At least 14 Yemeni paramilitary fighters have lost their lives and another 23 have been injured following an attack by the Houthi insurgency in the province of Hodeida, according to local sources cited by the portal South24.
The assault, which the Houthis have not yet commented on publicly, was directed against the Tihami Force, aligned with the internationally recognized Yemeni government. The offensive began on Friday night on the Hays front, near the provincial capital of the same name, and continued until Saturday morning, according to pro-government sources told the media outlet South24.
During the operation, the Houthis managed to seize several positions for a short period of time, but the Tihami Force organized a counterattack that forced the insurgents to retreat. According to these sources, "dozens" of Houthi fighters were reportedly killed or injured in these clashes.
The Tihama Forces are part of the main local contingents of the Joint Forces deployed on the West Coast, along with the National Resistance Forces and the Southern Giants Brigades. They are mainly composed of inhabitants of the Tihama region who took up arms against the Houthis after this group took control of Hodeida and a large part of the western coastline.
The paramilitaries also reported that their units managed to halt a second attempted incursion on the west coast, in clashes that occurred in parallel to the fighting in Hays, which also reportedly caused "dozens of casualties" in the Houthi ranks.
The main attack on the Hays front represents an unusual escalation of violence in recent months. Yemen has been immersed in a civil war since the Houthis took control of the capital, Sana'a, at the end of 2024, although the intensity of the fighting had recently decreased.
However, the war in Gaza and the standoff between Iran, Israel, and the United States have aggravated the conflict again. The Houthis, considered a proxy of Tehran in Yemen, have attacked ships in the Red Sea and launched offensives against Israel as a show of support, they say, for the Palestinian cause.
The combination of these factors has turned Yemen into one of the most humanitarian disaster scenarios on the planet.
Last Friday, the Houthis denounced the violation of Yemeni airspace by Saudi fighter jets, allies of the government recognized by the international community and based in the south of the country, which allegedly tried to prevent the landing of an Iranian civilian plane at Sana'a airport.