Saudi Strikes on Yemen Port: Ras Isa and Bajil Oil Hit

The Saudi-led coalition has struck the Ras Isa oil terminal on Yemen’s Red Sea coast and an oil facility in the nearby Bajil district of Hodeidah province, in what spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki on November 1 called a precision operation against vital resources of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, widely known as the Houthis. The coalition said the targets in Hodeidah and Dhamar provinces sustained the movement’s ballistic missile and drone programs, and released footage without naming the sites, munitions or aircraft involved. Houthi-run television reported two airstrikes on Ras Isa that hit a berth and a commercial vessel moored there, while the movement’s health ministry spokesman Anees al-Asbahi stated that four civilians were wounded at the port and three more at the Bajil facility. The strikes highlight how firmly the coalition’s campaign has turned toward the fuel and port infrastructure on which the Houthi war economy depends.

The operation follows a coalition strike on October 13 against what it called fuel and military supply sources in Sanaa, Hodeidah and Dhamar, and a series of raids on missile launch platforms around the Yemeni capital. The coalition’s November 1 statement warned that the movement “must cease all hostile and brutal operations against civilians and civilian sites” or bear the consequences. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed that 75 air and missile strikes had hit eight provinces in the preceding 24 hours, from Saada and Al-Jawf in the north to Lahj and Taiz in the south. He put the total since the latest escalation began at 3,830, a figure which has not been independently verified. Houthi-run media separately reported a Saudi strike on a telecommunications facility southeast of Saada city, the movement’s northern stronghold.

Saudi air defences were meanwhile reported to have intercepted a drone and a ballistic missile launched from Yemen toward the kingdom’s southern region, with the Saudi Ministry of Defence confirming on November 2 that a ballistic missile had been destroyed and civil defence lifting precautionary alerts in Taif, Abha, Najran and Khamis Mushait once the threat had passed. The exchange is far from the first of its kind in recent days, with the coalition having reported two missiles downed over Riyadh on the evening of October 29 and drones destroyed over the Mecca and Medina regions the following day. The war resumed in July when the 2022 truce collapsed after the movement allowed an Iranian aircraft to land in Sanaa, and Riyadh has since fought it without the United Arab Emirates as a ground partner.

Ras Isa is a key fuel terminal serving Houthi-held northern Yemen, while Hodeidah, the largest seaport under the movement’s control, remains the main entry point for food and humanitarian aid into the areas it governs. The terminal was struck by the United States on April 17, 2025, when U.S. Central Command stated that the aim was to eliminate a source of fuel for the movement, and the Houthi-run health ministry reported that dozens of people were killed. Neither the coalition nor the Houthis had stated by November 2 whether the commercial vessel hit at Ras Isa was carrying fuel, or how badly the berth had been damaged.