Iran Press/Middle East- A day after UN-sponsored talks between the warring parties collapsed, heavy fighting resumed on the outskirts of the port city of Hodeidah and Saudi-led military coalition launched air on the densely-populated city, Reuters reported
The coalition, resumed its offensive following a two-month ceasefire as aid agencies said local UN staff were reporting that the bombardment “is the worst, by far, of any since the Red Sea campaign started in early June,” and involves not only airstrikes and shelling but also bombardment from naval ships.
Before summer, the Saudi coalition launched and then postponed an attack on the city after the aid agencies and the UN urged Riyadh to give peace talks a chance.
The Saudi-led coalition attacks against the war-torn country’s most vital port was launched despite numerous warnings by the international community and prominent aid groups. The renewed attack on Hodeidah again risks cutting off the supply of aid to Yemen.
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Humanitarian staff on the ground reported an “almost continuous presence of Saudi/UAE coalition aircraft” over Hodeidah since Friday night.
The UN had invested heavily in the success of peace talks led byUN special envoy Martin Griffiths, but the talks collapsed before they started after Yemen's Houthi Ansarullah movement says the Saudi regime, which imposes restrictions on Yemen’s airspace, has banned its delegation from flying to attend peace talks.
Pompeo: Saudi, UAE trying to avoid civilian harm in Yemen!
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday he had certified to Congress that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are working to avoid harming civilians in Yemen, a determination required by this year's defense spending bill.
Following the deadly attack on Yemeni children, Democratic members of the US Congress have written three separate letters to Trump, asking him to justify Washington’s continued support for Riyadh in the face of its many atrocities.
The US, the UK and France have been the main providers of weapons and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia and the UAE during the war.
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Pompeo's claim comes as several civilians have been injured or killed by shells and rockets since the outbreak of the war. Many families have fled away. Those who are unable to leave can only stay at home.
According to data from an independent monitoring group, the Yemen Data Project, this was just one of 55 instances of attacks on Yemeni civilian vehicles this year.
The group also suggests that Saudis are targeting civilians on purpose as an extensive analysis of over 18,000 airstrikes from March 2015 to April 2016 shows that almost a third (31%) of the targets were non-military – civilians or civilian infrastructure.
This is while only 36 percent of the attacks targeted military sites. The rest of the attacks were classified as having an unknown target.
Human Rights Watch says the Saudi-led coalition has conducted scores of “indiscriminate and disproportionate air strikes” hitting civilian objects that have killed thousands of civilians “in violation of the laws of war”, with munitions that the US, United Kingdom, and others still supply.
The Saudi-led coalition had also been put on the back foot politically after three separate airstrikes in August killed more than 100 civilians.
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Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the war on Yemen in March 2015 to reinstall the former Saudi-backed Hadi regime and crush the Houthi movement.
The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then. The war and an accompanying blockade have also caused famine across Yemen.
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