Over the past 14 months, Israel and the U.S. have repeatedly attacked the small, bitterly impoverished country of Yemen and its Iran-backed, Islamic fundamentalist Houthi movement. The Houthis have been attacking Israel, along with Red Sea shipping related to Israel, in retaliation for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Now Israel—with U.S. backing—is threatening Yemen and the Houthis, who control the country’s north, with the kind of bloodthirsty, indiscriminate and criminal slaughter they’ve rained on Gaza and Lebanon. The Houthis could soon “share the same miserable fate” as Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel’s United Nations ambassador warned this past week. 

Think about this. What Israel has done to the Palestinian people in Gaza—with full U.S. backing—will go down as one of history’s most monstrous crimes ever—the crime of genocide! In Lebanon—again with full U.S. backing—Israel carried out a campaign of mass assassinations, indiscriminate slaughter, and widespread destruction against not only Iran’s ally Hezbollah, but against literally millions of Lebanese civilians. 

Now they are bragging about their crimes and threatening to carry them out again! Whether or not Israel or the U.S. deliver as much death and destruction as in Gaza and Lebanon, they are right now threatening the lives of millions of already suffering people in Yemen, and heightening the already grave danger of a wider region war, which could spread beyond the Middle East! 

The only difference? This time the U.S. is even more directly involved!

THIS MUST STOP!
Years of U.S.-Saudi Aggression Against Yemen 

These new U.S. and Israel threats against Yemen come on top of a years-long military onslaught against the Houthi forces in Yemen by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), armed and backed by the U.S. 

From 2015 through 2022, Saudi Arabia and the UAE waged a relentless campaign of 25,000 air attacks against Yemen. But that wasn’t all. The Saudis—with support from the U.S. Navy—also blockaded Yemen, drastically impeding the flow of food, fuel and other needed goods. And they bombed the main port, Hodeidah, where between 70 and 80 percent of Yemen’s food, medicine, and other aid comes through. The result: 377,000 deaths due to the war, 60 percent of them from indirect causes like lack of food and healthcare, and a cholera epidemic that impacted more than a million people. Over 21 million Yemenis—two-thirds of the population—were in dire need of humanitarian assistance even before the U.S. and Israeli attacks of the last year and more. 

Back-and-Forth Attacks Over the Past 14 Months

After Israel launched its U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza in October 2023, the Houthis began attacking ships bound for Israel in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, demanding the “aggression on Gaza is stopped and the siege is lifted.”

Its 130 attacks have seriously disrupted shipping through one of the world’s busiest and most significant trade corridors, which includes the Suez Canal. And the Houthis have launched drone and missile strikes against Israel itself.

Israel and the U.S. have repeatedly attacked Yemen and the Houthis both to stop these attacks, but also to weaken, if not destroy, the Houthis. These attacks have included striking Yemen’s basic civilian infrastructure—including Hodeidah—as the Saudi’s did before them, also with U.S. backing. This further endangers millions in Yemen, especially the roughly 14 million who remain “in acute need of assistance.” (See We Challenge You to Learn About Yemen.) 

The Attacks Escalate

In recent weeks, both sides have broadened their attacks. During the week of December 29, Israel again bombed Hodeidah, as well as power stations and its main airport in Sana’a, killing at least six people. The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) was actually in the airport at the time, preparing to board a plane. He was not injured but condemned this indiscriminate attack on a civilian facility. The U.S. then launched a wave of air strikes on Yemen’s capital Sana’a and other areas, targeting the Houthi leadership and weapons production facilities. 

Meanwhile, the Houthis launched at least five missile attacks against Israel, including against Tel Aviv international airport and a power station near Jerusalem. The Houthis also claim to have carried out a drone attack on the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, which had just been deployed, with its carrier strike group, to the Red Sea. (The U.S. military hasn’t commented on this.) 

Israel Threatens Even More Bloodshed, Wider War 

Yemen is one front in Israel’s year-long “War of Redemption,” a murderous U.S.-backed rampage across the Middle East aimed at destroying Israel’s opponents and deepening the U.S.-Israeli stranglehold on the entire region. 

As Alan Goodman wrote, “What Netan-Nazi calls a seven-front ‘War of Redemption’ includes genocide in Gaza, genocide in the West Bank, massive destruction in Syria and attacks on forces in Iraq. Plus, mass murder of civilians in Lebanon, destroying desperately needed access to food aid in Yemen, and subjecting Iran to nuclear blackmail.” (See Israel’s “War of Redemption”—A Terrorist Rampage “Changing the Face of the Middle East,” Threatening Even Worse (revcom.us, Dec. 16, 2024)

Now Israel and the U.S. are threatening to seriously escalate their attacks—and atrocities—against the people of Yemen. “We are committed to removing this threat as we are doing on other fronts,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared this past week. “The arms of the octopus are being cut off, one after another,” he added, referring to Iran. 

Israel’s defense minister threatened to “hunt down all the Houthi leaders, hit them as we have done elsewhere”—in other words, assassinate them as Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon. 

Who Bears Responsibility for the Looming Carnage and Devastation? 

In his @BobAvakianOfficial social media message REVOLUTION #99: While denouncing “terrorists,” the rulers of this country openly support terrorism, Bob Avakian, revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, sums up who’s primarily to blame for this nightmare of violence and destruction now hanging over the region, and the basic conclusion we should draw from that reality:  

And let there be no doubt or confusion about this: The responsibility for the serious escalation of military conflict in the Middle East, and whatever results from this, lies with Israel—and the U.S government, which continues to fully back Israel.

What more do you need to know, to say this whole damn system’s got to go?!