Houthi forces have launched successive attacks on Jabal Dubas, north of Hays district in southern Hodeidah, seeking to seize the strategic high ground overlooking the city and its supply routes.

Military and local sources told Sheba Intelligence that the Houthis intensified their assault from Thursday afternoon, deploying consecutive waves of fighters under heavy fire cover. The attacks placed the government-aligned Zaraniq Brigades defending the area under sustained pressure.

According to the sources, Houthi fighters reached several peripheral positions after government troops conducted a limited withdrawal to reduce casualties. The group has not, however, captured the mountain’s main heights or broken the principal defensive lines.

Military battalions, local volunteers and additional equipment have since arrived to reinforce the front. Government forces are preparing a counterattack and are strongly expected to recover the peripheral positions, given their continued control of the commanding heights and the arrival of fresh reinforcements.

No independently verified casualty figures were immediately available.

Strategic Significance

Jabal Dubas—also rendered Dabas and locally associated with the name Jabal Dhu Bas—overlooks Hays from the northeast. A lasting Houthi foothold on the mountain would allow the group to place the city and its supply routes under direct pressure.

If the Houthis were subsequently able to capture Hays, the threat could extend southwards to Al-Khawkhah, a key defensive position on the coastal road leading to Mokha. A breakthrough along this axis would place further pressure on government forces across the western coast and bring the Houthis closer to the approaches to Bab al-Mandab.

The current penetration remains limited and does not mean that the road to Al-Khawkhah or Mokha is open. The Houthis would still have to overcome several government defensive lines and forces deployed along the coastal corridor.