Sanaa Gripped by Fear as New Military Campaign Threatens to Turn Capital Into a Battleground

Sanaa, Yemen – At midnight on Tuesday, airstrikes shook Yemen's capital Sanaa – a city that had been largely calm since a ceasefire between the internationally recognized government and the Houthis was announced in 2023.

Shortly before, the head of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, Rashid al-Alimi, announced a new military campaign called "Yemen's Dawn" aimed at retaking Sanaa from the Houthis, who have controlled the city since September 2014.

However, government ground forces remain hundreds of miles from the capital and are bogged down in fighting with the Houthis on the western coast and around the Taiz area. That means strikes on Houthi positions in Sanaa must be carried out from the air, and the bombing campaign has caused civilian casualties.

On Monday, an airstrike on the Sa'wan area of Sanaa province killed a child and wounded seven other civilians.

The Yemeni government has vowed to continue the attacks until it achieves its objectives, particularly the recapture of Sanaa. Whatever the political views of the capital's residents, most fear their city – far from the front lines – will once again become a battlefield.

Memories of Operation "Decisive Storm"

Memories remain vivid of Operation "Decisive Storm," launched by the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis in March 2015, when hundreds of civilians in Sanaa were killed in airstrikes.

Since the Yemeni government began its new campaign, dozens of airstrikes have rained down on the capital, including an attack on Sanaa International Airport that killed two employees. Both campaigns have targeted Houthi positions.

Ghamadan Abood, 30, a delivery worker living in Sanaa, said the new wave of attacks on the city has heightened residents' fears. "When I learned about the new campaign on Sunday, my sense of safety vanished," he told Al Jazeera. "At any time and anywhere, airstrikes can hit, and civilians can become the next victims."

On Monday, Abood was riding his motorcycle when airstrikes hit Sa'wan, just two kilometers away. With Houthi military facilities believed to be located inside the city, and with the government sometimes striking residential areas, the bombings have exposed the vulnerability of civilians in Sanaa.

"The attacks may target missile launchers, military equipment or infrastructure, but some of these facilities may be near residential areas, farms or roads. So innocent people can be killed, wounded or terrified," Abood said.

Saudi Arabia – which backs the Yemeni government – has also been hit by a steady stream of missile attacks from the Houthis, including two on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport, the latest of which killed 12 people on Saturday.

On Tuesday, the Saudi-led coalition said Sanaa, Saada and Amran were among the Houthis' main sources of missile threats. The coalition stressed that its ongoing military operations aim to limit the group's ability to fire missiles at the kingdom.

Fears of Having to Leave Home

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 200,000 people have been displaced since fighting in Yemen escalated in recent weeks. Most of those forced to flee their homes came from the southwestern province of Taiz, where ground fighting between government forces and the Houthis is fiercest.

Saleh Ayidh, 50, a Sanaa resident and father of five, fears the new airstrikes will also force people in the north to leave their homes. "Today, we consider Sanaa a safe place far from the front lines. To me, nowhere in Yemen is safe, especially in the north, and war can spread anywhere," he told Al Jazeera.

At the start of the Saudi-led coalition's campaign against the Houthis in March 2015, Ayidh's family left the city for a house in the countryside. They lived there for six months, away from the assault on Yemen's capital. "Now we don't know what will happen to us. We will decide whether we need to leave the city if the airstrikes continue to increase," Ayidh said. "There is no safety, life is very hard."

Stockpiling Food and Fuel

The recent airstrikes are seen by many in Sanaa as a sign that war has returned to the capital, prompting residents to rush to stockpile food and fuel. When Operation "Decisive Storm" began in 2015, the prices of goods and fuel rose because of logistical disruptions and panic buying. A similar trend is repeating in Sanaa after the resumption of conflict.

Nashwan, 24, a grocery store owner, has increased his stock of essentials such as rice, cheese, milk, biscuits, cooking oil and sugar before they become scarce. He has also stockpiled gasoline, buying 100 liters for his minibus in case a fuel crisis hits the capital. "These items may become expensive in the coming days. If the war continues to escalate, buying them will cost more," Nashwan said. "I don't want to feel the impact of war right away."

Any closure of roads or drop in imports caused by the war and the Saudi naval blockade of Houthi-held areas would pose major challenges for civilians. "Rising food and fuel prices are a real concern for the entire population amid the war and will make Yemen's humanitarian situation worse," Wafiq Saleh, executive director of the Taiz-based Yemen-Gulf Research Center, told Al Jazeera.

Last week, the United Nations World Food Programme warned that three-quarters of families in some parts of Yemen are going hungry. There are fears that the escalating conflict will lead to a more severe food crisis across Yemen, which the WFP has described as "absolutely devastating."

Fighting in Yemen

Despite the internationally recognized government's optimism when it announced the "Yemen's Dawn" campaign, few in Sanaa believe the government can retake the capital from the Houthis any time soon.

Raiman al-Hamdani, a London-based Yemen analyst, said government forces, though large on paper, remain spread across multiple fronts, while their soldiers use outdated equipment. "They can hold the line but cannot push the Houthis out of their solid mountain strongholds," Raiman told Al Jazeera last week.

Fuad Ali, 40, a university graduate in Sanaa, believes the Saudi-backed government has lost public trust, especially with its claim that it can retake the capital after suffering a string of humiliating military setbacks on the coast in recent weeks. "The government failed to capture the coastal province of Hodeidah or the desert province of Al-Jawf. Fighting there could be easier because of the terrain. How can they retake mountainous Sanaa?" Ali told Al Jazeera.

He also believes the "Yemen's Dawn" campaign will bring more "destruction to the country's infrastructure and increase civilian casualties." Ali doubts the campaign will bring the government back to Sanaa. But he also believes the government and the Saudi-led coalition have learned lessons from 2015, when the enormous civilian toll from airstrikes drew international condemnation.

"I remain optimistic that the Yemen's Dawn campaign will not devastate Sanaa the way Operation Decisive Storm did," Ali said.