Yemen is edging closer to a renewal of all-out war between the Houthis and the internationally recognized government. Amid a rising civilian death toll and mounting military casualties, the UN Special Envoy for Yemen warned that the country faces “a greater risk of a return to large-scale conflict than at any time since the UN-brokered truce of April 2022.”

Since the confrontation over Sana’a Airport in July, fighting on the frontlines has intensified. Houthi forces have stepped up their use of drones, missiles, and increasingly sophisticated intelligence to hit military positions, supply lines, and civilian areas in Marib, Taiz, and on Yemen’s West Coast, including repeated attacks on the port city of Al-Makha. The Houthis have also renewed direct attacks on Saudi Arabia, the government’s main backer, and sought to frame the recent escalation in violence as a conflict primarily with Riyadh. This has included several Houthi drone strikes on Saudi Aramco oil facilities and against alleged Saudi-linked vessels in the Red Sea.

Rashad al-Alimi, head of the government’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), has warned the Houthis to de-escalate or face consequences, stating that the government is now more unified, with its military and security forces operating under a single command. The escalation is putting the unity and discipline of the various government forces to the test, with a marked shift in battlefield tactics driven by an increased use of drones and intelligence supplied by Saudi Arabia.

The broader political objectives behind this escalation remain unclear. Are the Houthis focused on territorial gains inside Yemen? Are they using the escalation to gain leverage with Saudi Arabia ahead of a possible resumption of negotiations? Or is the group’s recent escalation more linked to support for its ally, Iran, in its ongoing conflict with the US and Israel? There are questions on the government side as well. Are Riyadh and the government preparing for a larger confrontation with the Houthis? Or are they simply seeking to strengthen their levels of deterrence while they build a more unified and capable fighting force?

In this collection of analyses, Sana’a Center experts examine the motivations and broader implications of a potential return to full-scale war in Yemen.

So far, the government and its Saudi ally appear satisfied with how they are managing the escalation, pairing restraint with active defense and deterrence. This approach will likely hold so long as the Houthis do not cross the red line of initiating a broad ground operation.

Throughout August, the Houthis have calibrated their domestic escalation to trap the internationally recognized government and its Saudi ally in a strategic dilemma: either undermine the government’s standing by forcing it to absorb blows it cannot reciprocate, dissipating any popular or international confidence in its abilities; or draw it into battle before it has achieved the combat readiness that it has been rebuilding since January.

In either case, the Houthis will continue to press their military advantage, pushing Yemen to the brink of a full-scale war. They seek to extract a new deal from Saudi Arabia that meets their political conditions, and to ensure that their terms are included in any future Iranian-American understanding.

President Rashad al-Alimi alluded to this dilemma, stating that “the state will no longer allow the militias to monopolize the decision to initiate confrontation, its timing, its location, and its scale […] they must understand that the phase of cost-free aggression is over.” The government’s response is accordingly geared toward delivering a proportionate response to Houthi strikes. This has included a display of drone capabilities, which introduced a new element into the conflict and has given the government the capacity to inflict painful blows on Houthi military capabilities, both materiel and personnel.

Anticipating a preemptive ground battle, the government has activated all armed formations in Marib and on the West Coast, denying the Houthis the opportunity to isolate one front at the expense of another. Even the southern Giants Brigades, which the Houthis have so far avoided provoking, conducted military maneuvers to affirm their readiness to enter the battle.

When it comes to the government’s combat readiness, the Houthis appear to have miscalculated. Government forces have become more operationally integrated following the formation of the Supreme Military Committee in January of this year, and have received high-level technical support and arms from Riyadh over the past three months. According to private sources, over the past week Riyadh has, to an unprecedented degree, doubled its arms and logistical support to its local allies across all fronts. In his latest statement, National Resistance forces leader and PLC member Tareq Saleh indicated that more weapons will enter the theater of operations in the coming days.

So far, the government and its Saudi ally appear satisfied with how they are managing the escalation, pairing restraint with active defense and deterrence. This approach will likely hold so long as the Houthis do not cross the red line of initiating a broad ground operation, which would push the government and the Saudi-led coalition to declare war in response.

Aden and Riyadh may need to prepare for a third scenario, one falling between open war and calibrated escalation, whereby the Houthis target civilian assets in government areas, such as ports, airports, and ministries. Then, the government would need more than drones, and may be compelled to test new levels of deterrence.

