Alwaght- Saudi Arabia that has been committing crimes against the Yemeni people since 2015 with its all-out sea, land, and air blockade in recent months and with the eruption of a new round of clashes has once again resorted to its old method, namely bombing civilians, blindly striking the residential areas, and destroying the infrastructure.
In recent weeks, Saudi army carried out hundreds of attacks on civilian regions in Yemen, killing and injuring a large number of innocent civilians.
Yemeni armed forces spokesman Yahya Saree in a Friday night briefing said that Saudi F-15 and Typhoons aircraft launched 93 attacks over 24 hours against the civilians, with the airstrikes and missile attacks on the Yemeni cities reaching 3,689 since rejuvenated aggression began. 9 civilians were killed and 21 were injured, reports said.
Saudi jets on Wednesday launched a number of airstrikes on Al-Hazm market in Jawf in northern Yemen. The attacks also targeted a gas station, killing 14 and injuring 16 civilians.
Saree added that the Saudi attacks have targeted civilian infrastructure in the capital Sana'a and 8 other provinces, killing dozens of women and children.
On Saturday, Saudi warplanes conducted about 20 air raids in the coastal city of Al-Mokha in Taiz province. 3 were killed and several others were injured, reported media outlets. In the same day, Sana'a governor announced a Saudi airstrike on a cement factory in Hamadan town of Taiz province, killing a number of workers.
Continuing their attacks, Saudis struck three homes in Al-Ar and Barza villages in Dhemar using internationally-banned cluster bombs. The horrible crime killed 4 children and 17 civilians, including 7 children and three women, one of them pregnant.
Deadly silence of international community
A key reason for Saudi Arabia's brazenness in continuing its crimes against the Yemeni people is the international community's deadly silence, which has become a cover for the continuation of these heinous crimes and a factor in institutionalizing impunity.
According to a World Health Organization report covering August 6 to October 29, the start of a new wave of intensified conflict, roughly 1,677 Yemenis were killed and 7,395 wounded.
Crimes against Yemeni civilians have become so widespread that a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition admitted that some airstrikes in Yemen have resulted in civilian deaths.
This round of fighting began with the aim of ending the long, grinding "neither war nor peace" stalemate between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, a situation that, alongside military attacks and persistent insecurity, was accompanied by a years-long blockade and affected the lives of millions of Yemeni civilians. Restrictions on the entry of essential goods, fuel, and medicine produced a humanitarian crisis and widespread suffering for the Yemeni people.
Despite Saudi Arabia's claim that its strikes target only Ansarallah military positions, field reports indicate that in practice, residential areas and civilian infrastructure are exposed to bombardment more than any other target.
Dr. Anis al-Asbahi, official spokesman for the ministry of public health, recently commented on the issue, saying: "Targeting schools, hospitals, homes, residential neighborhoods, markets, and civilian gatherings is not limited to loss of life and property; by depriving society of education and health care and complicating reconstruction efforts, it leads to the paralysis of society, which necessitates that these incidents be investigated and those responsible held legally accountable."
In documenting the damage inflicted on civilian and service property and facilities, al-Asbahi said that schools and educational centers have been destroyed or damaged over ten years of aggression, totaling 1,400 schools and educational centers, depriving thousands of children of education and contributing to rising dropout rates and internal displacement. Moreover, some schools were targeted while students were present, resulting in the deaths of students and teachers.
"During the bombardment, 436 hospitals and medical centers were damaged, accompanied by ban on entry of medicine and media equipment due to blockade, leading to pseudo-collapse of the health system and rise of death rates caused by medical care shortage," said the official.
From religious propaganda to shedding civilian bloods
Saudi Arabia, unable to match Ansarallah militarily on the battlefield, has resorted to dirty war to halt the advance of Sana'a's forces and break their will.
On one hand, it floats baseless claims about Ansarallah attacks on Saudi holy sites, offering no evidence whatsoever, to wage a propaganda campaign aimed at turning the Islamic world against the resistance movement. On the other, it pounds defenseless Yemeni civilians and civilian infrastructure with relentless airstrikes, seeking to pressure leaders of Sana'a into halting missile and drone operations.
All this even as Ansarallah leaders have insisted that ending the war hinges solely on Saudi Arabia lifting its blockade of Yemen, and that until that demand is met, they will continue striking deep into Saudi territory.
Deterrence equation shifting in favor of Ansarullah
Yemen's deterrence equation today bears little resemblance to 2015 and it is that Ansarallah, a movement armed with light weapons at the war's outset, has now become a powerful regional-level army. Therefore, if Saudi Arabia does not stop its attacks and bombardment, Sana'a is capable of retaliating and striking the kingdom's strategic infrastructure.
Over the past month, Yemen has put the "infrastructure for infrastructure" equation into practice with missile strikes on Saudi oil facilities and airports, inflicting considerable damage on Riyadh. The continuation of Saudi military action against the Yemeni people will, therefore, not only fail to rescue the kingdom from the crisis it created, but it will plunge it ever deeper into the quagmire of this war of attrition under Ansarallah's heavy blows.
However, Yemenis have shown they are unwilling to adopt a tit-for-tat tactic against the bombing of civilians: over the past two months, they have not targeted wedding ceremonies, women and children, people's homes, or other civilian targets.
Sana'a leaders have recently warned, stressing the end of Saudi tutelage over Yemen, that responsibility for the consequences of continued warmongering lies with Riyadh's rulers, who, instead of lifting the ban on Yemen, choose military action over end of war.
The Wall Street Journal recent reported that Ansarallah, using Chinese parts is manufacturing ballistic missiles that can strike Saudi Arabia and Israeli regime, with their range exceeding 3,000 kilometers.
So, the longer war grows, the higher the military might of Ansarullah grows, something that can pose serious challenges to Riyadh in the future, especially that strikes at airports and halt of flights can cost the Saudi economy billions of dollars while the kingdom holds lofty ambitions to transform into the region's economic and tourist hub under Vision 2030.
