SANAA: A Saudi-led coalition battling rebels who hold Yemen’s capital began a unilateral cease-fire Wednesday in the yearslong war, even as the insurgents said they had rejected the proposal.
The Saudi-proposed pause in fighting began at 6 a.m. ahead of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Several similar efforts have failed, and there was no immediate independent confirmation on whether hostilities paused between Saudi-led forces and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The cease-fire announcement late Tuesday had raised immediate doubts because the Iran-backed rebels are skipping an ongoing summit over the war in Saudi Arabia, called by the Saudi-based Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), because it’s taking place on their adversary’s territory. Within hours, Houthi official Mohammed al-Bukaiti rejected the offer over the continuing closure of Sanaa’s airport and restrictions on the country’s ports by the Saudi-led coalition.
“If the blockade is not lifted, the declaration of the coalition of aggression to stop its military operations will be meaningless because the suffering of Yemenis as a result of the blockade is more severe than the war itself,” he wrote on Twitter early Wednesday. The United Nations and others had been pushing the warring sides to reach a truce for Ramadan, as has tenuously occurred in the past. Ramadan is likely to start this weekend, depending on the sighting of the new crescent moon. –Agencies
