Dozens killed as humanitarian crisis mounts in Yemen: What next for war?

Dozens were killed in Yemen on Friday when a missile struck a market in Taiz governorate, with each side of Yemen’s brutal war blaming the other for the attack.

It has been a month since Yemen’s internationally recognised government launched its “Dawn of Yemen” offensive on the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group after it took swaths of territory along the country’s Red Sea coast.

As the fighting continues, the humanitarian crisis is only intensifying, with hundreds of thousands displaced so far.

Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council has said the government will continue with its “irreversible” drive to dismantle Houthi military capacity and restore sovereignty, meaning the war may get worse before there is any resolution, observers say.

The operation was launched by the head of the Presidential Leadership Council of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, Rashad al-Alimi, on October 5.

Its aim is to recapture areas under Houthi control and liberate the capital city of Sanaa, which has been under the rebels’ control since September 2014.

The operation has relied on air support from the Saudi-led coalition, as well as ground operations carried out by government military coalitions and units to weaken the Houthis’ military capabilities.

In the Red Sea corridor, breaking the Houthis’ maritime chokehold and securing the Bab al-Mandeb strait has been an essential goal after the group captured the strategic port city of Mocha (Mokha) in September.

After launching the operation, the government said its forces recaptured positions around Dhubab and Bab al-Mandeb the same day, though the extent of their gains could not be confirmed.

It also said they captured mountain positions in Haifan, western Taiz and around al-Waziiya.

By October 13, fighting spread to Marib, where the government forces claimed gains around the Maas camp and north of Harib.

It did, however, lose territory in Taiz governorate, which led to a Houthi siege that continues to suffocate the city as it reaches its first month.

On Friday, the government forces said they had recaptured many areas in the governorate, including al-Nidani village, Shaab al-Sarari, large parts of the Sanamat area and the Ribat al-Qarn area in Dhi al-Barh in Taiz governorate.

Government troops and coalition fighters also secured the Tavat Wathib and Habil al-Saram hills along the Al-Aqroud front.

They announced the execution of 1,211 operations against Houthi positions on the different battlefronts, as they confirmed control over new positions on the Tur al-Bahah front in the Lahij governorate.

However, government forces are far from being able to take back Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, Thomas Bonnie James, an assistant professor in politics and international relations at Aberdeen University in the United Kingdom, told Al Jazeera.

“[Defeat] won’t happen if it means taking back Sanaa and ending Houthi rule. Not any time soon,” he said. “The government’s forces look big on paper, but they are spread across too many fronts and use old equipment.

“Sanaa is surrounded by mountains, which makes it easy to defend. A much stronger Saudi-Emirati coalition tried from 2015 and never came close,” he explained.

James told Al Jazeera that Dawn of Yemen’s aim is to apply pressure to, rather than achieve the total defeat of, the Houthis.

“Dawn of Yemen is better understood as a way to apply pressure than as a bid for total victory,” he said. “The aim is to make the war more costly for the Houthis and to give Saudi Arabia a stronger position before any peace deal.

“What happens in the next three months matters more than the slogans.”

The Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council announced on Thursday that the armed forces have carried out 40,761 military operations since the beginning of Dawn of Yemen.

The council also said the attacks resulted in the “neutralisation” of about 20,000 Houthi leaders and elements, and more than 5,000 vehicles.

Previous announcements from the military command said they conducted 17,000 targeting operations during their first weeks and daily figures ranging between 951 and 1,272 operations throughout the month.

Last month, the Yemeni government also said its forces were able to kill or wound 1,540 Houthis in 24 hours.

Last week, the government said 16,100 Houthi operatives and commanders had been killed or wounded since October 5.

The Houthis did say that the total number of attacks the group has been subjected to since the beginning of the escalation reached 3,930 raids and missiles up until early November.

Al Jazeera has not been able to verify these figures.

The Houthis, who are also known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for Supporters of God), have caused hundreds of casualties since the beginning of the escalation.

Yemen’s government forces have blamed the Houthis for an attack on the al-Hadara market on Friday in the Taiz governorate that killed and injured dozens, mostly civilians.

Government military spokesperson, Colonel Majed al-Nazili, said the “terrorist” Houthis hit the market with ballistic missiles, calling it a war crime.

The Iran-backed Houthis rejected the accusation and said Saudi Arabia, which backs the Yemeni government, was responsible for the attack.

After taking the capital and state institutions in 2014, the Houthis have had access to a large number of weapons that once belonged to the Yemeni military.

Analysts say with the external support from Iran and their reliance on international black markets, the Houthis’ military capabilities continued to advance.

Their increasingly long-range missile strikes have allowed them to reach many areas across Saudi Arabia and even Israel in June.

One of the Houthis’ latest deadly attacks killed at least 70 government security recruits in Shabwah.

As the government and the Houthis continue fighting, the humanitarian situation in Yemen is heading towards catastrophe.

More than 323,000 people have been displaced in Yemen since the escalation began in August, with Taiz governorate taking in most of them, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Friday.

More than two in five of the internally displaced in Yemen are in Taiz, where the Houthi blockade continues to encircle the city, cutting off supplies to about 800,000 people.

The UN Human Rights Office has reported 281 civilian casualties since August, with 69 people killed and 212 injured. Children make up more than one-third of casualties.

In Taiz, Salah Ahmed Ghaleb al-Majidi, acting director of the governorate’s Siege Affairs Department, described the situation to Al Jazeera as “catastrophic”.

Essentials, including medical supplies, food, fuel and water, are unable to reach the governorate due to the Houthi blockade.

An Al Jazeera report found that the remaining diesel stocks in the city have dwindled and have less than 48 hours left to run.

Hospitals are warning that once they run out of fuel, departments and medical centres will have to shut down, including emergency services.

Taiz’s deputy governor for health affairs, Ilan Abdul Haw, told Al Jazeera that about 40 percent of hospitals have closed, while those still open are operating at 50 percent capacity due to the lack of fuel.

James told Al Jazeera that as the winter approaches in Yemen, and the siege on Taiz tightens, conditions will only worsen for Yemenis caught in the conflict.

“The biggest worry is the people of Taiz. More than 800,000 of them have been cut off from aid since the Houthis surrounded the city in early October,” he said. “Winter is coming, aid money is short, and the city is under siege. That is what more fighting will mean for ordinary Yemenis.”

The war has also spread beyond Yemen, as the Houthis continue strikes on Saudi airports and oil sites.

“The Houthis are firing at Saudi almost every day. Saudi Arabia is now openly bombing inside Yemen again for the first time since 2022,” James said. “Both sides are hitting where it hurts most, and that is how wars get bigger”.

Other fighting in the region could also pull Yemen into a wider war, and vice versa, as the US-Israel war on Iran remains in a deadlock, James told Al Jazeera.

“Yemen is now tied to the wider conflict with Iran. If the US strikes Iran again, Iran will want to use the Houthis to put more pressure on Saudi Arabia,” he said.