Original article republished from MEMO under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Monday that 540,000 Yemeni children under the age of five are severely emaciated. The WHO made its announcement in a post on X to mark World Humanitarian Day.
“Yemen faces a double burden of disease and conflict, whereby 17.8 million need health assistance, including 540,000 children under 5 with severe wasting,” said the UN-affiliated organisation. “With ongoing conflict and a collapsing healthcare system, it is crucial that we #ActForHumanity.”
The health sector in Yemen faces difficult challenges, amid great suffering experienced by most citizens who are in dire need of assistance due to the repercussions of the war that has been ongoing for a decade.
The Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces announced on Thursday July 18, that Hodeidah International Airport in western Yemen was hit by three airstrikes launched from American and British jet fighters. No further details were mentioned in the announcement which was broadcasted on Ansar Allah’s Almasirah news website.
Hodeidah airport was subjected to previous airstrikes by the United States and the United Kingdom on Friday, July 12. It has also been a vital target for the US and the UK for several months due to its location in Hodeidah Governorate, which overlooks the Red Sea. The airstrikes are believed to be launched to pressure Ansar Allah to stop its activities in the regional waters in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
The Yemeni Armed Forces have begun their activity in the Red Sea since the Israeli aggression began on Gaza in the aftermath of October 7 events, by launching scores of attacks on commercial ships connected with Israel in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The airport was not the only location in Yemen to be targeted by US airstrikes during the course of the current week. “The US launched in its aggression on our country 13 raids this week in Hodeidah and Hajjah, but with no effect, neither in preventing our operations nor in limiting them,” Sayyed Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s Ansar Allah, said during a televised speech on Thursday July 18.” We seek to increase operations targeting ships in Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea,” added Sayyed Abdulmalik.
The Yemeni Armed Forces’s attacks in the Red Sea have had a great impact on one of the most important maritime trade routes in the World, suspending the transit of vessels belonging to some of the biggest oil and shipping companies worldwide. Vessels had to sail additional thousands of miles around the continent of Africa instead of going through the Suez Canal due to the blockade of the Red Sea caused by Ansar Allah’s attacks.
According to the Arab Center Washington DC research organization, Ansar Allah’s attacks represent a new phenomenon in geo-economic conflict being launched by a non-state actor using asymmetric warfare in fighting conventional armed forces, and imposing targeted economic sanctions by attacking international shipment selectively. Shipping companies based in pro-Israel countries, and ships carrying cargos connected to these countries, have lost access to the Red Sea shortcut, namely the Suez Canal, between Asia and Europe and therefore endured additional cost and extended sail duration. Consequently cargo fees have witnessed an increase, including on routes that do not pass through the Red Sea.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mentioned in a report published in March, 2024 that attacks on vessels in the Red Sea reduced traffic in the Suez Canal, through which about 15% of global maritime trade volume normally passes. The attacks obliged shipping companies to divert their ships around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa as an alternative route, increasing delivery times by an average of 10 days.
On the morning of Friday June 19, Ansar Allah claimed responsibility for a drone attack which struck Tel Aviv and killed one person.
Israel launched a series of airstrikes on Yemen. Photo: TV Al Masirah
With its aggression against Yemen, Israel demonstrates its insistence to provoke an all-out regional war with support from the United States and its allies
The Israeli Occupation Forces launched airstrikes on the Red Sea port of the Hodeidah Governorate, in Yemen on Saturday, July 20. The Israeli airstrikes targeted gas, oil and power facilities within the Ansar Allah-run sea port with F-35 fighter jets, according to media reports.
The Yemeni Health Ministry announced that a number of people were martyred and wounded in the attack without providing further details. The Israeli airstrikes on Yemen came around one day after Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces launched a drone attack against the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. This was part of the military operations which the Yemeni Support Front has initiated in response to Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza.
A couple of hours after Hodeidah port was attacked by the Israeli Occupation Air Force, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced in a televised statement, that the Israeli enemy targeted the power station, the port, and fuel tanks in the Hodeidah governorate with airstrikes, and that all these targets are civilian facilities.
The spokesperson of the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier-General Yahya Sare’e, also said in the statement that Ansar Allah will respond to the blatant Israeli aggression on Yemen and will not hesitate to strike the enemy’s vital targets. He also reaffirmed what was declared in Ansar Allah’s previous statement in regard to considering the occupied Yafa area as an unsafe zone.
