Peace and Justice Post

Yemen’s Red Sea blockade in defense of Palestinians is squarely supported by international law. But the country is being ruthlessly bombed by the U.S. to ensure Israeli impunity for its continued siege and genocide in Gaza. 

By Craig Mokhiber, April 1, 2025

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An F-18 takes off from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to strike Houthi targets in Yemen, Feb. 3, 2024. (Photo: U.S. Central Command)

The U.S. is bombing Yemen because Yemen is acting, as required by international law, to stop the genocide and unlawful siege in Palestine. 

This is not an editorial opinion. It is a statement of both law and fact. 

Neither of these facts has been featured in the reporting or commentary of Western media corporations, let alone in the statements of perpetrator governments like the U.S. 

Because to perpetrate a genocide in plain sight requires the suppression of the truth and the obscuring of the law. 

But international law is clear. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found, and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has affirmed, that all states are obliged to cut off all military and economic support both for the Israeli regime’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and for its genocidal assault on the people of occupied Gaza. 

These legal findings are rooted in the highest-level rules of international law (so-called jus cogens and erga omnes obligations), including the prohibition of genocide, of aggression, of the acquisition of territory by force, and of acts that violate the right to self-determination. 

And these obligations bind all states. Yemen has acted concretely to meet them, by imposing a blockade on ships destined to resupply the Israeli regime at the Red Sea port of Eilat, and explicitly in response to the Israeli-imposed siege and genocide in Palestine. 

In sum, Yemen is being ruthlessly bombed by the United States to ensure Israeli impunity for the continued commission of its international crimes in Palestine. 

In doing so, the U.S. itself is in breach of the legal findings of the International Court of Justice, and guilty of two international crimes: the supreme crime of aggression, and the crime of complicity in genocide.  

The Yemenis, on the other hand, have played the role of human rights defender and humanitarian intervener in this situation. 

Clearly, the good guy-bad guy narrative of the U.S. government and its obsequious media corporations is a direct inversion of the truth. 

An international call to action

The international alarm bells on genocide in Palestine began to ring in October of 2023 and became louder and louder as the genocide proceeded. 

The 193 states of the world responded in various ways. 

Some, including the U.S., UK, Germany, and other Western states, joined Israel in the active perpetration of the genocide. 

Others, also mostly Western states, chose complicity in the genocide by supplying the genocide machine with fuel, spare parts, diplomatic cover, and other necessities. 

A large number of states from all regions chose to simply remain silent and passive, which is also a breach of their international legal obligations to act affirmatively to prevent and stop genocide and to enforce international humanitarian law. 

A fourth group of states have opposed the Israeli regime in public statements and in diplomatic action in the Security Council and in the UNGA, or by joining cases against the perpetrators in the ICJ and the International Criminal Court (ICC) but have done nothing to cut off material support to the offending regime or to defend the Palestinian people from the onslaught by Israel’s soldiers and settlers. 

But there is another group, the smallest group of all, that has taken concrete steps to actively meet its obligations under international law. 

Foremost among these have been South Africa, which brought Israel to trial for genocide in the ICJ, and, very significantly, Yemen. 

Yemen (that is, the capital and most of the population which are under the de facto control of Ansar Allah, while the south is controlled by a rival group with UN recognition), announced in response to Israel’s genocide in Palestine that it would block shipping in the Red Sea that was heading to resupply the Israeli regime as long as that regime continues the siege and genocide in Gaza. 

It uses the choke point of the Bab al-Mandab (which means, appropriately, “Gate of Tears”), the narrow strait between Yemen and Djibouti at the opening of the Red Sea. 

Yemen started this targeted, partial blockade in November 2023 with the boarding of an Israeli ship and then sustained the blockade until the announcement of the most recent ceasefire in Gaza, resuming it only when Israel broke the ceasefire and reinstituted the unlawful siege on Gaza. 

Indeed, the Yemenis proved the pure humanitarian intent of the blockade by pausing it entirely during the January ceasefire in Gaza, and only announcing its resumption when Israel reimposed the siege and full-scale assault on Gaza in March. 

Of course, ships supplying the regime could avoid the blockade by sailing around Africa, but that meant a considerable increase in shipping costs. Some ships destined for Israel tried to break the blockade and were warned, boarded, commandeered, or militarily engaged by the Yemini (Houthi) armed forces, as were Western military ships attacking the Yemenis or confronting the blockade

And the blockade worked, choking off over 80% of shipping to the Israeli regime, ultimately bankrupting the Israeli port of Eilat, and reducing supply through Ashdod (via the Suez Canal), thereby significantly obstructing the resupplying of the regime. 

In turn, the U.S. initiated a massive bombing campaign to attack Yemen, the region’s poorest country,  a country it has been bombing for over two decades now, violating international law in doing so, slaughtering civilians in the process, exacerbating the famine, the medical crisis, internal displacement, putting U.S. soldiers at risk, risking a broader regional war, spending billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money in the process, and lying to its own people about what’s happening, all for the sole purpose of assisting Israel’s genocide in Palestine. 

The law is on Yemen’s side

International lawis clearly on Yemen’s side here.

First, the U.S. attacks on Yemen constitute the crime of aggression under international law. 

They do not fall within the narrow requirements of self-defense under the UN Charter, they have not been authorized under the Charter, and they are not even claimed to be in defense of jus cogens rules, but rather to are intended to “protect commerce.” 

Second, Both the ICJ and the UN General Assembly have found that all countries are legally obliged to cease any support for the Israeli occupation regime, to ban any products from the settlements, to cut off all military, diplomatic, economic, commercial, financial, investment, and trade relations with the Israeli occupation. 

They affirmed as well that all states must respect the provisional orders of the ICJ in the Israel genocide case, and to respect their third-state obligations under the Genocide Convention to act to prevent and punish Genocide. 

