At least 27 people were killed and 36 wounded on Saturday when airstrikes hit homes in a village near Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in one of the deadliest reported attacks since fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned Houthis resumed in July.
The strikes hit the village of al-Shariya in the Bani Hushaysh district, a Houthi stronghold east of the capital, according to the Houthi-run health ministry and the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency. Most of those killed were women and children, the ministry said, and the death toll was expected to rise as rescue work continued.
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,” he said. He added that many of the wounded arrived in very critical condition, with injuries to the head, chest and legs, as well as fractures.
The casualty figures and the attribution of the strikes to Saudi Arabia rest on Houthi-run sources and have not been independently verified. Saudi Arabia’s Center for International Communication did not immediately comment, saying it would look into the reports. The death toll rose through the day as bodies were recovered, with earlier reports putting it at 11 and then 22.
The Houthis’ military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said later on Saturday that the group had carried out attacks against Saudi Arabia in response to the strikes, and to another deadly attack on a market in southwestern Yemen on Friday.
The renewed fighting has shattered a 2022 United Nations-brokered truce that had largely halted attacks between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis, who control Sanaa. Since July, the Houthis have 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 fighting is a spillover from the wider conflict between the United States and Iran, and has revived a war in Yemen that has lasted more than a decade and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than 200,000 people have been displaced since the latest round of fighting began, the International Organization for Migration said in October.
Sources: Reuters, “Houthi-run health ministry says airstrikes it blames on Saudi Arabia kill 27 near Yemen capital” (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/houthi-run-health-ministry-says-airstrikes-it-blames-saudi-arabia-kill-27-near-2026-11-07/); Associated Press, “Airstrikes kill more than 2 dozen people near Yemen’s capital, Houthis say” (https://www.ottumwacourier.com/news/national_news/an-airstrike-has-killed-22-people-near-yemens-capital-houthi-official-says/article_61ed05ac-6643-5343-bd36-88cf445f86c5.html).
