Yemeni forces won’t stand idly by against continued Saudi-led attacks: Ansarullah

Ansarullah politburo member Ali al-Qahoum told Lebanon-based Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network on Tuesday that Yemeni soldiers and their allies are fairly committed to the truce, but will not stand idly by while the Saudi-led alliance continues to perpetrate crimes against Yemenis.

He added that whilst the Saudi-led coalition of aggression is pressing ahead with its crimes in Yemen, the international community behaves as if Yemeni people’s blood is worth nothing.

Qahoum noted that the opportunity is ripe for the Saudi-led coalition and the United States to review their calculations as Yemen is not a sitting duck for them.

The remarks came shortly after the spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said at least 16 civilians had lost their lives when Saudi-led military aircraft targeted a residential building in the country’s southwestern province of Dhale.

Saree said seven children, 4 women and five men were killed when the warplanes conducted two airstrikes against the house in the Qa'atabah district of the province. A paramedic sustained injuries in the aerial assaults as well.

On Friday, President of the Supreme Political Council Mahdi al-Mashat said Yemeni forces and fighters from Popular Committees would end all attacks on Saudi Arabia provided that the kingdom and its allies ended their attacks on Yemen.

He hoped that “the gesture would be answered by a stronger gesture” from the Saudis.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths welcomed the proposal, calling on the Saudi-led coalition “to take advantage of this opportunity and move forward with all necessary steps to reduce violence, military escalation and unhelpful rhetoric.”

Griffiths stressed that the implementation of the proposal by the Houthis “in good faith could send a powerful message of the will to end the war.”

He urged all parties to the Yemen conflict to “respect international humanitarian law, exercise restraint, and to spare Yemen from being drawn further into regional tensions.”

The proposal came a week after the highly disruptive drone attacks on Saudi Aramco petroleum and gas processing plants at Abqaiq and Khurais in the kingdom's Eastern Province.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing Ansarullah.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 91,000  lives over the past four and a half years.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.