Saudi urges ‘maximum restraint’ after Israel strikes Yemen

A giant fire erupts at an oil storage facility following Israeli strikes in Yemen’s Huthi-held port city of Hodeida on July 20, 2024. Israeli warplanes struck the Huthi-controlled Yemeni port of Hodeida on July 20, a day after a drone attack by the Huthi rebels killed a civilian in Tel Aviv, both sides said. (Photo by AFP)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a major foreign player in Yemen’s nearly decade-long civil war, urged restraint on Sunday in the wake of an Israeli strike that the Huthi rebels said killed six people.

The Israeli attack which hit the Huthi-controlled city of Hodeida, “aggravates the current tension in the region and halts the ongoing efforts to end the war in Gaza,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement.

It “called on all parties to exercise maximum restrain and to distance the region and its people from the dangers of war.”

Saudi Arabia mobilized an international military coalition against the Huthis in 2015, although a truce has largely held for the past two years.

Efforts by the kingdom to broker a Yemen peace deal have faltered in the wake of an anti-shipping campaign by the Huthi rebels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The rebels have targeted nearly 90 ships since November which they say is to signal their solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has engaged in a delicate balancing act as the world’s biggest oil exporter tries to extricate itself from the war on its doorstep.

It has not joined a US-led naval coalition to deter Huthi attacks or participated in strikes on Yemen carried out by the US and Britain since January.

Sunday’s foreign ministry statement affirmed the kingdom’s “continuous support for peace efforts in Yemen to spare its people more suffering.”