Sare’e confirmed that the Yemeni Armed Forces will continue their operations in support of their brothers and sisters in Gaza, regardless of the implications and consequences. He added that they have prepared the means for a prolonged war with the Zionist enemy until the aggression on the Palestinian people is halted and the siege is lifted.
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, also condemned the Israeli aggression on Yemen. Hamas called on all countries and forces of the Arab Islamic nations to condemn the aggression, urging them to unite, mobilize resources, and engage in confronting the usurping Zionist enemy. Islamic Jihad stated that the Zionist crime against Yemen confirms that the criminal entity poses a danger to all the peoples of the Arab and Islamic nations. It also pointed out that the aggression against Yemen would not have happened without the blatant Western support for the criminal entity, primarily by the US and UK who have also been launching airstrikes against Yemen since January.
The spokesperson of the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree giving a press conference.
The Yemeni Support Front is escalating its attacks on Israeli “primary targets” in solidarity with the Palestinian people, until the aggression on Gaza is halted and the siege is lifted
A drone struck the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Friday, July 19, killing at least one person and injuring 10 others. The drone exploded hundreds of meters away from the United States Embassy, at the intersection of Shalom Aleichem and Ben Yehuda Streets.
A few hours after the attack, Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces claimed responsibility for the attack, in a televised speech delivered by its spokesperson, Brigadier-General Yahya Sare’e. During his speech, Sare’e clarified that Ansar Allah fired a “new drone called Yafa, which is capable of bypassing the enemy’s interception systems”. He also declared Tel Aviv an “unsafe area” and a “primary target” for Ansar Allah’s weapons. Saree asserted that the attack was launched in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people and in retaliation of the massacres committed by the Zionist enemy against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
The drone that hit an apartment building in Tel Aviv was an Iranian manufactured craft called Samad-3, which was modified to extend its range, the spokesperson of the Israeli Occupation Forces, Daniel Hagari, said in a televised statement on Friday. He also mentioned that the IOF was investigating what went wrong, as the drone was detected by the Israeli air defenses, but an “error” occurred and “there was no interception.“
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot quoted an unnamed Israeli officials saying “Israel will respond to the Houthi drone strike. The option of an attack on Yemeni soil is on the table and we cannot rule out a response in Yemen.” Moreover, the newspaper said it was told by the officials that the attack on Tel Aviv is assessed to be targeting the Embassy of the United States there. It is the first time for Tel Aviv, which is considered the commercial hub for the Israeli entity, to be struck by a drone according to media reports.
A second explosion was heard in Tel Aviv later on Friday, reportedly leaving two casualties. Israeli media said that the incident occurred because an oxygen cylinder exploded inside an apartment in Yosef Zinman Street in east Tel Aviv.
Additionally, the Yemeni Armed Forces struck Singapore-flagged container ship, Lobivia, with ballistic missiles in the gulf of Aden on Friday, for violating entry ban to Israeli ports. Claiming the responsibility for striking the ship, Brigadier-General Yahya Saree reiterated, in another televised speech on Friday, that Ansar Allah’s operations will continue until the war on Gaza stops and the siege imposed on it is lifted.
People in Yemen express their support for US students protesting genocide (Photo via @Aldanmarki/X)
Fighting people across the world show support with the student movement in the US facing repression
“We, the students of Gaza, salute the students of Columbia University, Yale University, New York University, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, and dozens of universities across the United States who are rising up in solidarity with Gaza and to put an end to the Zionist-US genocide against our people in Gaza,” wrote the Student Frameworks Secretariat, composed of a variety of student organizations part of larger resistance groups and left parties—including but not limited to the Islamic Resistance Movement, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, Fatah, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Palestinian People’s Party. The Gazan students are expressing their support for the dozens of student encampments that have emerged in the United States, in which students occupy public spaces in their universities to demand that their institutions divest from Israel.
“We welcome the examples of solidarity offered by students facing arrest, police violence, suspension, eviction, and expulsion in order to demand that their universities end their complicity in the Zionist-US genocide and renounce their support for the occupation and the war profiteers that arm it,” the students stated, referring to the central demand of divestment that has been leveraged by students in the encampments.
Palestinians sheltering in the without tears humanitarian camp in Rafah have created banners in support of US students, which they have hung on their tents. The banners read “From Rafah we send you strength,” “the children [of] Gaza are proud of you,” and “thank you students for Columbia uni.”
