(Beirut) – The Israeli airstrikes on Yemen’s Hodeidah port on the evening of July 20, 2024, were an apparently unlawful indiscriminate or disproportionate attack on civilians that could have a long-term impact on millions of Yemenis who rely on the port for food and humanitarian aid, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Israeli strikes came a day after a Houthi drone strike, which may amount to a war crime, on a Tel Aviv residential neighborhood that killed one civilian and wounded four others. The Israeli airstrikes, which killed at least six civilians and reportedly injured at least 80 others, hit more than two dozen oil storage tanks and two shipping cranes in Hodeidah port in northwest Yemen, as well as a power plant in Hodeidah’s Salif district. The attacks appeared to cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects. Serious violations of the laws of war committed willfully, that is deliberately or recklessly, are war crimes.
“The Israeli attacks on Hodeidah in response to the Houthis’ strike on Tel Aviv could have a lasting impact on millions of Yemenis in Houthi-controlled territories,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Yemenis are already enduring widespread hunger after a decade-long conflict. These attacks will only exacerbate their suffering.”
Human Rights Watch interviewed 11 people about the Hodeidah attack, including a Houthi official in Yemen’s oil industry and four United Nations agency staff with knowledge of the port. Human Rights Watch also analyzed satellite imagery of the targeted locations and photographs of potential weapons remnants collected by the nongovernmental organization Mwatana for Human Rights. Human Rights Watch sent its preliminary findings to Israeli authorities on July 31 and to the Houthis on August 7. Neither has replied.
The Israeli attacks killed Ahmed Abdullah Musa Jilan, Salah Abdullah Muqbil al-Sarari, Abdul Bari Muhammad Yusuf Ezzi, Nabil Nasher Abdo Abdullah, Abu Bakr Hussein Abdullah Faqih, and Idris Dawood Hassan Ahmed, all Yemen Petroleum Company employees. The Houthi drone strike on Tel Aviv killed 50-year-old Yevgeny Ferder in an apartment building.
An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said that the Houthi drone was an “Iranian-made Samad-3” unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The Samad-3’s guidance and targeting capabilities are unclear, and the Houthi’s target was uncertain, making it difficult to determine whether the strike hit its intended target. The Houthis did not indicate that it was attacking a military objective, but stated that they had struck an “important target,” possibly a reference to the US Embassy branch office in the vicinity.
The Houthi attack, which deliberately or indiscriminately harmed civilians and civilian objects, may amount to a war crime. In recent months, the Houthis have indiscriminately launched numerous missiles at the Israeli port towns of Eilat and Haifa.
Human Rights Watch found that Israeli forces damaged or destroyed at least 29 of the 41 oil storage tanks at Hodeidah port, as well as the only two cranes used for loading and unloading supplies from ships. The airstrikes also destroyed oil tanks connected to the Hodeidah power plant, causing the power plant to stop operating for 12 hours.
A remnant that Mwatana for Human Rights collected at the site bore the markings of Woodward, a US manufacturing company, and matches remnants collected in other contexts of the GBU-39 series bomb made by the US company Boeing. The GBU-39, known as the “small diameter bomb,” is a guided, airdropped munition.
Human Rights Watch also wrote to Woodward and Boeing on August 14 but did not receive a response
The Hodeidah port is critical for delivering food and other necessities to the Yemeni population, who depend on imports. About 70 percent of Yemen’s commercial imports and 80 percent of its humanitarian assistance passes through Hodeidah port, which UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative Auke Lootsma said was “absolutely crucial to commercial and humanitarian activities.” Rosemary DiCarlo, under-secretary-general for the UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, described the port as a “lifeline for millions of people” that should be “open and operating.”
A UN agency official said that about 3,400 people, all civilians, work at the port. The official said on July 30 that he had not “seen a single new vessel entering the port since the attack, which is an alarming indication” for humanitarian aid provision. Other Yemeni ports lack the same capacity to manage imports, and the damage and destruction of the oil tanks, loading cranes, and broader damage to the port’s facilities would take significant funding and time to rebuild.
