Shafaq News- Sanaa (Updated 21:29)
Saudi warplanes carried out 64 airstrikes across the Yemeni provinces of Taiz, Hodeidah, Marib and Al-Jawf over the past 24 hours, the Houthi-run armed forces said Thursday.
The Houthi military spokesman said F-15 and Typhoon jets flew the strikes from the King Fahd base in Taif and the King Khalid base in Khamis Mushait, and that Houthi forces had driven off a formation of aircraft over Taiz with locally made surface-to-air missiles.
Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition backing Yemen's internationally recognized government based in Aden, has not commented on the figures.
On the ground, the Houthis said they had regained control along the Hays–Al-Khokha axis on the western coast, advancing from Al-Jarrahi —hours after government forces announced they had retaken those same areas and were pushing toward Al-Jarrahi.
A spokesman for government forces, Colonel Majid al-Nazili, said on Thursday that troops would use “all weapons” against any Houthi movement within an area he described as a “kill zone.” He warned civilians to avoid the Taiz–Mocha road until further notice and to stay away from Houthi positions and military equipment along the route.
Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis' Supreme Political Council, cast the fighting as a defensive response and linked it to the group's campaign in the Red Sea. He said the only threat to shipping came from "reckless Saudi conduct," and urged the international community to press Riyadh to lift its blockade and halt its offensive. Al-Mashat said the Houthis had held "fire control" over the Red Sea for years and that nothing in the latest fighting had changed the situation for maritime traffic.
The Houthis also said they had freed all their captives held in Saudi-run detention along the western coast, according to Abdulqader al-Murtada, who heads the group's national prisoner affairs committee.
The clashes are among the deadliest in Yemen in years. Aid agencies say at least 194 people have been killed and 880 wounded over the past two weeks of fighting across Taiz, the western coast, Al-Jawf, Marib and Dhale, with civilians among the dead. Forces of the Presidential Leadership Council, which heads the recognized government, say they have made gains in Hodeidah, Taiz and Al-Jawf and have declared an offensive aimed ultimately at the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa.