The strikes have hit hospitals, schools, buses and a funeral hall, among other sites. On Jan. 21, an airstrike on a prison run by the Houthis killed at least 70 people and injured dozens of others, according to Houthi officials and international aid groups.
More than 150,000 people have been killed in the war, including nearly 15,000 civilians, according to an estimate by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The conflict has resulted in what the United Nations has called the worst man-made humanitarian crisis.
Understand the War in Yemen
A divided country. A Saudi-led coalition has been fighting in Yemen against the Houthis, a Shiite Muslim rebel group that dominates in northern parts of the country, for years. Here’s what to know about the conflict:
Hostilities begin. In 2014, the Houthis, supported by sections of the military loyal to Mr. Saleh, stormed Sana, the capital of Yemen, and forced then-President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition including the United Arab Emirates began bombing the country in 2015 in response.
A proxy war? The conflict has been a source of friction between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran in their battle for influence in the Middle East. The Saudis have accused Iran of supporting the rebels. Iran has denied the claim, though the rebels have used Iranian-made weapons.
Enduring crisis. Yemen remains divided between the Houthis, who control the north and Sana, and the Saudi-backed government in the south. As military operations drag on, the country has become the site of what aid groups say is one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
In February 2021, Mr. Biden said in a speech at the State Department that he would end all American support for “offensive operations” in Yemen, including “relevant arms sales.” He and other American officials have not said publicly what that entails. For now, new sales of air-to-ground projectiles have been suspended, officials say.
The Washington Post recently published an investigative report on how a substantial number of air raids in Yemen have been carried out by jets developed, maintained and sold by U.S. companies and by pilots trained by the U.S. military.
“It’s hard to say definitively that the U.S. is not supporting the offensive campaign there,” said Dalia Dassa Kaye, a Middle East expert at the Burkle Center for International Relations at the University of California at Los Angeles. “That remains a concern.”
“A lot of ammunition, supplies, things in the pipeline are still continuing,” she added.
Bombs made by Raytheon have been among the deadliest weapons used by the Saudi-led coalition in the airstrikes that have killed civilians. The State Department approved the sales of the munitions, which puts agency officials at risk of prosecution for war crimes, according to an internal legal memo from 2016.
In 2016, after an airstrike at a funeral hall killed more than 100 people and injured hundreds of others, the Obama administration blocked the sale by Raytheon of about 16,000 guided munitions kits to Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration restarted the sales as it strengthened ties to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, another leading power in the war.