The Houthi oil industry official said that the early evening strikes were carried out “while dozens of civilians were there, including staff who run these tanks, and truck drivers who were there to take oil to transport to other governorates.”
Human Rights Watch analysis of satellite imagery found that the oil tanks burned for at least three days, posing environmental concerns. Musaed Aklan, an environmental expert at the Sana’a Center, a Yemeni research group, said that “the toxic fumes resulting from the burning of thousands of tons of fuel … undoubtedly pose a serious risk to public health.” He said that oil leaks from the tanks into surrounding areas “risk contaminating nearby water sources, soil, beaches, and marine habitats.”
Hagari, the Israeli military spokesperson, described the target of attack as “Al Hudaydah Port, used by the Houthis as the main supply route for the transfer of Iranian weapons from Iran to Yemen.” He said the Israeli air force “struck dual-use infrastructure used for terrorist activities, including energy infrastructure. Israel's necessary and proportionate strikes were carried out in order to stop the Houthi's terror attacks.” The Israeli government has not provided information to substantiate these claims.
Under UN Security Council Resolution 2534 (2020), the UN Mission to Support the Hodeidah Agreement is mandated to oversee Hodeidah city and port to ensure that no military personnel or material are present. An official for a UN agency that monitors the port said that the agency had never found evidence of a Houthi military presence in the port. He said that another UN agency that inspects vessels before they enter the port had not found any weapons. Two UN officials who operate in Hodeidah noted that Houthi authorities provide prior approval for UN access and accompany UN officials on inspections.
The oil industry official said that the oil tanks at the port are not owned by the Houthis but “by Yemeni businessmen who import the oil and resell it to fuel stations and other institutions.” Aid organizations also own some of the oil and use it for their operations. A WFP official said that the organization lost 780,000 liters of fuel in the attack, which it was using to “support hospital generators” and water and sanitation infrastructure across Yemen. The remaining oil is used for various other public purposes, said the oil industry official and Mwatana. Two UN agency officials said that the oil at the port was imported from the United Arab Emirates.
The Israeli airstrikes also struck the main power plant in Hodeidah. Two people knowledgeable about Hodeidah said that the power plant was the city’s main source of electricity, providing electricity to hospitals, schools, businesses, and homes. The climate in Hodeidah governorate is among the hottest in Yemen, making electricity critical for fans, air conditioning, and refrigeration.
The applicable laws of war prohibit deliberate, indiscriminate, or disproportionate attacks on civilians and civilian objects. An attack not directed at a specific military objective is indiscriminate. An attack is disproportionate if the expected civilian loss is excessive compared to the anticipated military gain of the attack. When used by an armed force or non-state armed group, port facilities, oil storage tanks, and electrical power plants can be valid military objectives.
No information has been made public indicating that weapons or military supplies were being stored at or delivered to the port, or that the oil and electricity, monitored under Resolution 2534, were being diverted to the Houthi military, which would make the Israeli attack unlawfully indiscriminate. However, even if the attack were against valid military objectives, the harm to the civilian population likely made the attack disproportionate. In addition to the reported civilian casualties, the damage to the port facilities would appear to inflict excessive immediate and longer-term harm for large swaths of the Yemeni population who rely on the Hodeidah port for survival.
Israel’s allies, including the United States and the United Kingdom, should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel so long as its forces commit systematic and widespread laws-of-war violations, including in Gaza and in Lebanon, with impunity. Governments that continue to provide arms to the Israeli government risk complicity in war crimes.
The UN Panel of Experts on Yemen has also previously found that Iran is likely supplying weapons to the Houthis. Iran should not provide missiles to the Houthis so long as the Houthis continue to use them in unlawful attacks.
“The Israeli airstrikes on critical infrastructure in Hodeidah could have a profoundly devastating impact on many Yemeni lives over the longer term,” Jafarnia said. “Both the Israelis and the Houthis should immediately halt all unlawful attacks affecting civilians and their lives.”
