Houthi military escalation in Taiz and Hodeidah and a stifling humanitarian crisis in Sanaa

The Houthi group has resorted to new tricks to compensate for the human bleeding in the military escalation to lure high school students, while hospitals and medical facilities in the kidnapped Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and the areas under its control, have been facing an unprecedented stifling crisis for about a month and a half, represented by the complete filling of morgues and intensive care rooms, amid a strict news blackout.

Medical sources in Sanaa told Asharq Al-Awsat that this worsening crisis is a direct result of the Houthi military escalation and the prominent tactical shift with the entry of drones into the Yemeni army’s equipment, which inflicted heavy human losses among the attackers, noting that the majority of the dead and wounded fell on the combat fronts between the governorates of Taiz and Hodeidah in the southwest of the country.

According to the sources, the group imposes a strict news blackout about the extent of these losses, and this is accompanied by a wave of direct threats to doctors and health sector workers to prevent the leaking of any medical data or statistics, or about refrigerators being crowded with bodies and intensive care rooms filling up with the wounded.

This crisis has affected the lives of sick and critically ill civilians or those injured in accidents. The group's leaders issued strict directives to give absolute priority to its members in intensive care rooms and morgues in major hospitals such as (Al-Thawra, Al-Kuwait, and Al-Jumhuri), in addition to obliging private hospitals to do so.

This medical monopoly has led to hospitals refusing or being unable to receive hundreds of medical cases and forcing those with cases to move for long hours between medical facilities or keep them in private cars.

The sources indicate that the directives included obliging forensic medicine to quickly deal with bodies preserved in cases of murder or traffic accidents, quickly releasing them and allowing them to be buried, or informing the families of their owners of their receipt after allegedly completing investigations, in addition to disposing of the bodies of unidentified persons by burying them.

This massive influx of bodies placed the group's leadership facing a complex dilemma. On the one hand, it is trying to adhere to its ideological and political protocols of honoring its dead with public funeral ceremonies in front of their families and tribes in order to maintain societal loyalty. On the other hand, it is afraid that the large death toll will be exposed in order to avoid the collapse of the morale of its supporters, and to reduce the fears of tribes that are hesitant to send their sons to the battle fronts.

Through intense attacks, the Houthi group seeks to encircle the city of Taiz (southwest) from the western side, with the aim of cutting off the vital artery and the strategic road linking it to the city of Mokha on the western coast near Bab al-Mandab.

The sources revealed that the group was forced to adopt a strategy of “paying funerals in installments,” by organizing limited funerals over long periods of time and in separate areas, to distract attention from the actual size of the human bill.

Other sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the group, which has been facing a deep crisis in traditional mobilization and recruitment operations recently, has resorted to shifting the weight of its attraction towards the educational sector, and has transformed a number of secondary schools and their scientific laboratories into training workshops to teach students the mechanisms of disassembling and assembling weapons.

The Houthi group stressed the use of “scouts teams” for systematic lure operations targeting adolescents and youth. The lure mechanism begins by persuading students and youth to participate in securing the celebrations, gatherings, and vigils that it organizes periodically in squares and squares, in addition to “cultural courses” in its affiliated headquarters or mosques, with the aim of creating a gradual psychological and intellectual impact on them.

During these activities, participants receive financial rewards and meals, and are required to wear military clothing to enhance their sense of belonging.

Later, under the name “reward for discipline,” they are transferred to higher levels that include courses on the use of light weapons, then combat courses and field maneuvers, and these students eventually find themselves on the front lines of fire.

The Houthi group resorted to internal military escalation on a wide number of fronts, but it focused its attacks on the southwestern axes of the country, in an attempt to impose its control over the entire western coast of Yemen and approach the Bab al-Mandab Strait, in response to Iranian efforts to expand the scope of the regional confrontation and the maritime transport crisis and tighten the noose on the movement of energy exports from the region.

Thirty-year-old Egyptian Omar Tariq postpones the decision to get engaged until he can obtain an apartment, even by rent, in light of his economic circumstances that do not allow him to own one. However, even the monthly rent is not easy in light of the high rents that are not commensurate with wages.

