Seven people were killed on Sunday when Houthi rebels launched missile and drone attacks on the port of Mokha in Yemen, near the Bab Al Mandeb strait, and the strikes also hit Saudi Arabia’s Jazan refinery. The dead included civilians and military personnel, according to a Yemeni military spokesman. The port attack involved at least 25 projectiles and badly damaged recently restored infrastructure. That’s the part the armed factions always leave behind: broken docks, wrecked storage tanks, and people who don’t get a say in any of it.
The Port, the Refinery, the People
Yemen’s Transport Minister Mohsen Al Omari said the Mokha attack bombed economic zones, employee housing, warehouses, private fuel stations, storage tanks and other port facilities. The Yemeni military spokesman said parts of the dock and facilities used for servicing ships and unloading goods and livestock were damaged. He also said the rebels tried to destroy a solar power plant supplying electricity to Mokha but failed. In other words, the strike reached far beyond any military target and landed squarely on the infrastructure ordinary people depend on to work, move goods, and keep the lights on.
The same day, the Houthis said they had carried out a “large-scale” missile and drone operation against Saudi-backed troops and weapons depots in the Mokha area. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the operation involved a large number of ballistic missiles and drones and caused widespread destruction of weapons and military equipment and killed and wounded dozens of people, including Saudis. The Houthis said the attack was carried out in response to Saudi troop reinforcements and attacks on Yemen's western coast and Taiz province. The language is familiar: each armed camp claims retaliation, each one counts destruction as proof, and civilians are left to absorb the bill.
Red Sea Blockades, State Logic
Earlier on Sunday, Saree said the Houthis had carried out a drone strike on an Aramco refinery complex in Jazan, southern Saudi Arabia, describing it as a “precise” attack. The group said the Jazan strike was in response to what it described as Saudi violations of Yemeni airspace over the Saada and Hajjah provinces. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Ministry said a fire at the 400,000 barrel a day refinery on the kingdom’s west coast was brought under control, with no injuries reported. Aramco’s industrial firefighting teams extinguished the blaze at dawn, the ministry said, and authorities were completing procedures to deal with the incident without disclosing the cause of the fire.
The fire at Saudi Arabia's 400,000-barrel-per-day Jazan refinery was brought under control on Sunday, with no injuries reported. The blaze occurred less than two weeks after an alleged Houthi attack damaged the refinery's gasification complex and tank farm on 27 July. The Houthis have declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, citing the kingdom's alleged siege of Yemen, which Riyadh denies. Attacks on Red Sea shipping and Saudi oil infrastructure have raised concerns about deepening disruptions linked to broader regional conflict near the Strait of Hormuz. The blockade, the counterclaims, the refinery fires, the military briefings — it’s all the same machinery grinding through civilian life.
The Jazan refinery, on the Red Sea near the border with Yemen, has been attacked by the Houthis in recent weeks after they declared an “embargo” on Saudi ports and shipping in the Red Sea, saying it was in response to a Saudi “siege” on rebel-held areas of Yemen. Saudi Arabia led a regional coalition in support of Yemen's internationally recognised government after the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. That coalition, the Houthi authorities, the government they fight, and the ports and refineries caught in between form a neat little hierarchy of force. Different flags. Same monopoly on violence.
Ceasefire on Paper, Escalation on the Ground
The attack on Mokha came a day after government forces attacked the Houthis on several fronts in response to the rebels' recent strikes on government-held areas in central and eastern Yemen. The exchanges mark a sharp escalation between the Houthis and the government after large-scale fighting between the two sides largely subsided following a 2022 ceasefire agreement. A ceasefire agreement can pause the shooting. It doesn’t dissolve the armed structures that keep reproducing it.
On Friday, more than 17 people were killed and many others wounded in a Houthi attack on the central province of Marib, a Yemeni official said. Three others were killed in strikes on areas hosting internally displaced civilians, the official said. Government sources said on Thursday that dozens of Yemeni government troops had been killed in recent Houthi attacks. The Houthis said they fired drones and missiles at troops linked to Saudi Arabia. The numbers keep climbing, and the people with the least power keep getting hit first.
The official statements from both sides read like competing ledgers of damage. One side says it hit weapons depots. The other says it hit troops. One side says it answered a siege. The other says it answered violations. Meanwhile, the port at Mokha, the refinery at Jazan, and the displaced civilians in Marib sit under the same arrangement: armed authorities deciding who gets to move, who gets to fuel, who gets to live with the blast radius.