One day before the UN Security Council held a session about Yemen on Tuesday, the Western-backed Saudi-led coalition warplanes launched two airstrikes targeting the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology building during the early hours of Monday, leading to the outage of the international communications service, according to the Ministry.

Warplanes also launched another two airstrikes targeting TeleYemen, Yemen International Telecommunications Corporation, that's adjacent to the Ministry.

Minister of Communication, Musfir Al-Numair, tweeted his remarks to Al-Masirah TV that the airstrikes before sunset "forced the technical team [repairing early day damages] to stop their tasks and leave the place."

TeleYemen issued a statement saying these airstrikes led to destroying completely the infrastructure of the international telecom and the disruption of the telecom services.

"Not True"

"The Houthis are using the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology in Sanaa for hostile operations," the Saudi coalition claimed on Monday in a statement published by Saudi Press Agency (SPA). "We have destroyed a communication system used to operate drone control stations." 

Before launching the airstrikes against TeleYemen, the Saudi state-run SPA, citing the Saudi-led coalition tweeted earlier on Monday, "We called one of the ministries via a land-line and asked for the evacuation of civilians from a site in Sanaa."

"The allegations that a call has been made before the strikes are not true and was announced to justify [the attack] and [was] a cover-up for a serious crime against civilians and services providers," Tawfiq Al-Dholi, a senior official at TeleYemen, told Al Mayadeen English.

TeleYemen in a statement also "denied what is being reported in some media that the company's sites are used for military purposes and asserts that all technical equipment is purely used to provide telecom and internet services for all citizens across all Yemeni governorates."

Meanwhile, Yemen's Military Media have published, hours before the UN envoy to Yemen briefed the UN Security Council on Tuesday, footage for drones being launched to target UAE and KSA. 

The footage showed the drones launched from farms and unpopulated areas, denying the coalition's recent and previous claims that the drones were launched from the Telecommunication Ministry or Sanaa International Airport.

"Collective Punishment"

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Al-Dholi pointed out that the airstrikes that targeted TeleYemen were "unjustified and considered a direct violation of the rights of the Yemeni citizens and increased their suffering by depriving them of their basic service".

"There is no doubt that such cruel acts can be described as a collective punishment and accordingly considered a humanitarian crime according to the international covenants and laws," Al-Dholi told Al-Mayadeen English.

He added, "TeleYemen has addressed several correspondences to the UN and the international community demanding their interference to keep the telecommunications and internet services away from the current conflict; however, we haven't received any feedback except complete silence."

To stop such unlawful acts and airstrikes, according to Al-Dholi, the UN and the international community must interfere to impose necessary measures to protect the Telecommunication sector and guarantee continuity of the telecommunications and internet services for all Yemeni citizens in all territories.

Wave of condemnations

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned "the crime of targeting the main building of the International Telecommunication Company in Sanaa and considered it in the context of destroying infrastructure and vital civilian facilities".

Yemen's Scholars Association issued a statement about what it called the "latest escalation of the Saudi-led coalition."

The Association condemned the ongoing "US-Saudi-Emirati aggression targeting of residential neighborhoods, civilian objects, and the latest bombardment of TeleYemen".

The Supreme Authority for Science, Technology, and Innovation also issued a statement published on its Facebook page "condemning in the strongest terms the coalition of aggression targeting civilian objects, including the building of the Yemeni Company for International Communications(TeleYemen)."

Depriving Yemenis of basic human rights

Al-Dholi, the senior official at TeleYemen, said the company has been the international gateway for Telecommunications and internet services in Yemen since its establishment in 1971, but the company premises has been subjected to airstrikes only since the start of January 2022.

"The first [air] strike targeted the Telecommunications premises in Hudaydah city [Jan 21], which led to severe destruction of the infrastructure of the international gateway and caused a complete outage of the internet service in all Yemeni territories," Tawfiq Al-Dholi told Al Mayadeen English.

On Monday, according to Al-Dholi, TeleYemen premises in the Geraf area were targeted with two airstrikes, causing a blackout of the international voice calls service and severe impact to the internet service.

"The already mentioned air strikes resulted in significant losses and damages that can be estimated to tens of millions of dollars," said Al-Dholi. "Besides the material losses and damages, such unjustified aggression has deprived the Yemeni citizens of essential service that is considered a basic human right."

"Furthermore, we hold the UN responsible for any future strikes targeting TeleYemen. We demand assurances to apply necessary measures to protect TeleYemen premises and infrastructure in all territories against any aggression of any kind," Al-Dholi concluded.

Alarming airstrikes

During his brief of the UN Security Council, UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, said, "The continued military escalation of the conflict in Yemen spared no one."

"The sharp increase in airstrikes in Yemen, including on residential areas and civilian infrastructure in Sanaa and Hudaydah is alarming," Grundberg told the Council late Tuesday night.

"I am compelled to remind all parties of their obligations under international humanitarian law, and I repeat my condemnation of any indiscriminate attack against civilians and civilian infrastructure inside Yemen and outside its borders," Grundberg added.