SANAA (Dispatches) – The military coalition led by the Saudi regime has carried out airstrikes targeting the main entrance to Yemen’s western port city of Hudaydah, some five months after coalition forces, backed by armed militia loyal to the former Yemeni government, launched a full-scale offensive to seize the vital port.
The main gate "was the target of airstrikes... but the port is operating normally,” said the port’s deputy director Yahya Sharafeddin on Tuesday, adding that at least two airstrikes had hit the entrance, leaving three guards wounded.
Other reports said that a single-story guardroom had taken a direct hit from the strikes, which killed at least one soldier.
Back in June, the coalition, backed by loyalists of Yemen’s former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who resigned amid popular discontent and fled to Saudi Arabia three years ago, started a massive offensive against Hudaydah, which is currently under a tight siege imposed by the invaders.
World Food program (WFP) executive director David Beasley arrived in Yemen on Sunday to assess food security in the impoverished Arab country that has been pushed to the brink of famine by more than three years of war.
He visited a school in Hudaydah on Tuesday to oversee the distribution of food coupons which allow families to obtain a basket containing flour, sugar, milk, oil and canned beans.
"Thank God there is calm and security today. We went out to buy things for the house without fear,” said Fattoum Ahmad, a housewife and a resident of Hudaydah city. "There were no explosions or gunfire. I wish the war would not resume.”
It was unclear if the fighting stopped because of Beasley’s visit and whether the UN coordinated with the Saudi-led coalition.
However, the Saudi-led forces on November 1 commenced a fresh wave of airstrikes and ground invasion in an attempt to capture the city of some 600,000 people.
In a separate report on Tuesday, al-Masirah cited Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree as saying that since early November, 867 mercenaries and those loyal to Hadi had been killed in various fronts and 2,150 others were wounded.
He added that 1,224 of Riyadh's mercenaries and Hadi’s militia had either been killed or wounded in Hudaydah alone.
Leading a coalition of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates and Sudan, Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Hadi.
Since the onset of the imposed war, the Yemeni army, backed by Houthi fighters, has been defending the impoverished nation against the brutal aggression.
 
Militants and mercenaries gather on the eastern outskirts of Hudaydah as part of their push to capture the Yemeni port city, November 10, 2018.