{"id":20959,"date":"2018-11-03T17:22:37","date_gmt":"2018-11-03T17:22:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20959"},"modified":"2018-11-03T17:22:37","modified_gmt":"2018-11-03T17:22:37","slug":"yemen-troops-make-gains-as-air-raids-pound-houthi-held-hodeidah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=20959","title":{"rendered":"Yemen troops make gains as air raids pound Houthi-held Hodeidah"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Saudi-UAE military alliance at war with Yemen<\/a>‘s Houthi rebels says it has advanced towards the western city of Hodeidah, hours after residents reported a barrage of air raids targeting\u00a0the strategic port city.<\/span><\/p>\n

Residents in Hodeidah told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the United States-backed alliance launched more than 25 air raids, targeting rebel-held locations on the city’s edges.<\/p>\n

Yemeni journalist Manal Qaed said the sound of fighter jets dropping bombs pierced through the sky late into the afternoon, with civilians fearing to venture out of their homes.<\/p>\n

The Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah news outlet said more than 60 raids targeted Kilo-16 and its surrounding areas, wounding four civilians.<\/p>\n

Kilo-16 is the main highway linking Hodeidah city with the rebel-held capital, Sanaa.<\/p>\n

Aid agencies have long warned that fighting in Hodeidah risks escalating the dire humanitarian crisis<\/a> in Yemen, where about half the population<\/a> – some 14 million people – could soon be on the\u00a0verge of famine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This is not the first time the city has been attacked and sadly residents have grown accustomed to the sounds of air strikes and shelling,” Qaed said.<\/p>\n

“Throughout the day, we’ve heard the sound of jets in the sky, intense shelling and air strikes,” she added. “As for me, I will only leave once clashes flare in the city.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the dpa news agency reported that Yemeni forces, backed by the Saudi-UAE alliance, gained territory on the eastern and southern outskirts of Hodeidah.<\/p>\n

A military source told dpa on condition of anonymity: “The forces will not stop until they take control of the strategic Hodeidah port.”<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the alliance sent more than 10,000 troops to Hodeidah in a new offensive aimed at securing the so-called “liberated areas”.<\/p>\n

So far, the Yemeni forces and the alliance had held Kilo 7 and Kilo 10, areas which sit less than five kilometres from the city’s busy fish market.<\/p>\n

Violence must stop everywhere with an immediate halt around critical infrastructure and densely populated areas<\/p>\n

Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

‘Losing Hodeidah will be a big blow’<\/h2>\n

Adam Baron, a Yemen analyst and visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, called the port city a “key prize”, adding it would be a “big blow” if the Houthis<\/a> lose control of the installation just weeks before peace talks demanded by the\u00a0United Nations<\/a> and the US are to be held.<\/p>\n

“Hodeidah is arguably Yemen’s most important port and is one of the Houthis’ main sources of revenue,” Baron said.<\/p>\n

“In any conflict [control of a port is] a key prize. It would be a big blow [if the Houthis lost the port to the alliance], but not a killer blow,” he added.<\/p>\n

Analysts expect the rebels to use Hodeidah as a bargaining chip when they enter into UN-brokered talks scheduled in Sweden later this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The UN has repeatedly warned<\/a> a military campaign on Hodeidah would have devastating consequences for the country’s residents.<\/p>\n

Addressing reporters at the world body’s headquarters in New York on Friday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres<\/a>\u00a0said the warring parties\u00a0must seize<\/a> on this “opportunity for peace”.<\/p>\n

“To avert imminent catastrophe, several steps are required. First, violence must stop everywhere with an immediate halt around critical infrastructure and densely populated areas,” he said.<\/p>\n

“<\/span>We must do all we can now to end human suffering and avoid the worst humanitarian crisis in the world from getting even worse,” he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the Yemen Data Project, the Saudi-UAE alliance carried out at least 335 air raids on Hodeidah between June 1 and September 30, with civilians frequently bearing the brunt.<\/p>\n

At least 15 people were killed in September when raids hit a road linking Hodeidah with Sanaa.<\/p>\n

The Saudi-UAE military alliance acknowledged mistakes in its air operations, but has mostly defended its record.<\/p>\n

It has denied deliberately targeting civilians, but Riyadh’s narrative over its actions in Yemen has faced mounting criticism following the killing of Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>, a dissident Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist.<\/p>\n

The conflict in Yemen<\/a>, the Arab world’s poorest country, began with the 2014 takeover of by the Houthi rebels, who toppled the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Concerned by the rise of the Houthis, believed to be backed by Iran<\/a>, the Saudi-UAE military-led coalition launched an intervention in 2015 in the form of a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling Hadi’s government.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), an independent watchdog, said around 56,000 Yemenis had been killed<\/a> in the violence. The UN says the conflict has killed at least 10,000 people, but has not updated its death toll in years.<\/p>\n

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The Saudi-UAE military alliance at war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels says it has advanced towards the western city of Hodeidah, hours after residents reported a barrage of air raids targeting\u00a0the strategic port city. Residents in Hodeidah told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the United States-backed alliance launched more than 25 air raids, targeting rebel-held locations…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":20960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}