Tareq, who currently lives with his parents and siblings in the Maadi neighborhood (south of Cairo), works as an employee in a private company, and his monthly salary does not exceed the minimum wage, which amounts to 8,000 pounds (about 157 dollars), while the rent for “the lowest apartment is 3,000 pounds, in average areas such as Hadayek El Maadi, Tora, or Helwan,” indicating that he does not dare to look for apartments in the Maadi neighborhood in which he grew up; Rents double in this distinctive area.

The housing crisis in Egypt does not revolve around a lack of supply in general. On the contrary, “there is abundance compared to the size of demand,” according to Alaa Fekry, a member of the “Real Estate Investment Division” in the “Cairo Chamber of Commerce,” explaining to Asharq Al-Awsat that the crisis “sums up in the concentration of this abundance in the quality of units directed to the upper classes, while the middle class and below suffer from finding units that match their financial capabilities.”

Fikri pointed out that “with the rise in housing unit prices, middle and lower class people tended to rent, and the increase in demand led to prices rising in a way that was disproportionate to incomes.”

More than 212,000 housing units were launched, whether by real estate developers or the state, during 2024/25, with investments amounting to 245.3 billion pounds (the dollar is about 51 pounds), according to the Statistics Center.

Observers link the rise in rental prices to the increased demand for them by expatriates of different nationalities, which has led to jumps in prices in some areas, but what is striking is that despite the decline in the number of expatriates stationed in the “Faisal area,” for example, rental prices are still high.

Aside from expatriates, urban researcher and director of the Urban Observatory, Yahya Shawkat, believes that the housing crisis is essentially a crisis in purchasing power. Due to the rise in real estate prices relative to income levels, especially for the poor and middle-income people, over decades.

The founder of the “Umran Observatory” adds, “The majority of Egyptians who own a home own it through self-construction and not purchase, whether by building in the countryside or new cities. Construction takes place over years according to the ability and savings of the owners.” However, ownership through purchasing from the market is relatively limited, and did not exceed a third according to the 2017 census, and this is the result of weak purchasing power.”

Another aspect of the housing crisis in Egypt lies in “a large sector of Egyptians resorting to working abroad and transferring their savings to buy real estate, which created two real estate markets and an unfair competition between two purchasing powers,” according to Shawkat, who added: “This is in addition to the government’s policy of encouraging the internationalization of the Egyptian real estate market to bring in hard currency, which has increased the negative impact on local purchasing power.”

Forty-year-old Rabab Muhammad has not known the meaning of stability and reassurance in a residence since her marriage about 10 years ago. She told Asharq Al-Awsat that during this period she moved between 4 different apartments, all in the “Ard Al-Liwa area” in Giza Governorate.

Rabab works in one of the gyms in the Haram area, and her husband was a waiter in a restaurant before he fell ill, so that the income of the family that does not include children is limited to the wife’s salary. She says: “My salary is 4,000 pounds, I pay 3,500 pounds, and we live on loans,” noting that 3 years ago, rent was approximately a third of her income, but now it swallows up her entire salary.

Economist Atef William considers the housing crisis to be one of the deepest crises in Egypt, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that “given rental values, unit prices, and costs of living, the minimum that provides dignity for the citizen must not be less than 20 thousand pounds.”

The “Social Housing” project in Egypt, which is based on providing support to young people and families to obtain a housing unit through installments over long periods, began in 2014, and despite launching more than 600,000 units for low-income people, this did not solve the housing crisis for many, including Omar Tariq and Rabab Muhammad, who cannot afford the cost of the reservation advance, which has now reached 50,000 pounds.

Recently, the state announced the offering of apartments on a rental basis, with the opportunity to own ownership later, and the state will soon offer 30,000 units as a first tranche. Shawkat welcomes this government proposal, considering it “a step that improves access to units.” Because the units sold with real estate financing are actually considered for middle-income people; “Given that a minimum amount of income, wealth or savings is required to meet the deposit.”

