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airwars
US Strikes on Yemen Oil Port That Killed 84 Civilians Called 'Apparent War Crime'
Human Rights Watch said the April bombings, which also wounded more than 150 civilians, demonstrated "a callous disregard for civilian lives" and should be investigated.
Jun 04, 2025
The April bombing of a Yemeni oil port by U.S. forces that killed and wounded hundreds of civilians and disrupted the delivery of lifesaving aid to one of the world's most war-torn nations was "an apparent war crime" that should be investigated, a leading international human rights group said Wednesday.
On April 17, a series of U.S. airstrikes destroyed the Ras Isa oil Port on the Red Sea north of Hodeidah, killing 84 people and wounding more than 150 others, according to first responders, local officials, and a probe by the U.K.-based independent monitor Airwars.
The bombings were part of the Trump administration's response to resistance by Houthi rebels to Israel's annihilation of Gaza, which has included ballistic missile strikes targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping related to the key U.S. ally.
"The U.S. has been implicated in laws-of-war violations in Yemen since it began 'targeted killing operations' in 2002."
"U.S. forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists and deprive them of illegal revenue that has funded Houthi efforts to terrorize the entire region for over 10 years," U.S. Central Command said at the time, adding that "this strike was not intended to harm the people of Yemen."
However, the first four U.S. strikes on the port happened while workers were still on the job. Officials said first responders including paramedics and rescue workers who rushed to the scene were killed in subsequent strikes, known as "double taps" in military parlance.
Human Rights Watch said Wednesday that of the strikes' victims, "49 were people who worked at the port, several were truck drivers, and two were civil defense personnel. Others may have been workers' family members. Three were identified as children."
"The list contained one person identified as a 'colonel,' but who was not necessarily a military member," HRW continued. "The Hodeidah branch of the government-owned Yemen Oil Company posted photographs of 49 employees they said were killed."
HRW Yemen and Bahrain researcher Niku Jafarnia said Wednesday that "the U.S. government's decision to strike Ras Isa Port, a critical entry point for aid in Yemen, while hundreds of workers were present demonstrates a callous disregard for civilians' lives."
"At a time when the majority of Yemenis don't have adequate access to food and water, the attack's impact on humanitarian aid could be enormous, particularly after Trump administration aid cutbacks," Jafarnia added.
U.S. airstrikes on Yemen, which averaged around a dozen per month during the final year of the Biden administration, soared to more than 60 in March under President Donald Trump, according to the Yemen Data Project.
Other recent U.S. massacres in Yemen include a series of March 15 strikes on residential areas in the capital Sanaa that killed at least 53 people including numerous women and children, an April 20 strike on the Farwah market in the Shuub neighborhood of the capital Sanaa that killed at least 12 people and wounded 30 others, and the April 28 bombing of a detention center for African migrants in the city of Sa'ada that left at least 68 people dead and dozens more wounded.
These strikes came after President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth loosened the U.S. military's rules of engagement to allow the bombing of a wider range of targets and people. In March, Hegseth announced that the Pentagon's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was established during the Biden administration, would be closed.
Hegseth—who has supported pardons for convicted U.S. war criminals—lamented during his Senate confirmation hearing that "restrictive rules of engagement" have "made it more difficult to defeat our enemies," who "should get bullets, not attorneys," according to his 2024 book The War on Warriors.
The U.S has been bombing and conducting ground raids in Yemen since the beginning of the so-called War on Terror launched by the George W. Bush administration in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Airwars says hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been killed in 181 declared U.S. actions since 2002.
In 2015, then-President Barack Obama announced that U.S. forces would provide "logistical and intelligence support" to the Saudi-led coalition intervening in the ongoing Yemeni civil war on behalf of the national government as it battled Iran-backed Houthi rebels. That assistance included refueling Saudi and Emirati warplanes that were bombing Yemeni targets and killing thousands of civilians while a blockade fueled famine and illness that claimed hundred of thousands of lives.
"The U.S. has been implicated in laws-of-war violations in Yemen since it began 'targeted killing operations' in 2002 against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," HRW said Wednesday. "Those strikes continued until at least 2019 and killed many civilians, including 12 people attending a wedding in 2013. To Human Rights Watch's knowledge, the U.S. has never acknowledged or provided compensation for civilians harmed in this or other unlawful attacks."
