Yemen’s Houthis militia has recruited tens of thousands of Yemenis who would supposedly fight the Israelis in Gaza, prompting fears in Yemen that those warriors will only fight Houthi opponents in Yemen, local sources disclosed.
Yemen’s government authorities, as well as military and political observers, have accused the Iran-backed Houthi rebels of leveraging widespread popular fury in Yemen over Israel’s brutal shelling of Gaza.
“This is another one of the Houthis’ falsehoods. They do not have the military, geographical, or political resources to deploy anybody to Gaza,” military analyst Brig. Gen. Mohammed Al-Kumaim told Arab News on Wednesday.
On Sunday, the Houthis organized a military parade for recruits who graduated from short military courses in Abes district, Hajja’s northern province, where thousands of people dressed in traditional Yemeni attire raised Yemeni and Palestinian flags, waved their weapons and chanted anti-Israel and anti-America slogans.
The Houthis had earlier organized a military parade in Sanaa for individuals who were reported to have been trained to fight the Israelis in occupied Palestine.
The Houthis did not specify how they planned to get those troops to Palestine, raising concerns in Yemen that their recruits will be used to fuel Houthi military activities even as the UN Yemen envoy is close to providing a road map for ending the conflict in Yemen.
At the same time, Yemeni military officers on the ground have said that the Houthis have begun to deploy many of those freshly recruited individuals around areas under their control in Yemen.
Abdul Basit Al-Baher, a Yemeni military official in Taiz, told Arab News that some of the newly recruited fighters had been dispatched to front lines in Taiz, Hodeidah, and Al-Dhale, with some refusing to join the battlefield and returning home after realizing Houthi slogans had duped them.
“Fighters who graduated from the Houthi military camp in Yarim (Ibb province) have already been transferred to the battles in Taiz, the western coastline, and Al-Dhale,” Al-Baher said.