Throughout the first half of July, Yemen saw tensions rising in several parts of the country, from Hodeidah’s long Red Sea coast to the northeastern expanse of barren desert between al-Jawf and Marib, and all the way to major southern cities. The situation now seems to be escalating further, thanks to a dispute over Yemen’s territorial airspace involving both the Iran-backed Houthis in the capital, Sanaa, and the Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) in the southern port city of Aden.
This new crisis, the worst since a 2022 U.N.-brokered truce took effect, threatens a return to full-scale civil war, which that fragile agreement was supposed to avert. The standoff began to unfold in mid-June, when the Houthis insisted on opening an air route between Sanaa and Tehran, through which Houthi delegates could travel to attend Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s funeral.
As part of de-escalation measures under the U.N.-brokered truce, only certain flights from the Houthi-controlled Sanaa airport are allowed through the national carrier, Yemenia Airways, to specified destinations. The flights are supposed to be coordinated with the Saudi-led coalition, which supports the PLC and has controlled Yemen’s airspace since 2015.
Despite this arrangement, on July 3, an airplane belonging to the Iranian carrier Mahan Air pierced through Yemeni territorial skies at 4:17 a.m. local time and landed at Sanaa’s airport at 5:22 a.m. Three hours later, it departed for Tehran with Houthi delegates on board to attend Khamenei’s funeral. Saudi-led coalition warplanes attempted to intercept the Mahan Air flight, but Houthi forces, according to a statement from the group, fired air defense missiles, forcing the warplanes to retreat. The group also threatened to strike Saudi territory if Riyadh continued to “impose an air blockade on Yemen.”
The PLC in Aden held an urgent meeting to discuss the Mahan Air flight, which it described as “a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of the Republic of Yemen and a blatant challenge to international law and relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.”
Meanwhile, the Houthi delegates remained in Tehran, and the Iran-backed group in Sanaa took to social media to post more warnings and threats directed at Riyadh. On the ground, the Houthis resumed their attacks along front lines that had been mostly quiet during the truce. These efforts were seen as a way to pressure the PLC and its Saudi backer.
On July 5, Houthi fighters attacked Yemeni government positions in the Hays district, south of Hodeidah. As many as 15 government soldiers were reportedly killed in the fighting and many others wounded. Houthi casualties remain unknown. It was the first such escalation on the country’s western coast since the 2018 Stockholm Agreement, which included a ceasefire deal for Hodeidah and its three ports.
On July 10, one week after the Mahan Air flight, the PLC said it had declined a request from the Iranian government for another plane to enter Yemeni airspace. Yet on July 13, an aircraft took off from Tehran at 10:20 a.m. Iran time, entering Yemen’s skies from the east a few hours later, in broad daylight. As the plane was circling over Sanaa airport, Saudi-led coalition warplanes struck the runway and prevented it from landing. At 2:36 p.m. Yemen time, it finally landed at Hodeidah International Airport.
A couple of hours later in Aden, the Yemeni defense minister appeared in a taped statement, raising combat readiness to maximum levels. In Sanaa, the Houthi military spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said in a recording posted on social media that Riyadh won’t go “unpunished” for its attack on Sanaa airport. He threatened retaliatory strikes and said the group targeted Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia with ballistic missiles and drones.
In southern Yemen, the United Arab Emirates-backed secessionist movement, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), seemed to have exploited the situation and announced it would escalate its protest activities against the PLC in Aden. On July 7, thousands of STC supporters rallied in the city’s Parade Square to mark the “aggression on the south,” referring to the 1994 civil war between North Yemen and South Yemen.