For the first time since a United Nations-brokered truce took hold in April 2022, warring parties in Yemen have struck each other’s airports. On 13 July 2026, Yemeni government forces operating within the Saudi-led coalition carried out a series of strikes on Sanaa International Airport, dropping at least five bombs. Three of them hit the airport’s only functioning runway, according to an analysis of satellite imagery.
The Yemeni government said the strikes were intended to stop an aircraft operated by the Iranian private carrier Mahan Air from landing at the Houthi-controlled airport. Hours later, Houthi forces fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at Abha International Airport in south-western Saudi Arabia. A Houthi spokesperson described the attack as a response to the strikes on Sanaa.
Why Sanaa airport matters
Sanaa is the only airport offering international flights to and from territory held by the Houthis, where most of Yemen’s population lives. It is also a primary point of entry for humanitarian staff and relief supplies. Disabling its single working runway therefore affects far more than commercial aviation: it narrows one of the few routes through which aid reaches a country where most people do not get enough food.
A familiar pattern returns
The four-year pause that followed the 2022 truce interrupted, but did not end, a well-established pattern. Between 2014 and 2022, Houthi forces attacked airports inside Saudi Arabia, while the Saudi-led coalition struck critical civilian infrastructure across Yemen. The July exchange repeats that pattern closely enough to raise the prospect of a return to it.
Yemen’s armed conflict is now in its twelfth year. Over that period the warring parties — the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis foremost among them — have killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions inside the country. Accountability or justice for war crimes and for the many violations of the laws of armed conflict committed during those years has been almost entirely absent.
The legal frame
Under international humanitarian law, deliberate attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population constitute war crimes. Civilian airports and other critical infrastructure are protected for as long as they are not used for military purposes, and the burden of establishing that they were falls on the party carrying out the strike.
For readers following Yemen from outside the region, the significance of the July strikes lies less in their scale than in what they signal. A truce that had held for four years without a formal peace agreement has now been tested at its most visible point — and the first target on each side was an airport that civilians depend on.
This report was produced by the HuMedia newsroom.
