By Mohamad Hammoud
The renewed confrontation between Yemen’s Ansarullah and Saudi Arabia did not emerge overnight. It is the result of decades of conflict over Yemen’s sovereignty, political independence, and the role of foreign powers in shaping its future.
For years, Saudi Arabia viewed a strong and unified Yemen on its southern border as a strategic challenge. Rather than allowing Yemen to develop as an independent regional power, Riyadh pursued policies that kept its neighbor politically fragmented and economically dependent.
Human Rights Watch reported that Saudi Arabia spent decades directing financial support toward tribal allies and political figures inside Yemen, weakening central authority in Sana'a and limiting the country’s ability to control its resources. The result was a nation rich in history and potential wealth but unable to fully determine its political and economic future.
After the 2000 Treaty of Jeddah settled the border dispute, Ansarullah leaders and other Yemeni critics argued that Yemen lost access to strategically important territories, including resource-rich areas around Najran and al-Wadiah that they consider historically connected to Yemen. For them, these grievances became part of a broader struggle over Yemen’s sovereignty and control of its resources.
Western Weapons and the Human Cost of Coalition Aggression
When Saudi Arabia launched its war of aggression in March 2015, it did so with the support of powerful Western allies and a vast military-industrial network. The intervention exposed what critics described as a contradiction in Western foreign policy: governments that promote human rights continued supporting a war that caused enormous suffering among Yemeni civilians.
Amnesty International documented coalition airstrikes involving Western-supplied weapons that struck civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, farms, water facilities, and power systems.
One of the most devastating incidents occurred in October 2016, when a Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a crowded funeral gathering in Sana'a, killing and injuring hundreds of mourners.
In August 2018, another coalition airstrike struck a school bus in Saada, killing dozens of children.
Human rights organizations and United Nations investigators cited these and other attacks as examples of possible violations of international humanitarian law. At the same time, Western governments, particularly the United States and Britain, provided Saudi Arabia with weapons, intelligence, and logistical assistance, leading critics to argue that they enabled the continuation of the war while shielding Riyadh from meaningful accountability.
For many Yemenis, this support represented the same double standard they had long accused Western powers of applying across the region, including in their efforts to protect the interests of “Israel”.
The Blockade as Collective Punishment and the Rise of Deterrence
Beyond airstrikes, the Saudi-led coalition’s restrictions on Yemen’s ports, airports, and borders became one of the defining features of the war. The blockade severely limited the flow of food, fuel, and medicine into a country already facing economic collapse.
Humanitarian organizations, including Oxfam, warned that restrictions on the port of Hodeidah threatened millions who depended on imports for survival. The repeated closure of Sana'a International Airport further isolated civilians, preventing many seriously ill patients from seeking treatment abroad.
According to international health organizations, these restrictions, combined with economic collapse and infrastructure destruction, contributed to widespread hunger, disease, and one of the world’s largest cholera outbreaks.
Ansarullah leaders described the blockade as a deliberate strategy to force Yemen into submission. After years of absorbing attacks, Yemeni commanders declared that the era of unanswered aggression was over and shifted toward deterrence by bringing the costs of war to Saudi territory.
Challenging Regional Power and Reclaiming Sovereignty
The shift toward retaliation altered the strategic balance by demonstrating that Yemen could no longer be attacked without consequences.
Reuters reported that Yemeni forces carried out drone attacks against Saudi Aramco facilities in Abqaiq and Khurais, temporarily disrupting a major portion of the kingdom’s oil production.
More recently, as reported by The Guardian, Ansarullah escalated its stance by declaring a total naval blockade on Saudi ports along the Red Sea in response to continued coalition restrictions and foreign aggression.
By targeting Saudi energy flows passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Yemeni movement demonstrated that Riyadh could not wage an asymmetric war of attrition without risking its own economic foundation.
The Western powers that enabled the siege now face the reality of a sovereign Yemen capable of defending its maritime rights and challenging imperial dominance.
Ultimately, the resilience of the Yemeni people has shattered the illusion of Saudi supremacy, proving that Sana'a will continue to defend its sovereignty and reject any attempt to dictate Yemen’s future from abroad.
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