Introduction
In the impoverished, remote village of Beit Bish, located on the southern outskirts of Hays District, south of Hodeidah Governorate, at 7 am, Thursday, April 10, 2025, things were as usual in the home of Salem Mohammed Eied, who returned from his night shift a few hours earlier. As he was making his bed in the courtyard of his house, he heard soft knocks on the door. He recognized it as Waad, his brother Ibrahim’s three-year-old daughter, who usually came from her nearby house at this time to spend time playing with his children, Reham, 5, and Yahya, 2. After she entered, Salem headed to his bed to sleep, his two children’s joy at the arrival of their cousin filling him with happiness.

Four hours later, wearing his tattered sleeping dress and a torn undershirt that had turned from white to red, Salem was searching the courtyard of the modest village hospital for a quiet, secluded spot to sit. The shock that had gripped him for three hours was beginning to turn into heartbreaking grief, and his eyes filled with tears.

At that moment, a journalist who had arrived stopped him and asked him how he felt seeing his two children and his brother’s daughter lying lifeless before him. But he continued his way as if he had not seen or heard anything. Days later, he told a fellow villager who had asked him the same question: “Since that moment, I’ve felt nothing but emptiness and a sudden overwhelming sadness.” He added: “Sometimes I imagine I’m still asleep and the sound of their laughter as they play reaches me. Every time I try to remember the last moment, I saw them playing, it’s difficult.”

What happened?

An hour or less after Salem left his two children and niece, playing happily under the trees in the house, and fell asleep, a Houthi drone flew over the homes of Beit Bish village, and with no warning, it dropped its explosives on his house, killing the three children who were playing in the courtyard.

TV channels broadcast interviews with Salem Mohammed Eied and some villagers, asking them what had happened. “The children were playing here after eating their breakfast in the courtyard,” Salem told Belqis TV, where the crime occurred. “A bomb suddenly fell on them from the sky,” he explained, pointing to the children’s shoes still in the courtyard. Then, with obvious sadness and tears welling up in his eyes, he added, “The Houthis bombed them. May God deprive them of their children, for the sake of ‘There is no god but God.”

Shaker Bashara, one of the villagers, also spoke about the crime, saying, “Houthi’s drone, which claims to be fighting Israel, attacked our village and killed three children.” He added, “These militias claim to be fighting Israel, but they are killing our children.”

Many media outlets reported on this shocking crime. In a sad scene, television cameras captured images of the bodies of the three children, as well as the house and courtyard where the crime occurred, and the footage was broadcast to the entire world. Yet the Houthi group did not comment on the incident, clarify the circumstances, or even apologize for any mistakes, reflecting a clear disregard for the lives of civilians, especially children.

A recurring pattern:

Targeting civilian objects, including civilian homes, in Yemen is not a new phenomenon; it is an ongoing pattern of violence adopted by various parties, most notably the Houthi militia, which appears to be using this tactic to deepen the suffering of the Yemeni people. What makes this type of attack so horrific is that it did not occur in the context of a military battle or self-defense; rather, it was a deliberate attack aimed at killing as many innocent civilians as possible.

No one can forget what happened on December 30, 2020, when the terrorist Houthi militia bombed Aden International Airport immediately after a civilian plane carrying hundreds of Yemeni passengers landed. The attack was violent and indiscriminate, killing dozens of civilians, including women and children. Dozens more were seriously injured, causing significant family tragedies. The airport’s infrastructure, including terminals and essential facilities, was also destroyed.

This incident is not an exception; rather, it is part of the Houthis’ strategy to destroy everything that serves citizens or alleviates their suffering. These militias do not hesitate to target vital facilities and services, such as water and power stations, in addition to health and educational facilities, further deteriorating basic services in Yemen. They also target road and bridge infrastructure, which is vital for transporting supplies and aid. These attacks only harm innocent civilians, who are already suffering from the ravages of the ongoing war in the country. Now and then, their suffering is exacerbated by the shelling of civilians’ homes, as happened in Beit Bish, or by bombing of markets, as happened in the Al-Bumiyah market in the Maqbanah district, and other incidents.

On December 23, two children were killed and two others injured when the Houthi group shelled another house of Al-Bumiyah village in Maqbanah district with a mortar shell. This came after the group had shelled the village market earlier that month, causing a massacre that killed six civilians and injured eight, including a child, while returning from school.

A recent report revealed that more than 1,200 civilian casualties, including deaths and injuries, occurred because of armed violence in Yemen over the past year. In its annual report, the Protection Cluster, in the Civilian Impact Monitoring Project, stated: “1,201 civilians, including 266 children and women, were killed and injured in armed violence incidents in Yemen between January 1 and December 31, 2024.”

The report added that 337 civilians were killed, while 864 others were injured, because of these incidents, which included aerial and artillery bombardment, drone strikes, sniper operations, and the explosion of explosive of remnants of war and small arms fire.

Just one day before a Houthi drone targeted Salem Eied’s home, killing three children in Beit Bish village, media outlets reported that a girl was injured by a Houthi sniper’s bullet east of Taiz city. Sources reported that 12-year-old Sally Mohammed Abdullah was shot by a Houthi sniper stationed at “Tabat al-Sallal,” who targeted her while she was near her home east of the city. She sustained a serious injury and was subsequently transferred to a hospital for treatment. This type of crime began more than ten years ago and has not stopped since then.

Conclusion:

The Beit Bish crime is not an isolated incident, but rather a link in a series of systematic violations committed by the Houthi group against Yemeni civilians, especially children. The killing of Waad, 3, Reham, 5, and Yahya, 2, while they were playing in their home’s courtyard – far from any military object – reveals deliberate cruelty and blatant disregard for international humanitarian law. The group’s failure to comment or apologize, despite documentation of this crime, confirms its disregard for civilian lives and embodies its policy of impunity.

The continuation of these violations, including bombing of markets, as in Al-Bumiyah, and targeting of homes and civilian airports, requires urgent international action. The statistics are shocking (1,200 civilian casualties in 2024, a quarter of whom were children and women) are not abstract numbers; they represent unhealed wounds for families who have lost their loved ones.

The international community is called upon today to transform its condemnations into concrete action: impose sanctions on Houthi leaders, support independent investigative mechanisms, and hold the perpetrators accountable for these crimes of killing innocent children before the eyes of the world.

Yemen’s children deserve to live in peace, and their blood will not be shed in vain when justice is transformed from slogans into actions. Will we grant that to them?