washington of “working to cover up its sinful aggression against Yemen and its crimes against civilians and civilian objects, which are shameful to humanity, as well as its abject failure,” according to Anadolu.

On 15 March, the United States resumed its attacks on Yemen after President Donald Trump ordered his military to launch a “major attack” against the Houthi group, before threatening to “completely eliminate” them.

However, the group ignored Trump’s threat and resumed bombing sites inside Israel and ships in the Red Sea heading to Israel, in response to Tel Aviv’s resumption of its war of extermination against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which began on 18 March.

With full American support, Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 7, 2023, leaving more than 168,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing.

Opinion

Houthi Missiles, Trump and The Israeli depth

CrossFireArabia
March 27, 2025

The Houthis are back firing at the heart of the Israeli depth. The military escalation is increasing despite US President Donald Trump’s warning that the Yemeni group, also called Ansar Allah, are set to be destroyed. But there is no proof of that as yet!

Ever since Israel restarted its military campaign on Gaza on 19 March, exactly two months after it ceased its military operations on the enclave, the Houthis reinitiated its trajectories, drones and hypersonic missiles on Israel. It adopted an eye-for-eye point of view — that is as long as Israel stops humanitarian aid to Gaza, Houthi missiles would continue on the Zionist state.

The latest Houthi ballistic missiles were fired Wednesday during the day, a first-time shocker for these trajectories are delivered in the middle of the night. It was reported by the Hebrew media that millions hurried to underground shelters where sirens went off in 250 cities, towns, and settlements to the chagrin of many Israelis whose lives were turned upside down in the war on Gaza.

Wednesday will be remembered as a hard day for many as the ballistic missiles, which according to the Israeli army were intercepted and shot down from the air by counter trajectories. Such a series of Israeli military actions sent an intense amount of debris hurling down across a wide area of central and southern Israel including in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Analysts are saying it’s back to the old days of attempting to readdress the strategic equilibrium of Houthis and Hezbollah missiles targeting the Israeli depth. While Hezbollah is on the border with Lebanon, the Houthi missiles, and their success in reaching their targets, were fired all the way from Yemen, 2000 kilometers away into Israel.

This time, and like before during the course of 2024 where hundreds of trajectories were fired on the Zionist entity, the hypersonic missile was meant for the Ben-Gurion Airport, a busy hub for international travelers. Because of the timing of the trajectories it was reported that a significant number of the incoming planes had to be diverted and re-routed to Larnaca in Cyprus as a stopover and wait for the calm to set in.

Again this is a first-time development because the disruption usually lasted for no more than 30 minutes whilst this time around it paralyzed the airport and its aviation systems and meant to send a Houthi signal to the Israelis and their American allies especially, that this would be the status quo from now on unless the onslaught on Gaza is stopped and humanitarian aid allowed in the enclave.

Today, the incoming missiles on the different parts of Israel have been almost daily, at least for the last one week. This is seen as a signal that a new and forceful strategic approach is being adopted by the Houthis who are daring the Americans despite their daily military strikes on Yemen that Israel would continue to be a legitimate target.

The American navy through its USS Harry Truman destroyer in the Red Sea is striking Yemen with such force and vehemence whilst assuring the Israelis that they will do the job and end the Houthi presence.

But this is not having the military effect the Americans would like it to have for Yemen is a big country with its harsh setting and difficult geographical terrain that makes such strikes seem like ‘bee stings” rather than painful blows. On Tuesday, the US struck different locations in Yemen 17 times and before that the strikes were carried out with the same level of intensity.

But the Houthis are not being brought to their knees, a proving fact that has cost the preceding Biden administration an estimated $2 billion to attempt to rein in the Houthis but with no apparent success despite the level of destruction inside the country for Yemenis, across-the-board, and not just the Houthis, have proven to be a formidable force over the years.

It’s still too early to see for how long Trump will follow in the footsteps made by former US president Joe Biden. This is bearing in mind that the new man in the White House doesn’t like to spend US money and therefore will likely lose steam as the days pass bye and especially because the Houthis started to target the US destroyer and any other ships going to Israel with the group determined to continue to upset the international trading system unless their is a reprieve on Gaza.

The above-analysis is written by Dr Marwan Asmar, chief editor of the crossfirearabia.com website.