SANAA (Dispatches) – Tens of thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of the northern city of Sa'ada Friday to express support for a recent retaliatory military operation against Saudi-led forces in the border region of Najran.
Authorities addressing the rally called for "national reconciliation" and a further deployment of forces against the Saudi aggression, Yemen's Al-Masirah news network reported.
They also warned Riyadh that continued aggression and failure to accept a ceasefire proposed by Yemen would result in more serious strikes from Yemeni forces.
During the rally, demonstrators carried images of Yemeni soldiers who had lost their lives during the recent operation.
Demonstrators also decried "Washington's policies in the region" and called for Muslim and Arab states to unite against the "oppressors", chanting slogans expressing support for the Palestinian cause.
"We are headed to Al-Aqsa," they chanted, referring to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem Al-Quds.
Friday's protests came a week after Yemeni forces, led by the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement, announced the conclusion of a major ground operation against Saudi-led mercenaries dubbed "Victory from God Almighty".
Yemeni forces killed some 200 Saudi-backed mercenaries and took 2,000 others captive, a military spokesman said.
The operation marked one of Yemen's most successful military operations repelling the Saudi-led aggression against the country.
It also came after a major drone attack on the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry, which allegedly shut down more than half of the kingdom's crude production.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Ansarullah movement.
Resistance by Yemeni forces has however pushed the Saudi war into a stalemate, with Yemeni forces increasingly using sophisticated weaponry in retaliatory attacks against the coalition.
On Thursday, Voice of America said efforts to resolve the nearly five-year conflict in Yemen are increasing following drone and missile attacks on Saudi oil facilities last month.
According to the network, regional players and the West see the imperative to prevent a broader conflict from developing.  
VOA said the once rag-tag Houthi fighters and their allies have held off the military might of Yemen's rich Persian Gulf neighbors, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for the past four-and-a-half years. They also have proven to be some of the most effective fighters in the war, it added.
"Some analysts believe the Houthi are taking a two-pronged approach to win the war. On Monday they freed 290 prisoners, including survivors of a Saudi airstrike on a prison, in a bid to promote talks. Last week, though, they claimed, without providing much evidence, to have killed hundreds of troops in an attack on Saudi territory and taken thousands more captive,” VOA said.
"They apparently are trying to maintain military momentum while pressing for a ceasefire. Observers say the Saudis may now see the war south of the border as posing a greater threat than before,” it said.
The network cited Persian Gulf analyst Neil Partrick as saying that interest "in at least winding down aspects of the conflict suggests from the Saudi point of view that there is a recognition that after four-and-a-half years, they can't bomb the Houthi into submission, and that perhaps there has to be some kind of accommodation".
Saudi Arabia recently announced the ceasefire in Yemen after a visit to the region by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker. Schenker said Washington is in talks with Yemen’s Houthis in a bid to end the war, the first such contact in more than four years. The Wall Street Journal reported the Trump administration was trying to coax Saudi Arabia into negotiations with Houthi leaders.
According to Partrick, Saudi airstrikes in Yemen have proven to be "a very limited success, and in many ways counterproductive”, while "there was shock” in the kingdom where he was in the immediate aftermath of the attacks in Abqaiq and Khurais.