At least 33 people were killed and 39 wounded in what the Houthi-run Saba news agency described as Saudi airstrikes on a village near Yemen's capital, Sanaa, on Saturday. The reported toll would make it one of the deadliest attacks since hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned group resumed in July.
Reuters said it could not independently verify the account. Saudi Arabia's Center for International Communication said it was investigating the report.
According to the Houthi health ministry, the strikes hit homes in the town of Bani Hushaysh, a Houthi stronghold east of Sanaa, and most of those killed were women and children.
Abdul-Aziz al-Dailami, director of Sehatuna Hospital in Sanaa, said many victims remained trapped under the rubble, including first responders. "The strikes keep coming. Just as rescuers arrive, another strike hits. We have even lost some of our own medical responders, who have been martyred," he told Reuters.
"We received a number of wounded individuals in very critical condition, with injuries to the head, chest and legs, as well as fractures," al-Dailami added.
The renewed fighting has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce that had largely halted attacks between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis, who control Sanaa. Since then, the group has launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports and oil facilities, while Riyadh has carried out airstrikes in Yemen in support of its Yemeni allies. The conflict, a spillover from the wider US-Iran war, has revived a complex 12-year war that has produced one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. The International Organization for Migration said in October that more than 200,000 people have been displaced since the latest round of fighting began.
Cross-border fire continued into the weekend. On Sunday, Saudi civil defense lifted alerts in several areas of the oil-rich Eastern Province, including Dhahran, home to the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, shortly after warning of potential danger. The all-clear also covered Dammam, Abqaiq and the Al-Ahsa governorate. The province holds most of the kingdom's oil and gas reserves, and the Aramco headquarters suffered extensive damage in an attack in October.
Soon after the all-clear, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis toward the Eastern region. Later, multiple loud booms were heard in Riyadh shortly after civil defense issued an early-warning alert, a Reuters witness said. Authorities later said the danger had passed, and the coalition said it intercepted and destroyed two cruise missiles over Riyadh and the southern region.
However, four people familiar with the matter said a tower in Riyadh's King Abdullah financial district was damaged by a projectile. There was no immediate Saudi comment. The Houthis have repeatedly fired ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi airports, ports and oil installations, turning the US ally into a pressure point in a war that began with the United States and Israel attacking Iran in February.