The Pentagon has only acknowledged 13 civilian deaths caused by U.S. military action in Yemen since 2002. The Trump administration has been especially tight-lipped about civilian casualties resulting from its operations, a stance some critics have called ironic given that top administration officials including Hegseth discussed highly sensitive plans for attacking Yemen on a Signal group chat in which a journalist was inadvertently included.
"The recent U.S. airstrikes in Yemen are just the latest causing civilian harm in the country over the past two decades," Jafarnia said. "The Trump administration should reverse past U.S. practice and provide prompt compensation to those unlawfully harmed."
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'Serious Disregard for Human Life': Dem Senators Press Hegseth on Yemen Civilian Casualties
"President Trump has called himself a 'peacemaker,' but that claim rings hollow when U.S. military operations kill scores of civilians."
Apr 25, 2025
A trio of Democratic senators on Thursday demanded answers from embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding U.S. airstrikes in Yemen, which have reportedly killed scores of civilians including numerous women and children since last month.
"We write to you concerning reports that U.S. strikes against the Houthis at the Ras Isa fuel terminal in Yemen last week killed dozens of civilians, potentially more than 70," Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) wrote in a letter to Hegseth.
The lawmakers noted that "the United Nations Protection Cluster's Civilian Impact Monitoring Project has... assessed that March 2025 marked the highest monthly casualty count in Yemen in almost two years, tripling the previous month, with a total of 162 civilian casualties."
"If these reports of civilian casualties are accurate, they should come as no surprise," the senators said. "Using explosive weapons in populated areas—as these intense strikes appear to do—always carries a high risk of civilian harm."
"Further, reports suggest that the Trump administration plans to dismantle civilian harm mitigation policies and procedures at the Pentagon designed to reduce civilian casualties in U.S. operations," the letter notes. "And the Trump administration has already dismissed senior, nonpartisan judge advocates, or JAG officers, who provide critical legal counsel to U.S. warfighters, especially when it comes to the laws of war and adherence to U.S. civilian harm mitigation policies."
"The Defense Department also recently loosened the rules of engagement to allow [U.S. Central Command] and other combatant commands to conduct strikes without requiring White House sign-off, removing necessary checks and balances on crucial life-and-death decisions," the senators added. "Taken altogether, these moves suggest that the Trump administration is abandoning the measures necessary to meet its obligations to reducing civilian harm."
The senators asked Hegseth to answer the following questions:
- Has the Department of Defense (DOD) assessed the number of noncombatant and combatant casualties in each of its strikes inside Yemen?
- What has DOD's process been for assessing the acceptable civilian casualties for individual strikes inside Yemen, and assessing estimated levels of civilian harm and collateral damage?
- What role have legal advisers, including JAG officers, played in reviewing the legality of U.S. strikes in Yemen?
- What DOD instructions or orders currently govern department civilian harm mitigation and response actions?
- Were the civilian harm mitigation and response experts at CENTCOM and/or at the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence consulted in planning for these strikes?
- How does the department plan to engage with the families or communities affected by these strikes, including acknowledging civilian harm and exploring avenues for potential redress?
Last month, Hegseth
announced that the Pentagon's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was established during the Biden administration, would be closed. Hegseth—who has
supported pardons for convicted U.S. war criminals—lamented during his Senate confirmation hearing that "restrictive rules of engagement" have "made it more difficult to defeat our enemies," who "should get bullets, not attorneys," according to his 2024 book The War on Warriors.
Asked during his confirmation hearing whether troops under his leadership would adhere to the Geneva Conventions, Hegseth replied, "What we are not going to do is put international conventions above Americans."
During his first administration, President Donald Trumprelaxed rules of military engagement meant to protect civilians as he followed through on his campaign pledge to "bomb the shit" out of Islamic State militants and "take out their families." Thousands of civilians were killed during the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria as then-Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis announced a shift from a policy of attrition to one of "annihilation."
Meanwhile, noncombatant casualties soared by over 300% in Afghanistan between the final year of the Obama administration and 2019.
Overall, upward of 400,000 civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen have died as a direct result of the U.S.-led War on Terror, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
In Yemen, the U.K.-based monitor Airwars says U.S. forces have killed hundreds of civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
The U.S. bombing of Yemen has not received nearly as much coverage in the corporate media as the scandal involving Hegseth's use of Signal chats to share plans for attacking the Middle Eastern country with colleagues, a journalist, and relatives. However, critics say the mounting backlash over the high civilian casualties there is belying Trump's claim of an anti-war presidency.
