Government says warplanes struck Houthi positions in Taiz as UN reports 260,000 displaced

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TAIZ, Yemen — Yemeni government warplanes struck Houthi positions across Taiz province, the government said, as the United Nations reported nearly 260,000 people displaced since August.

Government aircraft hit Houthi positions, gatherings and military vehicles in the province, the armed forces said. Ground units and allied popular resistance fighters repelled several attacks, according to the same account.

Majid al-Nazili, a spokesperson for the government forces, said Wednesday that troops had carried out 835 targeting operations.

Those operations killed or wounded 285 Houthi fighters and destroyed battle tanks and weapons stores, al-Nazili said.

Al Jazeera, which reported his remarks, said it could not independently verify the figures. Yemen Herald found no second origin for them.

The Houthis have not published their own casualty count for the period and dispute government accounts of the fighting.

Clashes were reported in the Jabal Han highlands in western Taiz and in the Dhubab and al-Masrakh districts.

Government forces said the Jabal Han highlands overlook routes linking Taiz to Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government.

An unnamed government military source said air raids hit Houthi gatherings and infrastructure in the Maafar directorate, south of Taiz.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington research group that tracks the conflict, reported heavy clashes in the 24 hours to Tuesday.

The fighting was concentrated at al-Dhabab, southwest of Taiz city, and al-Shaqab to the southeast, the institute said.

It said Houthi fighters fought government-aligned forces near al-Dhabab on 12 and 13 October, and that the group was trying to take Taiz city by securing a main road into it.

The Defence Ministry told civilians in Houthi-held areas on Thursday to stay away from Houthi rallies and what it called cultural courses.

The ministry said such gatherings would be treated as legitimate military targets. The government says the Houthis use them to recruit children.

The Houthis encircled Taiz earlier this month. The city has a population of about one million.

Government forces clashed with Houthi units in the Hayfan district, south of Taiz, on 8 October. Houthi fighters tried to seize the main road between Taiz and Aden at the Jabal Han front on 3 October.

The Yemeni military said it also flew drone strikes on Wednesday against Houthi positions in Marib province.

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

In a report released late Wednesday, OCHA said the UN Human Rights Office had verified 251 civilian casualties.

Of those, 57 were killed and 194 injured, the report said. Half of those killed were children.

Humanitarian agencies have reached more than 174,000 displaced people since August with food, hygiene kits and emergency cash, according to OCHA.

Newly displaced families say shelter is their most urgent need, the office said.

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

The fighting in Taiz forms part of a government counteroffensive named Dawn of Yemen, launched earlier in October with Saudi-led coalition support.

The government says the operation aims to retake areas held by the Houthis, including the capital, Sanaa.

Earlier in the offensive, on 3 October, the Yemeni army said it had struck Houthi targets hundreds of times and inflicted more than 1,500 casualties in 24 hours. Those figures came from the army alone and have not been independently confirmed.

Saudi-led aircraft have flown strikes around Taiz since 18 October in an attempt to break the Houthi siege of the city.

Taiz, Yemen’s third city, has been encircled by Houthi forces for much of the war. Supply routes into the city have been cut for long periods.

The government said Houthi forces struck the airports at Aden and al-Rayyan on Wednesday.

Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, condemned those attacks and urged governments to designate the Houthis a terrorist organisation.

The Houthis declared a blockade on Saudi shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait in July and have since seized areas of the Red Sea coast.

A truce brokered by the United Nations in 2022 collapsed the same month.

The Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 on the side of the internationally recognised government.

The movement controls much of northern and western Yemen. Government forces hold Aden and large parts of the south and east.

OCHA’s humanitarian plan for 2026, published in March, estimates more than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance.

It puts the number of acutely food insecure at 18.3 million and the number of children under five who are acutely malnourished at more than 2.2 million, of whom 516,157 are severely malnourished.

The plan records 5.2 million internally displaced people and seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million of those in need.

Hans Grundberg, the UN special envoy for Yemen, has described the wider escalation as a grave escalation of the conflict.

Residents queued to refill gas bottles at a filling station in Taiz on 19 October. Aid workers have reported rising prices in the city since the encirclement.

Humanitarian agencies say access to parts of Taiz province remains restricted by front lines that have moved repeatedly since August.