Houthis intensified on Tuesday their military operations in Hodeidah governorate as a response to the peace efforts of UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths, who is in Sanaa to persuade the militias into withdrawing from the city of Hodeidah and its strategic harbor.
As a response to the UN envoy’s efforts, rebels planted more mines in the residential areas of Hodeidah and began digging more trenches, which divided the strategic port city into isolated islands.
Rebels also fired a long-range ballistic missile, Badr 1at the Khamis Mushait city in Saudi Arabia and another missile at territories in the Emirates.
Medical sources in Sanaa uncovered that Houthis forced private hospitals to send medical teams to the west coast to help treat patients after rebel-controlled hospitals were unable to offer them additional medical aid.
In Sanaa, rebel leaderships sat on Tuesday with the UN envoy in an apparent lack of enthusiasm, contrary to similar meetings held in the past.
Informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that Houthi militias asked Griffiths to offer them additional time before responding to his plan, which aims to spare the port city the consequences of liberation by force by the Yemeni army and the popular resistance forces, backed by the Saudi-led Arab Coalition.
For its part, the Coalition said on Tuesday that eight permits were issued for vessels heading to Yemeni ports, including a vessel to Hodeidah Port, within the past 24 hours.
The coalition added the “G Muse” tanker was “still being seized by the Houthi militia at Hodeidah Port, in a deliberately disruptive move.
“Five ships in Hodeidah Port are to unload their cargo and six ships waiting to enter. A ship in the port of al-Saleef is unloading its wheat cargo,” a statement issued by the Coalition explained.
