Yemen’s Saudi-backed Ex-president Paid Two Visits to Tel Aviv

By Staff, Agencies

A Zionist regime’s ex-foreign minister revealed that Yemen’s Saudi-sponsored ex-president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, has paid two visits to Tel Aviv, emphasizing that the 76-year-old Yemeni politician and former field marshal has strong ties with the ‘Israeli’ occupation authorities.

“Unfortunately, we do not have reliable allies in Yemen,” Yizrael Katz said in an interview with ‘Israeli’ newspaper Haaretz published earlier this week.

“Hadi has close relation with us, but he lacks the capability to command the war. At the beginning of the Yemeni war, Hadi traveled to Tel Aviv through Jordan and in coordination with [Egyptian President] Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and good agreements were struck at the time,” he added.

Katz also noted that Hadi does not possess a fighting spirit.

He said the Tel Aviv and Riyadh regimes have no other suitable alternative in Yemen, so “supporting him is still on their agenda.”

Katz emphasized that the Battle of al-Hudaydah was the result of Hadi’s second visit to the ‘Israeli’-occupied territories.

“We were able to forge good alliance between Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Hadi, but unfortunately the war did not yield any of the results expected,” Katz pointed out.

“This does not mean that ‘Israel's’ authority in the Red Sea has been undermined. The war in Yemen is a war between the UAE and Saudi Arabia against the Houthis, before being considered a regional war. The Houthis can easily dominate the heart of Saudi Arabia, and this is very distressing for Riyadh,” Katz said.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war against Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western states.

The objective was to return to power the former Riyadh-backed regime and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

The war has stopped well short of all of its goals, despite killing hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turning the entire country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemeni forces have continued to grow stronger in the face of the Saudi-led invaders, advancing toward strategic areas held by Saudi-led mercenaries, including Marib province, and conducting several rounds of counterstrikes against Saudi Arabia and the UAE in recent months.