The Saudi Aggression Continues Its Assault on Hodeidah and Prepares for a Bigger Escalation

Yamanyoon

The Saudi-led coalition has claimed a temporarily halt of its offensive on the port city of Hodeidah, located West of Yemen, as a result of international pressure for the killing of the columnist in The Washington Post Jamal Khashoggi that has shed light on the aggressive Saudi war on Yemen, which has failed to achieve its objectives except for resulting in the worst humanitarian crisis since the world war II, bringing the impoverished state into the brink of famine.

The head of the negotiating delegation Mohammed Abdel Salam said on Thursday that the declaration of the Saudi aggression for pausing its operations on Hodeidah is a ploy in order to buy some time and to prepare for a new de-escalation that needs additional time.

“In every round of aggression against Yemen, the escalation begins and then dies down, mostly without declaring a truce,” Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam wrote in a tweet on Thursday night, adding that the coalition of aggression is trying to present the subject based on international or humanitarian pressure. This is a fabrication to gain extra time as usual. “

“We see only agreements between the four countries of the aggression, which are the same bodies that began the aggressive war directly,” he said, stressing at the same time the lack of serious political negotiations” for real solutions or actual truce, which are only talks on media outlets.”

Abdel Salam stressed that the air raids and military operations did not stop either in Hodeidah or elsewhere. “The attitude of the Yemeni people, its army and its people’s committees are basically defensive to face an unjustified war of aggression,” he said.

In a related context, Abdel Salam pointed out that the political solution in Yemen is the right choice, adding, “If there is seriousness to support political talks to stop the aggressive war.”

He also reiterated his welcome for any cessation of the aggression with credibility and commitment, away from political gains or regional crises.

Bureau of Yemen’s military media of the army and the Popular Committees confirmed earlier that there signs of any stop in the operations of the enemy on the West Coast (Hodeidah), pointing out that the enemy continues to mobilize and arrange its ranks for a new escalation.

The Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree said that the forces of the aggression and their mercenaries continue to shed more blood and commit massacres against the Yemeni people.

He said in a statement to the Yemeni news agency “Saba” that the coalition warplanes launched today a number of raids, targeting a bus with three raids within al-Merawaah, Hodeidah province, which took the lives of four citizens while two were injured; in addition to conducting four aerial raids near the Kamran factory, amid continuous hovering of the coalition aircraft.

He pointed out that ground shelling by the coalition artillery targeted a number of residential neighborhoods in the city of Hodeidah; consequently, injuring a number of six children.

The Brigadier General explained that the mercenaries affiliated with the Saudi-UAE aggression tried today to advance towards Kilo 16 and towards the east of Hays but were confronted by the heroes of the armed forces in support with the Popular Committees, who killed many of them and destroyed their military equipment and machinery.

Brigadier Saree said that the continuation of the aggressive coalition along with its mercenaries in trying to make any progress on the ground is contrary to what its media outlets promoting that there is a truce, which comes within the framework of deceiving public opinion and manipulating the Yemeni people so they stop their support and mobilization of the fronts.

The spokesman stressed that the Saudi coalition sought from the promotion that there is a ceasefire so it can gain more time and rearrange the conditions of his forces, who are collapsed mentally and morally, especially after the heavy blows received during the past days, which resulted in the loss of vast amount of its forces and equipment used in the battlefield.

Brigadier Saree confirmed that the Yemeni army in support with the popular committees are in complete readiness, physically and mentally, to continue their combat duties and will not be fooled or manipulated by such methods brought by the Saudi-led aggression.

Numerous Condemnations of Coalition Attack on the Port of Hodeidah

The spokesman of the salvation government, Dhaifallah al-Shami said on Thursday that the Saudi-led coalition is trying to alleviate the international humanitarian pressure and seek to overcome them by talking about a truce, which is pure slander and misleading world public opinion.

The official spokesman of the government emphasized that Saudi-UAE coalition is preparing for a new round of military escalation and for that, it needs additional time; thus, it has claimed through propaganda media statements and it is not the first time they have done it.

He said: “We are facing an aggression on our country and if this aggression stops we’ll stop, but it is escalating its offensive operations and bombings on all fronts and governorates, targeting our infrastructure and the civilians while the West Coast is witnessing intensive bombardment by the coaliton aviation that has resulted in the fall of large numbers of civilians between killed and wounded, which reveals the false allegations of the aggression.”

“We are not against peace talks, but rather our demand, but on the condition that it is not a formal one,” he said, stressing at the same time that the Saudi coalition would have been serious in reaching peace if it had stopped the aggression immediately and left the Yemenis free to reach a comprehensive solution.

The Hudaydah offensive, which first began earlier this year and was re-launched last month after a pause of several months, could deprive millions of people already on the verge of starvation from access to food or medicine, the UN has warned.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the former government of Abd Rabbug Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthis.