With Massive Airstrikes on Yemen, Trump Intensifies Undeclared War Against the Poorest Country in the Arab World
Dozens of civilians were killed in U.S. bombings across Yemen as Trump vows to unleash “overwhelming lethal force” to stop the Houthi naval blockade targeting Israel’s war on Gaza
SANA’A, Yemen—On Saturday, Nasser Mohammed Saad was at a friend’s home celebrating iftar—the evening meal where Muslims break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan—when he received a distressed call from his family. His house in the al-Jiraf area, north of Yemen’s capital Sana’a, had suffered significant damage from U.S. airstrikes targeting a house just 50 meters away. Rushing home, Saad encountered the aftermath of destruction. "The house's windows were shattered, the doors were torn off, and the water tanks were hit by some shrapnel," Saad, 45, told Drop Site News. His wife and two of his children were inside the house at the time of the attack.
Late last night, U.S. warplanes struck Sana’a and seven other provinces in Yemen in what U.S. defense officials described as the beginning of a large-scale military campaign against the Houthis. Also known as Ansar Allah, the group took control of large swaths of northern Yemen, including the capital city, in 2014. The New York Times reported that Saturday’s strikes in Yemen hit radar, air defenses, and missile and drone systems, though it remains unclear if significant weapon arsenals were targeted. U.S. officials also claimed the strikes targeted at least one senior Houthi commander, though they offered no details. However, the naval and air strikes also hit residential areas, primarily in Sana’a and the province of Saada.
In response, on Sunday, Yemen’s Houthi-led armed forces said they launched 18 “ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone” at U.S.S. Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
The U.S. attacks, which continued into the early hours Sunday, marked one of the largest single-day U.S. strikes on Yemen since October 7, 2023, with an initial toll of 32 people killed and more than 100 injured in what the Houthis said were 47 airstrikes. In Sana’a, early reports indicated that at least 13 people died from the strikes and nine were injured. In Saada province, north of the capital, four children and one woman were reportedly killed and 15 others wounded in attacks that struck two houses. “The majority of them were children and women,” said Anis al-Asbahi, spokesperson for the Health Ministry in Sana’a, told Drop Site. Al-Asbahi noted that rescue teams were still pulling victims from the rubble, and the death toll was likely to rise.
Scenes filmed inside Saada hospital revealed a chaotic environment, with medical staff rushing injured people, including children and women, on stretchers into hospitals and through corridors. Severely injured children were screaming, some with faces bloodied and burned. Others were covered with dust and blood, suggesting they had been pulled from the rubble. A few small victims were charred beyond recognition.
Saad reported that four airstrikes directly hit the house neighboring his, partially damaging nearly all the surrounding homes—about 20 in total. He said he was not aware of any military sites in the targeted area. "The house that was hit belongs to a citizen who has nothing to do with anything," he said, describing the attacks as "a savage and barbaric aggression targeting civilians" rather than strikes against military or Houthi government facilities. "It only targeted the innocent, terrifying children, women, and the elderly."
Saturday’s air strikes came after the Houthi movement announced last week a resumption of its naval blockade on Israeli ships transiting the Red Sea. The group’s leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, said the action was being taken in response to Israel’s reimposition of a total ban on aid deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip on March 2 in violation of the ceasefire agreement signed by Israel and Hamas in January. Once the Gaza agreement was announced, the Houthis entirely halted their attacks on shipping lanes. On March 8, the Houthi leader warned his forces would resume their naval operations in four days if Tel Aviv did not allow aid into the Gaza Strip. On March 13, the Houthi-controlled armed forces issued a statement announcing that any Israeli ship attempting to breach the blockade would be targeted until Israel allowed the entry of humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, to Gaza.
President Donald Trump greenlit the strikes on Friday following high-level White House meetings with top national security aides. In a Truth Social post, which in part read like a disjointed rant, Trump described the attacks as “decisive and powerful military action,” blaming the Houthis for an “unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.” He laid blame on former President Joe Biden, calling him “pathetically weak” and suggesting he would significantly escalate U.S. attacks on Yemen. “To all Houthi terrorists, YOUR TIME IS UP, AND YOUR ATTACKS MUST STOP, STARTING TODAY. IF THEY DON’T, HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!,” Trump wrote.
Trump claimed that over a year had passed since a U.S.-flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden due to Houthi attacks. He noted that the last U.S. warship to traverse the Red Sea, four months prior, had been targeted over a dozen times. “The relentless assaults have cost the US and world economy many BILLIONS of Dollars while, at the same time, putting innocent lives at risk,” he wrote.“ The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective.”
A Houthi spokesperson and chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdussalam, denounced what he called Trump’s “false and misleading” characterization of the Houthi naval operations. “The maritime embargo declared by Yemen in support of Gaza is limited only to Israeli navigation until humanitarian aid is delivered to the people of Gaza, according to the ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian resistance and the enemy entity,” he said. No U.S. commercial ships or military vessels have been attacked since December, before Trump was sworn in.
The politburo of Ansar Allah stated that the U.S. attack was driven by Yemen’s support for Palestine and was conducted on behalf of Israel. “We affirm that the aggression will not go unanswered, and that our Yemeni armed forces are fully prepared to counter escalation with escalation until victory is achieved, God Almighty willing,” read a statement. “We affirm that this aggression will not deter the Yemeni people from continuing to support Palestine and fulfilling their religious and humanitarian duties in supporting the people of Gaza, their resistance, and their heroic fighters.”