This includes the obligation of all third states to use all means at their disposal to influence the state potentially committing genocide and ensuring that their own actions don’t aid or abet such acts. 

As noted above, these rules are jus cogens (the highest-level, peremptory norms from which there is no derogation) and erga omnes (meaning they bind all states, including Yemen and the United States). 

Additionally, both Yemen and the U.S. are obliged under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to do all in their power “to ensure respect” for their provisions by other parties, including Israel. 

While Yemen has acted to meet these obligations, the U.S. has attacked it for doing so. 

Circumventing U.S. obstruction of international law

Thus, recognizing that states are obliged to act both individually and collectively to stop Israel’s genocide and that grave breaches of international law (supplying a regime perpetrating genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, gross and systematic violations of human rights) are occurring in or near areas it controls, Yemen has moved to stop these violations.

Of course, defenders of the U.S. attacks will challenge the right of Yemen to intervene by claiming that (1) Ansar Allah in Yemen is not recognized as a state authority and (2) the Security Council has not authorized Yemen to use force.  

Indeed, Yemen is a divided country, with competing forces controlling various sections. While the country has been divided for most of its post-colonial history, the current crisis in Yemen started with the Arab Spring protests in 2011. Much like in Syria, these protests were crushed and subsequently morphed into a civil war that has been raging since at least 2015. 

The devastating effects of the conflict have been severely exacerbated by brutal U.S. and Saudi attacks and blockades, creating a situation in which, before the Palestine genocide spiked in 2023, Yemen was declared the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet by international agencies.  

As a result, the south of the country is dominated by the UN-recognized Presidential Leadership Council, which is also supported by the West and the Gulf monarchies. 

However, Ansar Allah’s Supreme Political Council controls the capital and largest city, Sanaa, all of Yemen’s northern territory, 80% of the country’s population, and the strategic region of the Bab al-Mandab. 

As such, of the two, Houthi-controlled Yemen is, de facto, the most powerful entity. And it is the entity adjacent to the Bab al-Mandab and with the actual capacity to implement the humanitarian blockade. 

This “capacity to influence” suggests a heightened responsibility to act, especially in the case of genocide, as has been recognized by the ICJ. Thus, as there is both a (heightened) duty to act and a capacity to act, the fact that the country is divided cannot reasonably be said to be determinative in a case where the stakes include genocide. 

And even if the statehood of Ansar Allah-controlled Yemen were to be denied, non-state actors, including armed groups, are also recognized as having obligations under international law, not least the rules of international humanitarian law. 

As for the lack of Security Council authorization, the UNSC has been entirely disabled by the U.S., as a party to the conflict, and as a result, is entirely inoperative for the purposes of the situation in Palestine. (Just one more example of how the U.S. is destroying the international legal order on behalf of this one oppressive foreign regime). 

But because the UNSC gets its mandate from the UN Charter, a treaty that is itself part of international law, it is subject to international law, not above it. And both the prohibition of genocide and the right of self-determination are jus cogens and erga omnes rules. These are the highest international legal principles, peremptory norms, universal and non-derogable. The Security Council cannot supersede these rules of international law. 

And if action by the UNSC cannot supersede jus cogens norms, then inaction or omissions by the UNSC cannot supersede (or erase) jus cogens norms, the force of which is ongoing in all circumstances. 

Simply put, jus cogens and erga omnes rules of international law are not derived from, cannot be trumped by, nor do they depend upon the authority of the Security Council. 

Furthermore, in this case, the international community of states has expressed its intentions by adopting the UNGA resolution on implementing the ICJ’s findings in Palestine. 

And this was no ordinary resolution, but one adopted (1) with an overwhelming majority and (2) under the enhanced powers of an emergency special session convened under the so-called Uniting for Peace resolution, designed to overcome the obstruction of the veto in extraordinary circumstances such as these. 

Needless to say, Yemen also has a right to self-defense against U.S. armed attacks, as do all countries under Article 51 of the UN Charter. And the U.S. attacks on Yemen have been ongoing for decades now. 

Beyond that, for some of its actions,Yemen could argue that it is carrying out maritime law enforcement in its territorial waters, which generally does not require UNSC authorization. Indeed, the U.S. Coast Guard interdicts, boards, and seizes ships, even in international waters, for mere suspicion of much lesser offenses, including suspected drug smuggling. And what more important maritime law enforcement function could there be than stopping a genocide? 

And, indeed, even if this were challenged under the rules of the law of the sea (the international treaty on which, by the way, Yemen has ratified, but the U.S. refuses to sign or ratify), the Yemenis are acting under the authority of international law, as pronounced by the ICJ, reinforced by the UNGA implementing resolution, and codified in treaties to which Yemen is a party (including the Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Genocide Convention, and the Geneva Conventions). 

Lawlessness or the rule of law

Of course, if the U.S. disagrees, their lawful remedy is to seek a decision on the dispute in a contentious case at the ICJ, or, alternatively, to convince the UNGA to request an ICJ advisory opinion on the question. But it has no legal right to wage war against Yemen. 

And what is clear in the law is that all states, including Yemen and the U.S., have a duty to respect the rulings of the ICJ, and its authoritative interpretations of international law. On this, the ICJ has already issued several clear conclusions on the law that binds all third states, first in the advisory opinion on Israel’s apartheid wall, then in a series of provisional measures ordered in the genocide case against Israel, and finally in its advisory opinion finding Israeli apartheid and illegal occupation in Palestine. 

Supplying, facilitating the supply, or failing to act to stop the supply of the Israeli regime’s occupation of Palestine or of its genocide in Palestine, are serious violations of international law. 

Yemen is meeting these obligations. The U.S. is violating them.