Sanaa Sets its Price for Peace with Riyadh

 

Abdulqader Othman, The Cradle, October 1, 2026 —

With Saudi strikes renewed and Sanaa holding new ground near Bab al-Mandab, any return to talks will come on terms Riyadh has yet to accept.

Saudi Arabia’s strike on Sanaa International Airport in July brought an end to more than three years of uneasy calm. The truce that began in April 2022 had never become a final settlement, but it had largely kept the Saudi-led coalition and Sanaa from returning to full-scale war. 

Now, the fighting has spread along Yemen’s western coast and across the border into Saudi territory, while the prospect of negotiations remains as distant as it is unavoidable.

For Yemenis, the cost of the war reaches far beyond the front lines. The Saudi-led intervention began on 26 March 2015, and the blockade and destruction of infrastructure have compounded the damage of combat. 

A UNDP estimate projected 377,000 conflict-attributable deaths by the end of 2021, including 154,000 from direct violence and 223,000 from hunger, disease, and other indirect causes. 

Subsequent deaths and the renewed fighting have only deepened the toll. In the south and east, Saudi and UAE-backed forces have also held areas containing much of Yemen’s oil and gas wealth.

The withdrawal of the UAE’s remaining forces early this year left Riyadh with greater responsibility for the military and political direction of its Yemeni allies. It did not erase the competing loyalties within those forces. 

Saudi Arabia has spent the intervening months trying to bring them under firmer command, while Sanaa has built up its own military capabilities. Each side entered this round of fighting with the previous years of restraint behind it and unfinished business ahead.

The road map that never took hold

The diplomatic opening began with the Chinese-brokered Saudi–Iranian rapprochement in March 2023. Riyadh, unable to secure a military victory in Yemen after eight years of war, could present a negotiated exit as part of a wider easing of regional tensions.

A joint Saudi–Omani delegation headed by Saudi Ambassador Mohammed al-Jaber visited Sanaa the following April. Meetings in Sanaa, Riyadh, and Muscat continued through the year.

On 23 December 2023, UN envoy Hans Grundberg announced commitments toward a nationwide ceasefire, the payment of public-sector salaries, the resumption of oil exports, the opening of roads, and the easing of restrictions on Sanaa Airport and Hodeidah Port.

These commitments were intended to be put into a UN road map leading to an inclusive political process. The announcement offered a framework, but the road map itself was not signed and implemented. Its unresolved details would become more consequential as the region moved toward a wider war.

Following the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Sanaa launched its Red Sea campaign against shipping it identified as linked to Israel. US and British attacks on Yemen followed. Washington pressed for an end to Yemen’s operations in support of Gaza, while the political track with Riyadh stalled. 

Sanaa says Saudi Arabia also failed to deliver the economic measures discussed during the earlier talks. What had been presented as a path to settlement became another period in which the parties prepared for the possibility of renewed combat.

That possibility became reality after the July airport strike. In September, the Ansarallah-aligned Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) advanced through western Yemen, taking Mokha and positions near Bab al-Mandab, along with Red Sea islands.

Sanaa declared Saudi-linked shipping a target and launched missiles and drones at sites inside the kingdom. Saudi airstrikes resumed across Yemen. The blockade has disrupted Saudi oil shipments through the Red Sea, although the claim that Saudi exports have fallen to zero is contradicted by reported September export volumes.