Thirty people were killed and eight wounded on Friday when strikes hit a crowded market in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province, with the country’s Houthi rebels and the internationally recognized government offering sharply conflicting accounts of who was responsible for the bloodshed.
The Houthis’ health ministry said “several strikes” struck the market in the Al-Waziya district, an area under the Iran-backed group’s control, and that rescue teams were still searching for bodies beneath the rubble. Anis al-Asbahi, a spokesman for the ministry, said in remarks carried by the Houthis’ Saba news agency that “Saudi enemy aircraft targeted the market in Al-Waziya city with several strikes.” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree added that the aircraft had taken off from the Saudi base of Khamis Mushait earlier in the day.
Yemen’s government forces, however, rejected the Houthi account, accusing the group of firing a ballistic missile at the market and condemning the act as a “war crime.” Authorities in Taiz issued their own statement blaming “indiscriminate Houthi missile fire” and denying that any air raids had taken place in the area.
The competing claims could not be independently verified, and the discrepancy reflects the deeply entrenched information war accompanying Yemen’s renewed conflict. Taiz province has been the scene of fierce fighting since the Houthis launched a major offensive in September, and the market strike marks one of the deadliest single incidents in recent months.
Yemen had enjoyed years of relative calm before slipping back into full-scale war in July, when hostilities resumed between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government, opening a new front in the broader Middle East conflict. Since then, Saudi Arabia has regularly bombed Houthi positions, while the rebels have multiplied their attacks against the oil-rich kingdom.
Earlier on Friday, the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis said it had intercepted a drone in the region of Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, without specifying where the aircraft had originated. The Houthis have claimed responsibility for numerous strikes on Saudi airports, oil facilities and military sites, but they routinely deny targeting the kingdom’s holy cities. On Thursday, the coalition reported intercepting a Houthi missile around Medina, another sacred city — a claim the group dismissed as “slander.”
The exchange underscores the escalating tempo of cross-border attacks and the persistent risk to civilian populations caught between the warring parties. With diplomatic efforts stalled and both sides dug in, Yemen’s fragile peace appears increasingly distant.
Original Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/yemens-houthis-say-30-dead-in-saudi-strikes-on-market-12295050#publisher=newsstand
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Publish Date: 2026-11-07 03:10:00
