In 2018, pro-government Yemeni forces advanced towards the port city of Hodeidah, the second most important city controlled by the Houthi rebels after the capital, Sanaa.

Away from Yemen’s mountains, the Houthis were struggling to deal with Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the coastal plain south of Hodeidah and were falling back rapidly towards the city. After four years of war, the government side saw an opportunity to severely weaken the Houthis and possibly knock them out of the war.

But it wasn’t that simple. A battle for Hodeidah would likely lead to deadly urban warfare, and the city’s port is a lifeline for Yemenis with the vast majority of the humanitarian aid and economic goods coming into the country through it.

Humanitarian organisations, backed by Western nations including the United States and United Kingdom, called for a ceasefire to avoid a potential famine, and one was eventually agreed. The Houthis have sat in comfortable control of Hodeidah ever since, and the Yemeni government is weaker than ever. The rebel group is ever more confident that it has emerged victorious in the country’s war and is flexing its muscles beyond Yemen.

Fast forward to this month, and Hodeidah’s port has come under attack – but by Israel.

The July 20 strikes on petroleum storage tanks and a power station near the port killed six Yemen Petroleum Company (YPC) workers and wounded 87 people, according to Houthi authorities. Mustafa Nasr, the chairman of the Studies and Economic Media Center, said more than 100,000 litres (26,400 gallons) of fuel were in the tanks, owned by the YPC or independent businesspeople renting space in the tanks. Nasr estimated the cost of the damage and value of the goods lost at more than $100m.

Israel targeted Hodeidah in response to the most significant Houthi attack to date on Israel – a July 19 drone attack on Tel Aviv, which killed one person and injured 10. The Houthis have threatened further attacks in response to the Israeli strike with spokesperson Mohammed al-Bukhaiti telling Al Jazeera that Israel could expect “a painful reply”.

The US and the UK have conducted air strikes across Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen since January in response to Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea but have refrained from attacking the port. And yet, since the Hodeidah strike, neither have criticised or condemned Israel despite their previous fears over the humanitarian consequences of any attack on Hodeidah.

Vital lifeline

The Israeli attack on Hodeidah, therefore, is a “major turning point in the war” because of the importance of Hodeidah, Yemen analyst Nick Brumfield said.

“The UN established an entire separate body to monitor the ceasefire around Hodeidah for the purpose of preserving port operations,” Brumfield said, referring to the 2018 ceasefire between the Houthis and pro-government forces. “For the international community, Hodeidah port has always been very vital.”

The Hodeidah port is not only important to the Houthis but also to Yemen as a whole.

“The disruption of fuel supplies at the main port of Hodeidah, a critical lifeline for goods and services, has compounded the crisis,” said Raiman al-Hamdani, a Yemen researcher. About 21.6 million people in Yemen require some form of humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations, and more than half the country was already not eating enough food before the Israeli attack.

The port of Hodeidah is a “lifeline for millions of people across Yemen”, Joyce Msuya, acting UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement. “If we are to prevent food and nutrition insecurity from worsening further in the coming months, it is critical that food distribution resumes across Houthi-controlled areas.”

Houthi repercussions

The port’s importance to aid distribution is likely why American and British forces have so far avoided targeting it, Brumfield said.

“The reason the US and the UK haven’t attacked the infrastructure in Hodeidah port before is because they understand the economic and humanitarian importance of the smooth operation of the port,” Brumfield said.

But the Israelis seem to have made a different calculation. While the port is crucial to aid distribution, it is also an important means of economic support for the Houthis.

“Israel knows the Houthis make a lot of money off of fuel imports,” Brumfield said. “A lot of parties, even the Saudis, knew the same things Israel did [about the port], and they still didn’t target the fuel storage because it was clear the humanitarian impact would be severe. This is collective punishment.”

Nasr pointed out that the loss of such a huge quantity of fuel would have knock-on effects for regular Yemenis.

“This strike will impact Yemen’s fuel reserves and, therefore, lead to a shortage,” Nasr said. “The rebuilding cost will be expensive as well as the environmental costs and the [oil spill] to the sea will be damaging, particularly as so many Yemenis rely on fishing in the Hodeidah area.”

A direct strike on petroleum infrastructure is likely to have more of an impact on the Houthis than the sanctions the US imposed on the group and some of its leaders. Those sanctions have largely been financial, focusing on international networks and assets.

“The leadership of the Houthis are not involved in trade directly. They use unknown networks to import and run the organisation’s activities,” Nasr said. “They face some issues related to restrictions on money transfers, but these are not at the level that will cause major financial issues for the Houthis, who control all the functions and bodies of the state.”

And the Houthis are likely to continue their attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea that they say is linked to Israel. The group has already claimed an attack on the Israeli port city of Eilat, but there could potentially be further escalations.

“This is the single most severe attack on the group and the single most severe air strike on Yemen in years,” Brumfield said. “It’s unclear exactly what they’re going to do. Either just expand shipping attacks drastically or try to land a dramatic attack on Israel or on a US base in the region are options, but this isn’t something they’re going to let pass unanswered.”