"President Trump has called himself a 'peacemaker,' but that claim rings hollow when U.S. military operations kill scores of civilians," the senators stressed in their letter. "The reported high civilian casualty numbers from U.S. strikes in Yemen demonstrate a serious disregard for civilian life, and call into question this administration's ability to conduct military operations in accordance with U.S. best practices for civilian harm mitigation and international law."
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Yemen's Health Ministry Says Majority of 53 Killed in US Strikes 'Were Women and Children'
"All because Yemen refuses to let Israelis wipe Palestine out," said one critic.
Mar 17, 2025
The Yemeni Health Ministry said Sunday that most of the more than 50 people killed in U.S. airstrikes over the weekend were women and children as the war-torn Mideast nation braced for more "overwhelming lethal force" promised by President Donald Trump in retaliation for Houthi rebel attacks on American warships, international shipping, and Israel.
Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Yemeni Health Ministry, said that the wave of dozens of U.S. strikes across eight provinces including the capital Sanaa killed 53 people, 31 of them civilians, and wounded more than 100 others.
"The majority of them were children and women," al-Asbhahi toldDrop Site News, adding that the death toll was likely to rise, as rescue workers were still finding victims amid the rubble.
Dozens of civilians, including children and women, were killed in U.S. bombings across Yemen as Trump vows to unleash “overwhelming lethal force” to stop the Houthi naval blockade targeting Israel’s war on Gaza. Read Shuaib Almosawa's report from Yemen: www.dropsitenews.com/p/trump-mass...
[image or embed]
— Jeremy Scahill ( @jeremyscahill.com) March 17, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Yemeni journalist Shuaib Almosawa wrote for Drop Site News:
Scenes filmed inside Saada hospital revealed a chaotic environment, with medical staff rushing injured people, including children and women, on stretchers into hospitals and through corridors. Severely injured children were screaming, some with faces bloodied and burned. Others were covered with dust and blood, suggesting they had been pulled from the rubble. A few small victims were charred beyond recognition.
Nasser Mohammed Saad told Almosawa that he was at a friend's home in Sanaa on Saturday evening celebrating iftar when four U.S. airstrikes directly hit the house next door.
"The house that was hit belongs to a citizen who has nothing to do with anything," Saad said, calling the strikes "a savage and barbaric aggression targeting civilians."
"It only targeted the innocent, terrifying children, women, and the elderly," he added.
The weekend strikes sparked protests in Yemen on Monday, including a massive demonstration in Sanaa attended by at least hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom believe the bombings were carried out on behalf of U.S. allies Israel and Saudi Arabia. Some of the demonstrators held placards with slogans including "Death to America, Death to Israel!"
The Trump administration said the strikes were ordered after Houthi rebels—who are officially known as Ansar Allah and who control Sanaa and most of western Yemen—resumed attacking ships including U.S. naval vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The Houthis began attacking commercial and military ships in the area in response to Israel's annihilation of Gaza.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social site Saturday that he "ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action" against the Houthis, who "have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones."
"Joe Biden's response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going," Trump continued, referring to the series of sustained strikes carried out by his Democratic predecessor along with Britain and Israel that reportedly killed at least dozens of Houthi fighters and at least one civilian. "It has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden."
"The Houthi attack on American vessels will not be tolerated," the president said. "We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective."
Trump also had a message for Iran, which backs the Houthis: "Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won't be nice about it!"
In response to the U.S. strikes, the Houthis said they launched a barrage of drones and missiles at the USS Harry Truman, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, in the Red Sea, and other ships in its carrier group. The U.S. military said that none of its warships were hit and that U.S. warplanes shot down all of the incoming drones.
"We affirm that this aggression will not deter the Yemeni people from continuing to support Palestine and fulfilling their religious and humanitarian duties in supporting the people of Gaza, their resistance, and their heroic fighters," Ansar Allah said in a statement.
U.S. forces have launched drone and other airstrikes against Yemen since the George W. Bush administration. There have also been occasional U.S. ground raids in the Middle Eastern country, including one in January 2017 that killed Nawar al-Awlaki, an 8-year-old American girl whose father and brother were killed in separate U.S. drone strikes during the administration of former President Barack Obama.
According to the U.K.-based monitor Airwars, U.S. forces have killed an estimated 175-300 Yemeni civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
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