Houthi media say coalition air strikes hit Sanaa and Mocha

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SANAA, Yemen — Saudi-led coalition aircraft struck the Yemeni capital and the port of Mocha on Saturday, Houthi-run media said, hours after the coalition reported intercepting two missiles over Saudi Arabia.

One strike hit a house in Asr, in western Sanaa, the Houthi-run broadcaster Al-Masirah reported. Another hit a cement factory in Hamdan district, northwest of the city.

Al-Masirah said three people were killed and several wounded in the Asr strike. The Houthi-run health ministry later put the preliminary toll from both Sanaa strikes at 10 killed and 11 wounded, seven of the dead at the cement factory. Yemen Herald could not verify those tolls. Every figure so far comes from Houthi-run bodies.

Residents of Sanaa told the Xinhua news agency that successive strikes shook the city and that warplanes remained overhead afterwards.

The Houthi-run Yemen News Agency said aircraft struck areas of Asr and Hamdan. It said civilians were killed and wounded, but gave no figures.

At Mocha, Al-Masirah reported nearly 20 strikes. The port lies on Yemen’s Red Sea coast in Taiz province, near the Bab al-Mandab strait.

The Houthi agency, citing an unnamed local source, said aircraft carried out a series of strikes on several areas of Mocha and were still over the area.

The Saudi-led coalition did not comment on the reported strikes. Riyadh had issued no response by Saturday evening.

Earlier on Saturday, coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said two Houthi ballistic missiles aimed at the Saudi cities of Taif and Yanbu had been intercepted and destroyed. He announced the interceptions around midday.

A coalition statement said a ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh was also intercepted and destroyed. Al-Maliki said a drone was intercepted and destroyed over the Eastern Province.

Saudi Civil Defence issued danger warnings for Jeddah, Yanbu, Taif and the Makkah governorate before that announcement. They were lifted shortly afterwards.

Alarms on the kingdom’s early warning platform had sounded shortly after 4 a.m., warning of possible aerial threats in Riyadh, Najran and Wadi al-Dawasir.

Two loud blasts were heard in the Saudi capital minutes after that alert. No casualties or damage were reported from Saturday’s interceptions.

The Houthis have also targeted Saudi energy and civilian sites during the escalation, Anadolu Agency reported.

The group has periodically denied responsibility for specific attacks on Saudi territory.

Cross-border strikes have increased since July, when the Houthis declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Bab al-Mandab strait and a truce brokered by the United Nations in 2022 collapsed.

Government forces, backed by the coalition, launched a counteroffensive named Dawn of Yemen earlier in October. They have said it aims to retake Houthi-held areas, including Sanaa.

Clashes have been heaviest around Jabal Han in western Taiz, a highland overlooking routes that link the province to Aden, the government’s seat. Fighting has also been reported in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts.

A spokesman for government forces, Majid al-Nazili, said on Wednesday that troops had carried out 835 targeting operations against the Houthis. Yemen Herald has not verified that figure.

On Thursday, Yemen’s Ministry of Defence warned civilians in Houthi-held areas to stay away from Houthi rallies and what it called cultural courses, saying they would be treated as military targets.

A government military source told Al Jazeera that air raids had hit Houthi gatherings and infrastructure in the Maafar directorate, south of Taiz.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says almost 260,000 people have been displaced since August. About half have taken refuge in Taiz.

Aid agencies have reached more than 174,000 of them, which OCHA puts at nearly six in 10 displaced households. Newly displaced families list shelter as their most urgent need, ahead of food and cash.

OCHA said the aid included food, hygiene kits and emergency cash.

OCHA, citing the UN Human Rights Office, verified 251 civilian casualties in the escalation in a report late on Wednesday. It recorded 57 people killed and 194 injured. Half of those killed were children.

The UN humanitarian plan for Yemen issued in March put the number of people needing aid at more than 22 million, and listed 18.3 million as acutely food insecure. It sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.

That plan recorded 5.2 million people displaced before the current escalation. It counted more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.

On the Saudi side, the kingdom’s Authority of Civil Aviation said on Thursday that two people had died in a Houthi strike on King Fahd airport in Dammam the previous evening.

The US State Department ordered non-essential staff and family members to leave its embassy in Riyadh. Its travel alert said the hostilities could escalate rapidly beyond the immediate area.

Yemeni government forces accused the Houthis of striking Aden and al-Rayyan airports on Wednesday. Rashad al-Alimi, who heads the Presidential Leadership Council, condemned the attacks and called for the group to be designated a terrorist organisation.

The Houthis seized Sanaa and several other provinces in 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government.

The group holds much of northern and western Yemen. Government forces and their allies hold Aden and large parts of the southern and eastern provinces.

Yemen’s Ministry of Education says more than 2.5 million children are out of school because of the conflict.