But a member of the Real Estate Investment Division, Alaa Fikri, believes that “this is not an effective solution given the large scale of the crisis and the small numbers presented,” doubting that the state will be able to repeat this experiment periodically, given that the money for these apartments is considered unrecoverable, at least in the short term, which will create a financing crisis. On the other hand, he saw that the solution was “granting facilities to developers to build and offer units for rent that suit the capabilities of the lowest segments,” and commented, saying: “The government is required to think about solutions to put an end to the crisis.”

Government intervention with new solutions is also supported by Shawkat, saying: “We had proposed in the Urban Observatory, at the time of amending the real estate tax law, to stimulate rent by exempting landlords from the tax if they rent their units socially; That is, at prices lower than the market price, subject to controls set by the government.

The same thing is confirmed by economic researcher Muhammad Mahdi Abdel Nabi, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that “the state owns the land, and it is authorized to propose solutions to the housing crisis, which there is no immediate solution to solve automatically without official intervention, in light of the decline in purchasing power,” pointing out that “real estate exists in large numbers, and its condition is almost characterized by stagnation, and it is treated as a store of value, not houses for housing, and this deepens class disparity and societal security.”

The massive Houthi attack on the fronts of the western coast of Yemen does not appear to be just a new attempt to test the lines of contact, in light of the expansion of the scope of operations between south of Hodeidah and southwest of Taiz, and the group’s simultaneous use of ground attacks, ballistic missiles, drones, and booby-trapped boats.

After years of relative calm that followed the 2022 truce, the Iran-backed Houthis chose a geographically and militarily highly sensitive area to launch one of their most violent attacks since then, targeting government forces’ positions in Al-Barh, Al-Kadha, Maqbanah, Al-Ahtoub, and Jabal Ghubari, in conjunction with the bombing of Al-Mokha, Al-Khawkhah, Al-Waziyah, and other areas on the West Coast.

The nature of the movement and the distribution of attacks indicate that the group wants to achieve more than one field goal at the same time. At the forefront is the pressure on the city of Taiz from the west, cutting off or threatening the road linking it to the port of Mokha, and pushing government forces to distribute their capabilities on a wide front extending from the Taiz countryside to southern Hodeidah, while keeping the sea lanes under threat.

On Friday, the Yemeni Armed Forces regained Khazan Hill in Jabal Habashi District, west of Taiz Governorate, a strategic location during violent confrontations with the Houthi group, coinciding with the intensification of battles on the Maqbana and Al-Kadha fronts, and the arrival of military reinforcements to government forces, at a time when the Houthis escalated their bombing of civilian areas in the vicinity of Al-Mokha overlooking the Red Sea.

Official military sources said that the armed forces continue to engage in violent confrontations with the Houthis on the Maqbana and Al-Kadha fronts, as part of operations aimed at confronting the group’s attacks and movements on the fronts west of the governorate.

The sources added that the confrontations coincide with the arrival of military reinforcements for government forces, in light of the continued Houthi movements and the group's attempts to strengthen its positions on the fronts west of Taiz.

In parallel with the field escalation, on Friday, the Houthis targeted with a ballistic missile a restaurant in the Al-Mokha Junction area, west of Taiz Governorate, which led to civilian casualties, in addition to major material damage to the restaurant and neighboring properties.

Official sources reported that the missile hit the restaurant frequented by civilians in the Mokha Junction area, causing casualties and damage to the place and surrounding facilities, while the specialized teams began procedures to treat the injured and assess the damage resulting from the bombing.

Sources from both sides reported on Friday, citing Agence France-Presse, that more than 80 people had been killed in the clashes since Thursday, while no unified official toll was issued by the Yemeni government or the Houthis.

A Yemeni military official said that 24 government forces were killed, while another military official spoke of the killing of 15 Taiz axis forces, while medical sources in areas controlled by the Houthis said that hospitals received 42 dead.