Although the prevailing narrative attributes the Houthis’ latest escalation to their compliance with Iranian threats to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait, it is far more likely that the Houthis are acting in their self-interest to seal an agreement with Saudi Arabia along the lines of the roadmap discussed in 2023.

Saudi Arabia has skilfully navigated the troubled waters stirred by the US-Israel war against Iran. Sensing that Israeli and US designs risked dragging the Arab Gulf states into a reckless war with Tehran, the Kingdom sought to keep itself as far removed from the conflict as possible, while initiating a tectonic shift in the region’s geopolitics through the Mecca Agreement. For decades, Saudi Arabia has taken steps to reduce its security dependence on the US. Saudi leaders’ visits to Beijing and Moscow from 1998 to 2019 produced economic and then, gradually, military agreements that reduced Saudi reliance on US military cooperation. The Iran War provided a pretext to build on a 2025 Mutual Defense Agreement with Pakistan, culminating in the broader Mecca Agreement with Pakistan and Turkey, a new axis that addresses the security concerns of the three US allies independently of Washington.

Saudi Arabia may have navigated the Iran War well, but the Houthis are pulling it back into another conflict in Yemen. Although the prevailing narrative attributes the Houthis’ latest escalation to their compliance with Iranian threats to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait, it is far more likely that the Houthis are acting in their self-interest to seal an agreement with Saudi Arabia along the lines of the roadmap discussed in 2023. This settlement would have allowed the Houthis to retain, at a minimum, unilateral control over the northern territories they currently hold.

The roadmap suited the Houthis. The stipulated withdrawal of Saudi Arabia from the conflict and a power-sharing agreement among the Yemeni parties offered little prospect for the anti-Houthi forces to preserve their share of power against a well-armed militia that controls the capital and national state institutions. It would have been a repeat of the 1970 peace agreement that signaled the victory of the Republican side in the North Yemen Civil War.

But after failing to bring Saudi Arabia back to the roadmap, the Houthis first made threats, then acted upon them, targeting Saudi interests and declaring a blockade on Saudi ports, disrupting the flow of oil out of Yanbu, now the source of more than 60 percent of Saudi oil exports. But their attacks were measured so as not to provoke Riyadh into wholesale war. Instead, they have escalated where it is safe: inside Yemen. Riyadh has kept its cool throughout the frantic efforts of the Houthis, recognizing that the Houthis are desperate to get a deal done before Iran makes concessions at their expense in an anticipated peace agreement with the US. Yemen is not as critical to Iran as Iraq or Lebanon. The Saudis will wait the Houthis out.

The Houthis are pursuing their own domestic interests while simultaneously advancing objectives that serve Iran’s regional strategy. This convergence, however, may not last.

The Houthis have framed their recent escalation as an attempt to lift what they refer to as the “Saudi blockade,” but the confrontation has rapidly expanded across several Yemeni frontlines, raising questions about their broader motivations.

The renewed clashes appear to be driven by two overlapping calculations. First, they reflect the Houthis’ desire to break the stalemate that has prevailed since the April 2022 truce, which failed to produce a settlement addressing their financial demands. Second, the timing and nature of the escalation appear to be closely tied to Iran’s goals and broader regional confrontation.

So far, the Houthis have calibrated their escalation. The group has targeted Jizan in southern Saudi Arabia and carried out a limited number of attacks on shipping allegedly linked to Saudi Arabia, while their domestic operations have relied largely on missiles and drones rather than a sustained ground offensive. This suggests that, at least for now, the objective is more about putting pressure on Saudi Arabia and increasing leverage than about fundamentally altering the military balance on the ground.

Pragmatism based on economic concessions is crucial to this calculus. Houthi rhetoric has repeatedly placed the responsibility for economic hardship in areas under their control on Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognized government, while tying the resolution of unpaid salaries to demands for a share of Yemen’s oil and gas revenues and other national resources.

The Houthis’ recent escalation aligns both with the group’s partnership with Iran and its own regional ambitions. Tehran provides access to weapons, training, technical assistance, and military expertise, while gaining an important foothold on Saudi Arabia’s southern border and a partner capable of threatening shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait. The Houthis have demonstrated both the capability and willingness to operate within Iran’s regional strategy, as demonstrated during the Gaza War.

The relationship is also ideological. Alignment with Iran has increasingly become part of the Houthis’ political and ideological identity, and is deeply embedded in their decision-making. The movement has adopted key elements of the Iranian revolutionary model and sees itself as part of a broader ideological struggle, rather than just a Yemeni political faction. The relationship with Iran is therefore vital to the Houthis’ ambition to cement their transformation from a local power to a dominant regional player.

