On Thursday night, the U.S. bombed the Ras Isa fuel port in Yemen’s Red Sea province of Hodeidah, targeting the facility with two attacks that killed dozens of civilian workers and paramedics.
According to Yemen’s Health Ministry, at least 74 people, including at least f ive paramedics, were killed, and 171 were wounded. The paramedics were hit by a second U.S. attack on the facility that came after rescue workers had already arrived at the scene to help victims of the first strikes (watch graphic footage of the aftermath of the attack here).
While the U.S. has shared virtually no details about its bombing campaign in Yemen since it began on March 15, U.S. Central Command took credit for the attack on the fuel port, which has grave implications for millions of Yemeni civilians who are facing severe food shortages.
CENTCOM justified the strike on vital civilian infrastructure by saying the Houthis, who govern an area where about 80% of Yemenis live, “profit” off fuel that enters the port. CENTCOM did not claim it was targeting a military site.
“Today, U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years,” CENTCOM said.
The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis, who continue to exploit and bring great pain upon their fellow countrymen.
The command claimed it was not trying to hurt the “Yemeni people” despite the severe impact fuel shortages will have on Yemeni civilians.
“Bombing the Ras Isa fuel port is not just an attack on infrastructure, it’s an attack on the lifelines that keep millions of Yemenis alive,” Aisha Jumaan, president of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation, told Antiwar.com.
“Without fuel, hospitals will cease to function, clean water will be scarce, and food supplies will diminish. We saw this during the Saudi blockade on Yemen where fuel shortages crippled hospitals, cut off clean water, halted farming, and stifled humanitarian aid,” Jumaan said.
“Similarly, we expect this bombing to deepen famine, fuel disease outbreaks, and worsen the suffering of millions. Yemenis have suffered so much, this will only deepen their pain and push even more families to the brink of survival,” she added.
The UN’s refugee agency said last month that tens of thousands of Yemenis are already facing famine-like conditions, and “a staggering five million more are acutely food insecure.” Hundreds of thousands of Yemenis starved to death or died of disease due to the U.S.-backed Saudi/UAE-led war on Yemen from 2015 to 2022, which involved a blockade and failed to remove the Houthis from power.
CENTCOM said it bombed the port because ships were still delivering fuel to it despite the U.S. re-designating the Houthis as a terrorist organization. “Despite the Foreign Terrorist Designation that went into effect on 05 April, ships have continued to supply fuel via the port of Ras Isa,” the command said.
Erik Sperling, the executive director of Just Foreign Policy, connected the U.S. attack on the fuel port to its failure to deter the Houthis despite launching daily airstrikes in Yemen for over a month.
“Having failed militarily, U.S. now aims to use starvation as a weapon,” Sperling wrote on X.
This will spike food prices, causing thousands of children to die of hunger. In 10 years of tracking U.S. war in Yemen, this is the most explicit collective punishment against the Yemeni people that I’ve seen.
The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have vowed their attacks on Israel and blockade on Israeli shipping would only stop if there were a ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.
A senior member of Ansar Allah’s political bureau has said the Houthis would stop attacks on U.S. warships if the U.S. stopped bombing Yemen. Trump administration officials have claimed they would stop the airstrikes if the Houthis declared they would stop targeting U.S. ships, but there’s no sign the U.S. is considering the offer since it’s really bombing Yemen for Israel.