Houthis Accuse Saudi Arabia of Airstrikes as Yemen Fighting Intensifies

UN warns renewed large-scale fighting could worsen Yemen’s humanitarian crisis and hinder efforts toward a political settlement

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Monday accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out a series of airstrikes across the country as the group presses a deadly offensive to seize territory near the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.

The strikes reportedly targeted Houthi positions in several parts of Yemen, a country divided between areas controlled by the rebels and territory held by the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government.

Houthi-affiliated Saba news agency said Saudi forces carried out several airstrikes and launched cruise missiles against the provinces of Jawf, Al-Bayda, Marib and Taiz.

The accusations came as fighting intensified along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, with more than 300 people reportedly killed and hundreds of families displaced in recent days.

The Houthis have been seeking to capture territory bordering the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and one of the region’s key maritime routes.

The waterway has taken on added strategic importance for Saudi Arabia amid the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran since the beginning of the US-Iran war, with the Bab al-Mandab serving as an alternative route for Saudi oil exports.

The escalating violence has raised concerns that Yemen’s conflict could widen further.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg warned on Monday that the Houthi offensive had triggered increasingly intense clashes and threatened to further expand the conflict.

“A return to sustained large-scale fighting will carry grave consequences for civilians,” Grundberg said, warning that renewed fighting would also make an already difficult path toward a political settlement even harder.