Sanaa, Yemen – Ammar Saleh, a ۳۲-year-old schoolteacher in Sanaa, watched on Monday as the Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, announced a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia.
Then, on Wednesday, the Houthis declared they had attacked two Saudi ships – a declaration that they were serious in their intention to impose a maritime embargo on their northern neighbour. The Houthis accuse Saudi Arabia of conducting its own blockade on rebel-controlled areas of Yemen, therefore justifying the Houthi attacks.
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Whatever the arguments, the news has come as a jolt to Yemenis like Ammar, many of whom now believe that a four-year period of relative quiet in the country’s more than decade-long war is about to end.
Ammar believes that Sanaa and other Houthi-controlled Yemeni provinces could once again become a battlefield and could be hit with fuel shortages and a worsening humanitarian crisis.
“Imposing a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia is not a minor move, and we will not be immune from its repercussions,” Ammar told Al Jazeera.
While many civilians are anxious over the fallout of the decision to confront Saudi Arabia, Houthi supporters describe it as a step towards ending what they perceive to be Riyadh’s hegemony in Yemen. Supporters of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, meanwhile, see the Houthi attacks as evidence of the group’s “obedience to Iran’s orders”.
‘Unseen suffering’
Civilians who say they support neither side in the war have expressed fear over what may come next.
Abdulla Yahya, a ۲۵-year-old construction worker in Sanaa, said civilian suffering becomes “unseen during the chaos of war”.
Abdulla told Al Jazeera that any Houthi-Saudi Arabian military face-off will complicate the lives of everyday people in Yemen and will make “survival a harder task”.
“The moment a full-scale war begins, the basics we have today will no longer be available or affordable. Prices will soar, fuel supply will be disrupted, and work opportunities will decline. Neither side of the conflict will be aware of our suffering,” said Abdulla.
Yemen’s warring parties have emphasised their preparedness for war, but Abdulla says he is not.
“I wanted to buy an extra cooking gas cylinder and get additional food commodities, such as flour, rice and cooking oil. But I could not afford that. Getting those would cost me about ۵۵,۰۰۰ Yemeni riyals [$۲۳۰],” said the father of three.
The ongoing escalation risks dragging Yemen back into wider conflict, further compounding a hunger crisis that aid agencies have said is already spiralling.
Almost ۲۰ million people in Yemen need humanitarian aid, according to United Nations estimates, and the lack of a political settlement to the conflict continues to add to the complexity.
‘Long overdue’
A sense of euphoria prevailed among Houthi supporters in Sanaa when the group announced the naval blockade on Saudi Arabia.
Mohammed Ali, a Sanaa-based ۲۶-year-old Houthi supporter, said that Sanaa will not be subordinate to Riyadh forever, and that the embargo is a reminder to Saudi leadership: “We can hurt you if you insist on harming us. You are not unbreakable.”
Ali, a university graduate, argued that Yemen was a sovereign state, and that Saudi leaders had “no right to decide which ship is allowed to sail towards our ports and which plane is permitted to fly in our sky”.
“We feel Saudi Arabia is suffocating us. Let us give them a dose of their own medicine. This measure has been long overdue,” Mohammed told Al Jazeera.
Mohammed is not worried about a renewed war with Saudi Arabia. “We confronted America, Israel and, before them, the Saudi-led coalition. Now, the kingdom can try its luck in this new round,” he said.
A full closure of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the southern gateway to the Red Sea, could hamper Saudi oil exports to Asia, particularly in light of the continued difficulty of passage through the Strait of Hormuz due to the US war on Iran.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said it would respond to the Houthi threat to its commercial ships with resolve. “Such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall under acts of maritime piracy,” the coalition said in a statement on Tuesday.
‘An act of obedience to Iran’
Despite the Houthi justification, many Yemenis opposed to the rebels see their latest attacks as evidence of their subservience to Iran.
Mohammed Karim, a ۳۰-year-old resident of Hodeidah in western Yemen, describes the Houthi blockade on Saudi Arabia as an “act of obedience to Iran” that has nothing to do with defending Yemen’s sovereignty.
“Why have the Houthis not imposed a blockade on Saudi Arabia over the past years of war? Why now,” Mohammed asked. “Iran needs such a move now, and the Houthis have carried it out.”
Last week, the Reuters news agency reported that Iran had asked the Houthis to stand ready to close Bab al-Mandeb if the US struck Iranian power infrastructure, as Washington has threatened.
The US is currently conducting nightly strikes on Iran and hitting more civilian infrastructure after a June memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran broke down.
Mohammed Karim is angry, saying that Houthis “seek to attract Iran’s ongoing chaos to Yemen”.
“It hurts them to see Iran bleed, but they would not feel hurt to see us bleed,” he said. “Over a decade of suffering in Yemen has not led them to rethink their approach and seek a settlement with their Yemeni opponents and Saudi Arabia. That is because of their deep-rooted attachment to Tehran.”
He believes that the Houthi-declared maritime embargo is a wake-up call for Riyadh. “It could be a powerful reason for the kingdom to seriously work on toppling the Houthis and restoring the Yemeni government,” the Hodeidah resident said.
On Monday, Yemen’s Minister of Defence Taher al-Aqili said that the UN-recognised government’s “patience has run out”, indicating the government would be ready to end the “Houthi coup”.
The Yemeni government has used the months since it defeated – with the support of Saudi Arabia – the separatist Southern Transitional Council to attempt to unite the country’s anti-Houthi armed forces.
Recent fighting has been reported between the Houthis and government forces in Hodeidah, with the Red Sea coast being a likely location for any government offensive.
‘Seed of collapse’
Saddam Al Huraibi, a Yemeni political analyst, believes that Iran does not want to launch a direct war on Saudi Arabia and, instead, has delegated the Houthis.
While the Houthis’ resolution to fight a war against the kingdom is “unwise and reckless”, it could be the seed of their collapse, Al Huraibi told Al Jazeera.
If this blockade does lead to a wider conflict, the Houthis will “suffer military losses and potentially break down”, the analyst said.
“Today, the Yemeni government sees the military option as the only viable route to deal with the Houthis. I think Saudi Arabia and other regional and international actors have also reached the same conclusion, especially after the declaration of the naval blockade,” he added.
But the talk of war is chilling for many Yemenis, who fear that stopping the fighting would be difficult if full-fledged war started again.
“It is like a fire, and no fire would be extinguished without losses and damages,” Ammar, the Sanaa schoolteacher, said. “We cannot endure any more losses or pain.”
