‘Yemen, like other countries and regions in the world, is meant to be kept unsettled,’ observes Elham Al-Oqabi, a Yemeni anti-war writer and rights advocate. ‘Neither completely collapsed nor destroyed, alive nor finished,’ she adds. ‘Always closer to death than life.’

Al-Oqabi has lived in her country’s Houthi-held north through years of US, Saudi, Emirati and Israeli airstrikes that kill, maim and starve civilians. Just last spring, at least 224 Yemeni civilians were killed during the Trump administration’s eight-week bombardment of the Ansar Allah (Houthi) de facto authorities — ‘nearly doubling the civilian casualty toll in Yemen by US actions since 2002’, according to Airwars. Last month, the Israeli military — which has been bombing Yemeni civilian life for over a year — massacred at least 31 journalists and media workers in the centre of Sanaa, with the Committee to Protect Journalists calling the targeted strikes the ‘deadliest global attack’ on the press in 16 years.

‘In Gaza, they’ve decided to finish the body,’ Al-Oqabi says from her Sanaa home, pointing to the moral bankruptcy of the US, Israel and their strategic partners — all precision-guided by hundreds of billions of dollars in warfighting equipment. Before nuclear-armed Israel, the biggest recipient of US military aid, began committing genocide in Gaza, oil-rich Saudi Arabia — another top US client — decimated Yemen, where poverty now grips 80% of people. Between 2015 and 2022, a US- and UK-backed Saudi-led coalition waged a campaign on the Iran-aligned Houthis that left an estimated 377,000 Yemenis dead — most of them children under five lost to indirect causes like mass hunger, amid unlawful blockades and strikes on farms, markets and hospitals. Despite its widespread crimes against civilians, the Gulf monarchy signed a $142bn arms deal with Donald Trump in May, hailed as the ‘largest defence sales agreement in history.’

In the following critique of power, Al-Oqabi holds accountable world leaders and actors who preach peace and sell war — or enable a genocide and expect a Nobel Peace Prize — sentencing Yemenis and Palestinians to death by impunity.

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Two young brothers sit on a blanket in the morning light. Their thin bodies are barely covered by what remains of their trousers. Their burns weep blood. Their straw and tin house is now scattered dust and scorched debris. In May 2015, a Saudi coalition airstrike on Hajjah province, northwestern Yemen, crushed their family of 15 down to two survivors. A passerby, who circulated scenes of the apparent war crime, is said to have rushed the brothers to a hospital in Sanaa. When asked why they hadn’t fled the site for help, the boys said they thought all of Yemen had been bombed — that Yemenis near and far were also buried in graves of debris like their parents and siblings. They died not long after arrival.

The blood freezes in my veins when I imagine my children in their place. I see them stumble around the debris of our family home despite their injuries. I hear them call my name. I smell fire and flesh.

Yemen is meant to be kept unsettled — always closer to death than life. So, we start to look at the conflict in our area and around the world from that perspective: the war started here, ends there, or continues endlessly somewhere, according to the interests of those with money and power, who buy and sell the weapons and keep these deadly games going. The genocide in Gaza has shifted this reality, because the bombers no longer speak about human rights, international law or moral authority. Trump doesn’t bother with that.

From our perspective — people living through war and a world of silence — this Trump era is all about American rights, not human rights. They’re ready to blow up all rights declarations if they go against US interests and power, using vetoes to wipe away crimes and imposing sanctions​ on international courts. Still, they pretend they’re more civilised than others, only to repeat, and sometimes exceed, the deeds and thoughts of those they call ‘uncivilised.’ In Yemen, the US bombs us, just like its Saudi, Emirati, and Israeli allies. Many ordinary people are killed and injured. Ordinary people are burned alive.

Yemen is tied to the wars on civilians in Gaza and Sudan, and the centuries of Indigenous peoples’ struggles around the world. For those with money and power, we, ordinary people, are just numbers, not flesh and blood with hopes and dreams. This life is full of injustice. The powerful crush the vulnerable while the whole world watches, and many clap along. The victims are blamed, as their voices and images disturb the comfort of others.

This is a dark period in human history. The weak and vulnerable face a slow death with no right to complain or cry in pain, as such reactions may disturb the quiet and comfort of those in power. The war criminals receive applause as their bombings end the prolonged torture of a body. And the victims are expected to be grateful to those who take their lives.

Elham Al-Oqabi​ & Elle Kurancid