Yemen airstrikes near Sanaa and a Taiz market strike kill dozens; sides trade blame

The next day, strikes hit al-Shariya, a farming village about 15 kilometres north-east of Sanaa, in the Bani Hushaysh district. Anees Alasbahi, the spokesman for the Houthi-run health ministry, first said 22 people had died, then at least 25, then 27, and later 33 killed and 39 wounded, writing on social media that people were still under the rubble. He said most of the casualties were women and children and that later strikes hit emergency workers. A report on 9 November, citing health authorities allied with the Houthis, said at least 44 had died near the capital.

Who says who did it

The two accounts conflict. The Houthis say Saudi Arabia, which backs the government and leads a coalition that has bombed Houthi areas since 2015, carried out the strikes, and they called the Taiz attack a horrific crime and asked for an independent international investigation. Saudi Arabia has not responded to requests for comment. The coalition has said in general that its airstrikes in Houthi territory target the rebels' military infrastructure.

The government says the opposite for Taiz. Its spokesman, Colonel Majed al-Nazili, said the Houthis struck the market with ballistic missiles, called it a war crime and demanded accountability. Government authorities in Taiz denied carrying out airstrikes, though the provincial media office acknowledged that the market was attacked and that there were casualties, and said markets and populated areas must be protected. It is not publicly known which aircraft were used, whether al-Shariya had any military target, or whether the same party carried out both attacks. With the Houthis supplying the figures and Riyadh silent, the Houthi account is the only one with numbers.

The Houthis said they attacked Saudi Arabia in response, without naming targets. Saudi air defences intercepted a Houthi ballistic missile fired towards the Madinah region on Thursday, and Saudi Arabia intercepted missiles aimed at Riyadh and the Eastern Province on 8 November, with a building of the oil company Aramco in Riyadh damaged in an attempted attack.

Why Yemen is fighting again

A years-long truce between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia collapsed over the summer. The Houthis launched new offensives, citing Saudi Arabia's continued blockade of their territory. The United Nations says more than 1,600 people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced since the fighting resumed in July. The war began when the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014 and has killed at least 150,000 people, counting deaths from hunger and disease.

The government launched an offensive, which it calls Operation Dawn of Yemen, on 5 October to retake Houthi-held territory. The heaviest ground fighting has been around Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, which is held by the government and has been encircled by the Houthis since early October. Residents struggle to find drinking water and food, and the UN has warned repeatedly of a catastrophe there. Last month, Houthi ballistic missiles killed at least 75 soldiers at a military camp in Shabwa province and wounded about 200 recruits.

The Houthis are backed by Iran, and the conflict now overlaps with the standoff between Iran and the United States, which President Trump calls militarily over while Tehran denies that talks are planned. Fighting in Yemen has already touched the oil market: a Houthi drone strike near Saudi Arabia's Shaybah oilfield in October helped push Brent above $110. For now, the strikes have produced competing accounts, a vow of retaliation and no sign of a new truce.