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansar Allah’s politburo, said in an interview that Yemen’s resumption of the naval blockade was a response to Israel’s violation of the Gaza ceasefire and aimed at forcing it to lift the siege on Gaza. “The American aggression against Yemen is unjustified and will be met with a response,” al-Bukhaiti asserted. Abdussalam, the Houthis’ chief negotiator, echoed this sentiment, posting on X, “The American airstrikes represent a return to the militarization of the Red Sea, which is the real threat to international navigation in the region.”
Trump did not limit his threats to the Houthis. He also addressed Iran—an ally of the Houthis which Trump accused of directly backing the attacks: “Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it!” For the past several weeks, both Trump and Iran’s leaders have suggested direct talks could occur, though Trump has publicly stated that he will never accept Iran possessing nuclear weapons.
In response, Gen. Hossein Salami, head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, denied Iran was dictating the Houthis’ operations, saying in a state TV interview that Tehran “plays no role in setting the national or operational policies” of its allies in the Axis of Resistance. In a post on the social media site X, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi declared that the U.S. “has no authority, or business, dictating Iranian foreign policy. That era ended in 1979,” adding, “End support for Israeli genocide and terrorism. Stop [the] killing of Yemeni people.”
U.S. Navy destroyers and aircraft carriers faced relentless attacks off the Yemeni coast until a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect in January and the Houthis announced a pause in their blockade. Since October 2023, Houthi forces have shot down 15 drones, the latest being a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone in Hodeidah province on March 4. In late February, an American F-16 flying over the Red Sea was targeted but wasn’t damaged, though the incident raised the prospect that the Houthis could potentially take down a sophisticated U.S. warplane.
Following Israel’s war on Gaza and the Houthis’ military support for Palestine—through attacks on Israeli, U.S. and allied ships in Yemeni waterways and strikes on Israel—the United States formed a coalition to target Houthi weapon arsenals and “safeguard” maritime traffic. However, experts and U.S. officials have consistently acknowledged that the U.S.-led attacks on Yemen have not degraded the Houthis’ capabilities or halted their maritime operations. The Houthis are believed to have a substantial weapons arsenal protected by Yemen’s mountain ranges and stored deep underground. For years, U.S. intelligence analysts have struggled to locate the sites or devise ways to eliminate them.
One of Trump’s first executive orders as president was to reverse a Biden-era policy and redesignate the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, citing the attacks on shipping lanes and Houthi operations against Israel and U.S. regional allies. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also faced missile and drone attacks in response to their participation in the U.S.-backed military campaign against the Houthis since 2015.
Trump and his national security team have signaled that military attacks will continue if the Houthis retaliate, potentially leading to significant disruption, if not a complete halt, to maritime traffic in the Red Sea, through which 15% of the global trade passes. The Houthi-led government’s office in Sana’a urged the international community to address “this American-Israeli recklessness,” warning that failure to curb US and Israeli actions “could open the door wide to consequences whose impact would not be limited to a specific party, but would affect everyone, if this recklessness and American-Israeli arrogance are not stopped.”
Erik Sperling, executive director of the advocacy group Just Foreign Policy, criticized Trump’s decision to escalate the war in the Middle East as “reckless and unconstitutional,” saying “it ignores the devastating humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the clear will of American voters who want to end endless war.” Sperling, a former congressional staffer working on Yemen policy since 2015, added, “This escalation will not deter Sana’a’s leadership—it will only deepen the suffering of the most vulnerable Yemenis.”
Former congressman Justin Amash, a libertarian who spent years fighting for both Democratic and Republican administrations to abide by the War Powers Act, which states that only Congress has the authority to declare war, wrote on X, “It is unconstitutional for Pres. Trump to engage in acts of war in Yemen. It doesn’t matter how appropriate you think it is for the U.S. to take on Houthis or terrorists or anyone. Congress has not authorized war in Yemen. Engaging in war there is unlawful.”
The Houthi support for Palestine and subsequent U.S. retaliation have thrust Yemen, the region’s poorest and most isolated country, into the spotlight. Millions of Yemenis have taken to the streets after Friday prayers to show solidarity with Palestine throughout Israel’s war on Gaza. The Houthi’s stance has also garnered popular support across the Arab region, where many rulers have done little amid Israel’s ongoing aggression against Palestine. Hamas and other Palestinian factions have praised Yemen as demonstrating sincere support and resilience against Israel, despite its limited resources. “We express our full solidarity with Yemen and the brotherly Yemeni people,” Hamas said in a statement late Saturday night. “We appreciate their blessed steps in support of the steadfastness of our Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip in the face of the genocidal war that is a disgrace to humanity.”
Following the strikes, Saad’s family relocated within Sana’a. "There are battlefields for confrontation—let [the enemy] face us on the battlefield,” he said. “The purpose of these strikes is to kill as many innocent people as possible and commit horrific massacres, just as they commit crimes in Gaza, to terrorize people."
Update: Sunday, March 16, 2025, 12:23 p.m.: The story has been updated with news of a Houthi-led attack on the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman in the Red Sea.
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Trump: Hey Yemen, how dare you threaten Israel for violating the ceasefire agreement that we guranteed? Dont you you know Israel is free to tear up any agreement it wants any time? We decide what is right and what is wring. International law is only for the brown/black poor nations - not for the "chosen ones".
What a way to show power! Bombing one of the poorest countries on earth.