In support of Palestine
Yemen bears standard of war against Israel
On March 25, 2015, the forces of the Arab coalition started a brutal war against Yemen, which continued for about eight years and, according to the United Nations, over 377,000 people were killed as a result of this war. Economic statistics also indicate that the Yemeni economy has been damaged by about $200 billion, all this without mentioning the crises of internal displacement, disease outbreaks, and the complete destruction of Yemen’s infrastructure.
But these circumstances did not prevent this authentic Arab country from standing by the Palestinian people; the people of Yemen and their brave leadership have taken the most concrete actions in defense of the oppressed Palestinian people against injustice, destruction and genocide.
Three weeks ago, the government of Yemen, through the military spokesman of the armed forces, announced the official involvement in the war with the Zionist enemy. From a military and geopolitical point of view, Yemen’s intervention in the war is seen as an important turning point, because this intervention shows the Arab countries’ inability or unwillingness to help the Palestinian people in practice.
At a time when rich Arab and Islamic countries are not sanctioning Israel, or putting more pressure on their ally, the United States, to approve a cease-fire, or even open the Rafah crossing to deliver humanitarian aid, the poor and war-torn country of Yemen has opened a new resistance front against Israel.
Since then, Yahya Sare’e, the spokesperson of the Yemeni Army, has become another Abu Obaida, while the world is waiting for his statements and monitoring his accounts in social networks because he can artfully change the rules of the game in favor of the axis of resistance. Despite the superficial analysis of some analysts, who considered Yemen’s involvement in the war as only a symbolic gesture, as well as those who doubted the ability of Yemeni missiles to reach Israel, the Yemeni Army has been equipped with a comprehensive and gradual strategic plan to perform counteractions.
Yemen started its war against Israel by launching ballistic missiles and precision-guided drones. Ansarullah’s missiles had to travel more than 1,600 kilometers to reach the occupied territories. The Yemeni Army is also trying to evade the air defenses of Egypt and Saudi Arabia by crossing the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. In fact, these attacks have caused huge human and material losses in the city of Eilat, Israel, but the Israeli censorship machine does not allow truth to be broadcast.
In continuation of Yemen’s military plan to confront Israel, the Yemeni Navy seized the Israeli ship “Galaxy Leader,” belonging to an Israeli businessman and a relative of one of the key elements of Mossad, Rami Onger. This ship was taken to the coast of Yemen and all its crew were arrested.
What the Houthis did is not considered piracy or terrorism according to international maritime laws, as Sare’e had announced a few days before the ship’s seizure that the Yemeni Army would target Israeli ships in its territorial waters, he also advised other countries who are present in the Red Sea to stay away from Israeli ships. Therefore, the seizure of this ship is done in a purely military context, and Israel cannot raise the theory of disrupting international trade, or threatening maritime navigation in the Red Sea.
Israel, as usual, denied the ownership of this commercial ship and the presence of Israelis on it. This incident reminds us of the incident of targeting an Israeli ship by a suicide drone off the coast of Oman in July 2021, which killed two people. The crew of the Israeli ship was captured. The irony regarding the statements of Israeli spokespersons is that if this ship did not belong to Israel, then why all the threats and statements of Israel against Yemen?
Israel’s continued denial of ownership of vessels attacked in the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, or Bab al-Mandeb appears to provide it with a safe haven to evade a military response. In any case, it seems that Ansarullah is aware of all the detailed information of this and other Israeli ships that pass through the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which was stated in the statement of the Minister of Information of the National Salvation Government.
Zaifullah al-Shami confirmed that Sanaa has information about all Israeli ships that pass through the Red Sea. Based on the above, Ansarullah knows very well that most of the Israeli ship workers have dual citizenships and other foreign nationalities.
In the above lines, Ansarullah’s strategic and integrated plan and their intervention in the war against the Zionist enemy were mentioned, which started by targeting the port of Eilat with missiles and drones, and seizing the ship to complete the disruption in the port of Eilat and the sea lanes leading to it.
The whole world, especially the United States, is aware of the importance of the Bab al-Mandab strait and the waters of the Red Sea for global trade, because about 6.2 million barrels of crude oil pass through this waterway every day. About 30 percent of the world’s natural gas trade passes through this strait.
For these reasons, the Ansarullah movement is a challenge for America because the Yemeni Armed Forces seized the Zionist ship with basic and not very advanced facilities, and nothing was done in return by the American ships. In addition to the global impact of this operation, there are serious economic impacts on Israel, which shows Ansarullah’s ability to disrupt the supply routes of Israel’s essential goods from the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. If there is an ability to disrupt the port of Eilat in the south of the occupied territories, which is considered Israel’s most vital port, then creating disruption in the port of Haifa can be considered Ansarullah’s next option. In general, Israel has five maritime corridors for receiving its oil, gas and basic goods imports, the most important of which passes through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is under the control of the Yemeni Army.
The first strategic corridor, which is considered the backbone of Israel’s economy, is the corridor that connects India to Israel and passes through the Gulf of Aden, Bab al-Mandeb and the Red Sea, and ends at the port of Eilat in the south.
Thirty percent of Israel’s imports (worth about $30 billion) are made through this corridor. The second corridor is a waterway that connects South America and Israel, which passes through the Atlantic Ocean, then the Gulf of Aden, Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea, and reaches the port of Eilat.
After Ansarullah’s capture of the Israeli ship, the depth of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution’s analysis and view of the elements of force that restrain Israel was revealed. The Iranian Leader’s emphasis on the necessity of stopping the export of oil and goods to Israel, and inviting Islamic countries to sever relations with the occupying regime, even for a limited time, indicates that if Islamic countries adhere to these recommendations, Israel’s economy will collapse.
Yemen’s intervention in the war in favor of Gaza is the real embodiment of the concept of the unity of the battlefields, that is, conflict with the enemy on multiple fronts, the practical application of the message of the commander of the Quds Force, Major General Esmail Qa’ani, to the leaders of the Palestinian resistance, in which he emphasized that the Palestinian resistance has shown the whole world that Israel is weaker than a spider’s web.
One of the important results that the process of seizing the ship and Yemen’s general intervention in the war alongside our brothers in the Gaza Strip will achieve is strengthening the position of the Palestinian negotiator at the negotiating table. This negotiation trump card was obtained when Netanyahu avoided and rejected any exchange of prisoners or cease-fire for nearly 50 days.
However, after the Yemeni operation, Israelis began negotiating a prisoner exchange and a five-day cease-fire. At the regional level, Ansarullah’s intervention in the war shows their decisive Arab and Islamic positions towards the Palestinian issue, and what we see today is that the Arab people, including the people of Saudi Arabia, support and praise this Yemeni action.
Some media reports also announce the imminent signing of a reconciliation agreement between the Yemeni parties, and all this shows that despite the seeds of all the conspiracies and conflicts that America has sown in the region, Yemen today is becoming a regional and geopolitical power that can never be ignored in the equations and balance of power.