Yemen's capital Sanaa is under air attack again. The internationally recognised government of Rashid al-Alimi launched Operation Dawn of Yemen this week, pledging to recapture the city held by Houthis since September 2014. But the operation's means and its stated ends exist in different realities: government ground forces are scattered across fronts hundreds of miles from the capital, bogged down on Yemen's west coast and around Taiz. The only tool reaching Sanaa is air power — and air power is already killing civilians. An air strike on Monday hit Sa'wan, killing a child and wounding seven civilians. Sanaa's international airport was struck, killing two workers. The government says it is targeting Houthi military sites, but those sites sit embedded in a city of millions. Courier Ghamadan Abood, 30, described being two kilometres from an impact zone while making deliveries. Houthi facilities sit near neighbourhoods, farms, and roads — the geometry of urban warfare guarantees civilian casualties even when targeting is precise, which it often is not. The humanitarian arithmetic is already catastrophic. More than 200,000 people have been displaced since fighting escalated in recent weeks, most from Taiz governorate. The UN World Food Programme warned last week that three-quarters of families in parts of Yemen are going hungry. Sanaa residents are stockpiling rice, cooking oil, sugar, and petrol — the same panic-buying pattern that drove prices skyward when the Saudi-led coalition launched Operation Decisive Storm in March 2015. Grocery owner Nashwan, 24, bought 100 litres of petrol for his minibus. The anticipation of scarcity is itself creating scarcity. The military logic of the operation does not survive contact with geography. Analyst Raiman al-Hamdani assessed that government forces are large on paper but scattered, equipped with outdated gear, and unable to push Houthis from mountain strongholds. The government has failed to seize the coastal Hodeidah province or the Al-Jawf desert — both topographically easier objectives than mountainous Sanaa. This is an air campaign dressed as a liberation operation, with no demonstrated ability to hold territory in the capital's vicinity. Saudi Arabia's role adds another layer of extraction. The kingdom backs the Yemeni government and has imposed a naval siege on Houthi-controlled areas, directly constricting the supply of food and fuel to civilians. Meanwhile, Houthi missile strikes on Saudi Arabia — including two attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, the latest killing 12 people — provide the justification for continued coalition operations. The Saudi-led coalition has identified Sanaa, Saada, and Amran as primary sources of Houthi missile threats, framing civilian population centres as military targets. The 2015 precedent looms over everything. Operation Decisive Storm killed hundreds of Sanaa civilians in air raids and drew international condemnation. Sanaa resident Saleh Ayidh, 50, father of five, fled to the countryside for six months during that campaign. He is now calculating whether to do so again. University graduate Fuad Ali, 40, expressed cautious hope that the government has learned from 2015's excesses, but acknowledged the operation will bring more destruction and civilian casualties. The structural picture is bleak: a military campaign with no realistic path to its stated objective, air power as the only tool reaching the target, civilians bearing the costs of a political statement disguised as a military strategy, and a humanitarian crisis deepening under the weight of displacement, blockade, and panic. The question is not whether Operation Dawn of Yemen will retake Sanaa — few in the capital believe it will. The question is how many people will be killed, displaced, or starved before that conclusion becomes undeniable.
