WASHINGTON — Amid signs of possible progress in negotiations with Yemen's Houthi rebels, the Saudi-led coalition is now looking for a political solution rather than a military operation to take Yemen's Red Sea port of Hodeidah, former US officials who work on Yemen said.

The possible breakthrough could avoid a military escalation to take the Houthi-held strategic port that some US and UN experts feared could exacerbate famine in Yemen after two years of civil war have made millions of people dependent on humanitarian aid.

"It seems people are backing away from the idea of a military operation," former US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein told Al-Monitor April 27, referring to the Saudis. "And [they] are thinking more creatively about how do we achieve this objective without having to resort to military [solutions] and breaking a lot of crockery."

"So I think that right now, there is a lot of rethinking going on about can we get this done other ways," said Feierstein, now a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute. "And maybe they are getting some positive signals from the Houthis, that [they] might be amenable to an arrangement here that gets this thing kind of unstuck and allows the humanitarian assistance to come in."