The focus comes on southwest Taiz, in an area that represents a link between the city and the coast. Therefore, controlling advanced positions in Al-Kadha, Al-Barah, and Maqbanah does not mean, in the military calculation, the acquisition of additional lands only, but also getting close to one of the most important lines of movement and supply between Taiz and Al-Mokha.

Government forces had said that the Houthi attack aimed to control the road linking Taiz and Al-Mokha, which gives this road central importance in understanding the goals of the recent escalation.

Pressure on this path could place the city of Taiz under more pressure from the west. It could also confuse the movement of forces on the coast, forcing them to deal with a simultaneous land threat instead of focusing on protecting the ports and coastal areas.

Hence, the Al-Barrah, Toil, and Maqbah fronts appear to be connected, in the Houthi calculation, to what is happening south towards the coast, and not as separate sectors of the battle lines.

The government forces, the National Resistance, and the Taiz axis thwarted Houthi infiltration attempts and attacks, before moving to counterattacks with artillery support and joint reinforcements. Government forces announced the killing, wounding and capture of a number of Houthis and the destruction of military vehicles. Sources also spoke of the killing of 3 prominent field commanders within the group's ranks.

But most importantly, the Houthis were not satisfied with putting pressure on the land lines. They fired about 14 ballistic missiles towards areas in Mokha, Al-Khawkhah, and the western coast, including a missile that targeted the Al-Wazi’iyah Bridge linking the coast to Taiz. The group also targeted Karim School in Al-Wazi’iyah, which led to damage to the building, but no casualties were recorded.

The importance of the attack does not stop at the Taiz and Mokha borders. The confrontations extended to the south of Hodeidah, especially in the direction of Hays and Al-Khokha, which geographically opens directly to the western coast and is close to the shipping lines in the southern Red Sea.

This deployment gives the Houthis an opportunity to pressure government forces from a wider area, and also allows the group to keep the sea threat part of the land battle. This was clearly demonstrated in the use of booby-trapped boats in parallel with missiles and drones.

Naval forces thwarted an attack with a booby-trapped boat that attempted to target the port of Mocha, while government forces announced that 3 Houthi drones were shot down during the confrontations.

The Houthis do not directly control the coastal areas overlooking Bab al-Mandab, but they control the city of Hodeidah north of Mokha, and they have previously used the Red Sea as a platform to attack ships and disrupt navigation since the outbreak of war in Gaza in 2023.

Therefore, any Houthi ground expansion in the areas overlooking the coast acquires importance that goes beyond internal Yemeni geography, and is consistent with the Iranian escalation in the Strait of Hormuz and in the rest of the region.

The Yemeni government warned in August of Houthi plans to control the coast of Bab al-Mandab, which gives the current escalation a regional dimension, especially since Bab al-Mandab represents a major corridor for trade and energy movement between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

In addition to the potential geographic gains, the offensive has another goal: testing the ability of government forces to handle a broad and coordinated operation, after years of relative stalemate on most lines of contact.

The group did not open a single axis, but rather launched simultaneous attacks in a number of sectors, and reinforced them with missile bombardment, marches, and a booby-trapped boat, in an attempt to confuse the military decision and distribute the defensive effort to more than one target.

According to military sources, it also sent large reinforcements towards the village, an indication that it did not deal with the attack as a limited operation targeting a specific military site.

But the attack clashed with the preparedness of the government and joint forces. The sources said that the forces absorbed the first strike and launched counterattacks, while government forces announced that they had shot down drones, destroyed Houthi vehicles, and captured a number of the group's members.

This result gains importance for the Houthis’ calculations. Their success in opening a gap on this front could have given them field and political momentum, while the failure of the attack, or its transformation into battles of attrition, would impose a high human and military cost on them.

The confrontations have already shown losses among the group's ranks, including 3 prominent field commanders, at a time when military sources spoke of about 50 members killed, wounded and captured on the Maqbana and Al-Kadha fronts.

On the other hand, the battles pushed the residents of villages in Maqbana and Al-Kadha, including those displaced in the camps, to flee again, amid a state of fear as a result of the bombing and confrontations.