On behalf of one of our members, a message from the without tears humanitarian camp in Rafah, to the students in the US and the world pic.twitter.com/4LgOWVGuGR
— Palestinian Youth Movement (@palyouthmvmt) April 26, 2024
On April 26, millions gathered on Sana’a Square in Yemen, some holding banners with images from the US student encampments. Their banners showed images from Columbia and other encampments across the country, and featured slogans such as: “To the brave American students, stand your ground! Yemen stands with you! For a free Palestine!” “Dear American Student: They can arrest you, but they can never break your spirit!” and “The Columbia encampment was just the spark! Long live the great student revolution!”
Bisan Owda, a Gazan journalist whose on-the-ground broadcasts of the Israeli genocide have reached millions if not billions across the world, released a video applauding the student protesters. “I’ve lived my whole life in Gaza Strip and I’ve never felt hope like now,” she said. “For the first time in our lives a Palestinians, we hear a voice louder than their voices and the sound of their bombs…It’s children and youth who are leading the movement now for a free Palestine, putting everything they have on the line to demand justice, an end to the genocide, and a new era of the world.”
From Bisan on IG:
“I’ve spent my whole life in Gaza and I’ve never felt hope like now. Magical feelings running in my veins.”
Students – the whole world is watching. And you’re inspiring us all Don’t stop. Never back down.
— People's City Council – Los Angeles (@PplsCityCouncil) April 26, 2024
Students staging peaceful encampments have been met with brutal force by their administrations, who have launched police attacks.
Police deployed snipers near the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Ohio State University, and beat, tased, and arrested protesters.
BREAKING: Police at Ohio State University began arresting students. Organizers tell BT that students have been beaten and tased by police. pic.twitter.com/cr3Fh7K3Gx
Students were also brutalized while staging an encampment at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Students at the Emory Gaza Solidarity Encampment had drawn powerful links between the struggle for Palestine and the struggle against Cop City, a multi-million dollar urban warfare training ground for US police. Students demanded not only divestment of the university from Israel, but also to divest from the construction of Cop City.
Palestinian Atlantan organizer Layla Amar recapping the violent police raid on Emory University’s campus and making clear that the encampment opposes both the genocide and Cop City pic.twitter.com/7eiVQUYtOg
Emory students were brutalized by Atlanta police within hours of setting up their encampment. Police fired rubber bullets and teargas at protesters, tased a student, and detained both students and faculty.
UPDATE: Atlanta police violently attacked the Gaza protest encampment at Emory University within hours after it was set up.
Cops teargassed, shot rubber bullets, arrested several students and faculty, and brutally tased a detained student. pic.twitter.com/jzrqPVF7k6
On the night of April 24, Emerson College students in Boston, staging an encampment in solidarity with Gaza, were brutally evicted by Boston police. So brutally, in fact, that video from the next day showed city workers hosing off what appeared to be blood from the streets of the former encampment.
Students across the country staging encampments in solidarity with Palestine, in opposition to the genocide and in favor of liberation, have been subject to all manner of state repression. Faculty have watched in horror as their administrations call the police to brutally arrest students, many of whom are undergraduates.
In response to the University of Texas – Austin calling in state troopers to arrest students staging a Gaza Solidarity Encampment, faculty at the university expressed deep concern “for our students’ well-being and safety.”
“We have witnessed police punching a female student, knocking over a legal observer, dragging a student over a chain link fence, and violently arresting students simply for standing at the front of the crowd,” the faculty stated. “There can be no business as usual when our campus is occupied by city police and state troopers who are preventing our students from engaging in a peaceful demonstration of their first amendment rights.” The faculty are calling for what is effectively a strike, declaring, “No business as usual tomorrow. No classes. No grading. No work. No assignments.”
Ansar Allah in Yemen, which has been boldly resisting Israeli genocide through its blockage of ships with ties to Isreal in the Red Sea, released a statement condemning the police crackdown on student protesters. “This unjustified repression exposes the falsity of the US government’s claims to defend freedom, protect human rights, and spread democracy,” the organization declared. “We affirm the right of American citizens to demonstrate peacefully, and we value the moral stance of the demonstrators, which expresses an increased state of societal awareness in the face of the official US policy supporting Israeli crimes in Gaza.”
