On April 17, US airstrikes on Yemen killed 74 people and injured 171 in a dangerous escalation of US President Donald Trump’s war against the poorest country in the Middle East. A resident of the area around Yemen’s Ras Issa fuel port told Chinese media that “among the victims were employees, truck drivers, contracted workers, and civilian trainees of the port,” and “rescue teams recovering bodies and extinguishing fires were also targeted in [US] subsequent strikes.”
Trump’s attack targeted Ras Issa a vital lifeline connecting the isolated, bombarded country to outside supply shipments. For its part, the US administration claimed that the bombing intended to prevent Iranian fuel from reaching “the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists” in order to “deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years.”
While it is US policy to delegitimize Ansar Allah (also known as “the Houthis”) as “Iran-backed terrorists,” in fact, 80 percent of Yemenis live under the Sanaa-based Supreme Political Council led by Ansar Allah, making them Yemen’s de facto government. They have a huge degree of public support, as evidenced by the regular protests of tens of even hundreds of thousands of Yemenis opposing US aggression and supporting Ansar Allah’s armed support for Palestinian liberation.
Ansar Allah survived eight years of Saudi-led attacks on Yemen, a war of aggression (backed militarily and diplomatically by governments of the US, Canada, and Europe) that levelled civilian infrastructure and killed almost 400,000 Yemenis. Trump’s bombings will not destroy the vilified “Houthi rebels,” but that is not their goal. What Washington wants is to force Yemen to withdraw its armed support for Palestinians resisting Israel’s genocide.
After Israel launched its onslaught against Gaza in October 2023, Yemen imposed a blockade on Red Sea shipping to Israel. As Israel’s assault on Palestinians in Gaza reached genocidal proportions, Yemen launched drone and missile attacks against Israeli targets. From the beginning, Ansar Allah was very forthright: they stated that the attacks on Red Sea ships and Israeli targets would stop once Israel ceased its genocidal assault on Gaza. During the Gaza ceasefire of January 19 to March 18, 2025, Ansar Allah did cease its military actions in the Red Sea (even as Israel violated the ceasefire 962 times), clearly demonstrating the connection between Israel’s genocide and Yemeni military activity.
US efforts to paint the Yemenis as puppets of Iran, mindless terrorists, and maritime pirates are part of a concerted effort by Washington to obfuscate the just, defensive, and humanitarian motivations behind Ansar Allah’s actions. The recent phase of US attacks on Yemen began in January 2024 under former president Joe Biden, and these bombings received logistical support from, among other countries, Canada and the United Kingdom. After coming to office, Trump intensified the US war on Yemen. Since March, his attacks have killed more than 50 Yemenis, not counting the recent bombardment of civilians at the Ras Issa port. Reportedly, his administration is mulling a ground invasion of Yemen.
One must always keep in mind why America is upping its attacks on the Yemeni people. It is because Yemen is trying to prevent Israel, an outpost of US power in the Middle East, from carrying out a genocide. That’s it. International and humanitarian law mean nothing to Washington. US efforts to paint Ansar Allah as illegitimate, criminal, or aggressors are transparent attempts to rhetorically discredit a regional resistance movement in order to make the massacre of Yemenis palatable to Western audiences.
In the US empire’s eyes, the reason Yemenis need to be massacred is obvious: they are opponents of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Trump is massacring Yemenis so that Israel can continue massacring Palestinians. It really is that simple.