Introduction

On Sunday, January 27, 2024, the Houthi-run Al Masirah channel published a story on its website and other social media platforms about a violation against a child, claiming that the National Army is responsible. According to the story, the child victim was injured after being hit by a sniper's bullet. While the incident did occur, the details provided by Al Masirah and other sources that discussed the incident, as well as the results of analyzing the available data, all raise questions and suspicions about the possibility of deliberate misinformation.

The Yemeni Coalition for Monitoring Human Rights Violations uses open-source monitoring and documentation to record violations of this nature within the activities of the Supporting Awareness and Facilitating Enforcement of Children’s Rights in the Yemeni Conflict project (SAFE II), to document human rights violations against children by warring parties and others, to analyze these allegations and address them.

Rasd Coalition often enlists the help of researchers and data analysts to understand the context of the war in Yemen and, consequently, the human rights situation in the country.

A Government Violation or Houthi Disinformation?

It is worth noting that all the news published about this incident came from media platforms and websites affiliated with or supported by the Houthi group (1, 2, 3, 4). The information published about the incident was extremely scant and did not even provide the name or photo of the child victim. The wording of the news suggests it is reported from a single source; most likely, from the Al Masirah Channel website.

The news also confused the incident location. While all the sites that published the news agreed that the incident occurred in an area called Al Arish, they differed on where this area is located and to whom it falls under its administrative jurisdiction. Whereas Al Masirah Channel published on its website that the area falls under the Khadir District, while the news published on Telegram indicated that it falls under the Sabr Al Mawadim District. Neither Al Masirah TV nor any other media outlet that published the news provided any evidence to support their claims that government forces committed the violation. Instead, the Houthi group has a clear pattern of sniping and targeting civilian incidents, especially children.

Al Masirah TV, affiliated with the Houthi group and its mouthpiece, stated in its news that the incident occurred on January 27, while Al Hawiyah TV, which is loyal to the group, stated that the incident took place on January 28. Some pro-Houthi websites that published the news went further, claiming that a sniper affiliated with the Arab Coalition forces was responsible for the incident, even though the Coalition has had no forces on the ground for at least a year and a half since the incident.

What has raised doubts about the veracity of the incident and increased the likelihood that the Houthi group is deliberately spreading disinformation is that Al-Arish area administratively falls within Sabr Al-Mawadim District, which is controlled by the legitimate government forces. It is not located in areas of direct contact with Houthi forces; therefore, it is difficult to believe that legitimate government forces would snipe at civilians in areas under their control. The most logical conclusion would be that the Houthi group is responsible, given the group's repeated pattern of sniping at civilians and the fact that the attacked area is under the control of the opposing party.

The Houthi Disinformation Mechanism 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?

Sniping at children is a recurring pattern of Houthi violations:

On the afternoon of Saturday, April 26, 2025, a Houthi sniper targeted two children, Suleiman and Mohammed, as they were fetching water in Al-Dumina area on Thirtieth Street, near the old airport, northwest of Taiz city. A few days earlier, 16-year-old Mujahid Al-Kadahi was shot in the shoulder by a sniper while he was in the Al-Khadhra neighborhood in the Sala district. Two weeks earlier, four children were also shot by a Houthi sniper in Sala and Al-Dhabab areas.

Yemen Youth Channel reported that since the beginning of 2025, until the end of April, it had documented the killing and wounding of 53 civilians, including children and women, most of whom were killed or injured in sniper and shelling attacks carried out by the Houthi group on villages and neighborhoods in Taiz districts under the control of the legitimate government.

The Yemeni Coalition for Monitoring and Documenting Human Rights Violations (Rasd Coalition) documented the killing and wounding of 366 individuals by Houthi sniper fire in Taiz alone between March 2015 and August 2020, including 130 children between the ages of 1 and 17, 88 males, and 42 females.

Conclusion:

In this incident, the Houthi group continued its media disinformation: conflicting accounts of the dates (January 27 or 28) and place (Khadeer or Sabr Al-Mawadem), lack of evidence or even the identity of the child victim, while blaming government forces or the Arab Coalition, which ceased field operations two years ago. This pattern is not new; rather, it is part of the "soft war" machine the group exploits to cover up its crimes, taking advantage of its control over 62% of media platforms and outlets, and suppression of independent media.

Moreover, Houthis continued systematic targeting of children in Taiz, where reports document the killing and wounding of hundreds by their snipers while exercising their most basic rights, such as fetching water or going to school. These violations, accompanied by systematic disinformation, underscore the urgent need for effective international mechanisms to monitor violations, hold perpetrators accountable, and break the monopoly of the media narrative. The blood of children is not a political bet, and the world's silence deepens the wounds of the Yemenis who are paying the price of a war with their lives and children.