At Least Seven Killed in Airstrike on Yemen’s Taiz Market, Houthis Say
At least seven people were killed and 40 others wounded in an airstrike on a shopping area near the central market in Yemen’s Taiz province, Houthi authorities said Sunday, blaming Saudi Arabia’s air force for the attack.
The Houthi-run television channel Al-Masirah broadcast footage of thick smoke rising over the site and a destroyed warehouse filled with food stacked in cardboard boxes. The casualty figures and the circumstances of the strike could not be independently verified.
The Houthi-run health ministry accused the Saudi air force of committing an “abominable crime,” saying it directly and deliberately targeted civilian sites in Taiz. There was no immediate independent confirmation of that account.
Forces loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government gave a different account, saying their air force struck a Houthi depot and vehicles in the area. The government is backed by Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition that intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015.
On Saturday, the government-aligned forces reported strikes on Houthi fighters and weapons depots in eastern and southern parts of Taiz, a strategically important province where control has shifted during years of war.
The latest violence is part of a broader escalation across Yemen. At least 125,000 people have been displaced by the renewed fighting, including in highland areas near the Bab al-Mandab strait, known as the Gate of Tears, a chokepoint critical to shipping between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The internationally recognized government has called for a general mobilization, urging Yemenis to join the army and security forces. It also offered amnesty to Houthi fighters who lay down their arms and leave the militia.
The Houthis said Saudi Arabia carried out about two dozen additional strikes in Yemen within 24 hours and more than 1,000 since the start of the new escalation. Those figures also could not be independently verified.
Yemen’s civil war has sharply escalated again amid heightened regional tensions involving Iran. The renewed fighting risks further civilian displacement and deeper instability along one of the world’s most important maritime corridors, while peace efforts remain stalled.