In the current escalation, pragmatic and ideological calculations appear to be moving in the same direction. The Houthis’ ideological and pragmatic interests reinforce each other, as their survival as an ideological group and their power inside Yemen require not only Iranian military support but also a strong Iran. The Houthis are thus pursuing their own domestic interests while simultaneously advancing objectives that serve Iran’s regional strategy. This convergence, however, may not last.

Should the confrontation between Iran and the United States escalate, Tehran may see Yemen not just as a bargaining chip, but as one of several potential fronts for exerting pressure. Tehran has expanded the current conflict into neighboring territories and today appears ready for a prolonged confrontation. The conflict could manifest in ways beyond missile launches, including destabilizing neighboring states, such as Bahrain and Kuwait.

A similar risk exists on the domestic front. Any major Houthi offensive inside Yemen, particularly if accompanied by an increase in attacks against Saudi territory or Saudi interests, could create stronger incentives for more direct Saudi intervention in Yemen. This could potentially extend beyond air strikes to include greater reliance on Yemeni ground troops.

Yemen can no longer be understood as a primarily local conflict influenced by regional actors. Its internal dynamics and the regional confrontation are now deeply intertwined. Whether the Houthis are seeking economic concessions or acting on behalf of Iran is ultimately becoming less relevant – in both cases, the effects are unpredictable and deadly.

In recent years, we have become dangerously desensitized to numbers that speak of human grief. But Yemen’s metrics are arresting by virtue of their sheer scale. Twenty-two million people require humanitarian assistance, and 18.3 million face acute food insecurity. It is against this backdrop that the potential of a return to all-out war in Yemen is unfolding.

War and Yemen have become synonymous. For those not closely following developments in the country, news of a potential “resumption” of war in Yemen might seem confusing. Yemenis have not, after all, experienced anything close to peace in over a decade. With international attention consumed by security concerns in and around the Red Sea, the country’s humanitarian crisis has become secondary. We are long past the days when high-profile Oxfam campaigns brought Yemen’s humanitarian toll into the public consciousness across Western capitals. But the population’s suffering has not abated – it has simply lost its audience.

Last month, in our Sana’a Center editorial, we purposely returned to the subject of hunger. A war economy serving those in power, fragmented and mismanaged governance, the withdrawal or subversion of humanitarian activities, and severely underfunded aid plans are pushing Yemeni families further into destitution. In recent years, we have become dangerously desensitized to numbers that speak of human grief. But Yemen’s metrics are arresting by virtue of their sheer scale. Twenty-two million people require humanitarian assistance, and 18.3 million face acute food insecurity. It is against this backdrop that the potential of a return to all-out war in Yemen is unfolding.

With the latest round of escalation, the fiercest since the 2022 truce, casualties have been mounting. The month started with an attack on government forces by the Houthis in Hadramawt and Marib, which led to an officially reported death toll of around 45, while hospitals across the area reportedly received hundreds of dead and wounded. A large number of casualties have also been reported on frontlines in Hudaydah and Taiz. The Houthis have held public funeral processions for hundreds of fighters, with many reportedly killed in government drone attacks.

Yemeni civilians have already been caught up in the escalating violence. Port workers, IDPs in temporary camps, and children have been among those affected by Houthis attacks since August 6. Those killed on the frontlines on both sides — many of them pushed into war to become breadwinners — leave behind families who have lost their loved ones and potentially their only source of income. The ripple effects will be immediate. Should a ground offensive take place, the human cost will rise dramatically.

As renewed war looms in Yemen, the Pentagon has, in a cruel twist of fate, this month taken the unusual step of releasing a review of America’s 2025 military operation in the country, which admitted that US strikes had killed 153 Yemeni civilians and wounded almost 250 others. Those figures stem from only three incidents out of over 1,000 reported strikes. The real death toll is unquestionably higher. It seems unlikely that any of the relevant parties today — local, regional, or indeed international — are prioritizing Yemen’s increasingly vulnerable population or its unaddressed humanitarian crisis as they gamble with a return to full-scale conflict. But the consequences of that omission could be severe. Yemenis across the country are poorer, hungrier, and, understandably, much angrier than they were over a decade ago when the war began.

This analysis is part of a series of publications produced by the Sana’a Center and funded by the government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The series explores issues within economic, political, and environmental themes, aiming to inform discussion and policymaking related to Yemen that foster sustainable peace.