Child among 11 civilians injured in Houthi strikes on Saudi border: Military

At least 11 civilians, including a 4-year-old child, were injured in Saudi Arabia's southern Najran region on Thursday after a series of attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels, the Saudi military said. The attacks on the border region came hours after the Iran-aligned Houthis claimed responsibility for separate strikes in central and eastern Yemen that reportedly killed at least 30 soldiers of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government and wounded 50 others.

Yemeni officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media, said the first wave of attacks targeted camps for forces of the internationally recognised government in the provinces of Marib and Hadramout. The strikes were carried out with ballistic missiles and drones, according to Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree.

The Saudi military said the later attack in the Najran region wounded seven Saudi nationals, one Yemeni, two Egyptians and one Pakistani expat. The military's spokesman, Turki al-Malki, said in a post on X that the Houthi militia had carried out 'these terrorist attacks using indiscriminate shelling against civilian objects.' He called it a 'flagrant violation of the Customary International Humanitarian Law through deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian objects.'

The Houthis did not release any statement about the Najran attack. But in comments about the strikes on government forces, Saree said they were in response to a build-up of Saudi-backed forces in eastern Yemen. He claimed the attacks killed or injured 'hundreds of Saudi enemy mercenaries' and destroyed camps, depots, military vehicles and weapons. He also called on Yemenis to remain vigilant and confront what he called 'Saudi aggression.'

Najran is one of the Saudi provinces that has frequently been hit by cross-border shelling since the Saudi-led coalition entered the Yemen conflict in 2015. Thursday's civilian casualties are among the highest reported in the recent period.

Yemen's army said only that the attacks on its camps had left dead and wounded among its troops, without giving a death toll. The U.S. mission to Yemen expressed condolences to the families of the killed Yemeni soldiers, saying the Houthi attacks 'represent yet another example of their terrorism against the Yemeni people.'

The back-to-back attacks mark the latest major escalation since a de facto truce in April 2022 that largely halted major fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition, which backs the internationally recognised Yemeni government. The truce, brokered by the United Nations, has expired and there is no new agreement in place. The escalation underscores the challenges facing UN peace efforts.

The conflict has its roots in 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and forced the internationally recognised government into exile in Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year, and the war has since become a stalemated proxy conflict between the two sides, with no end in sight.

Beyond the cross-border strikes, the Houthis have also claimed naval blockades against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, saying these are in response to the kingdom's air and sea blockade on Yemen since 2015. The prolonged conflict has created one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, with millions of Yemenis dependent on aid and the UN repeatedly calling for a political settlement.