33 killed in Saudi strikes near Sanaa hours after Houthis hit Riyadh airport

At least 33 people were killed and 39 injured in Saudi strikes near Sanaa, as the Houthis claimed six retaliatory operations targeting Riyadh airport, Aramco oil facilities and Saudi troop positions.Houthi-run health ministry says airstrikes killed 33 near Yemen capital. (File image: Reuters)At least 33 people were killed and 39 wounded in what the Houthi-run Saba news agency described as Saudi airstrikes on a village near Yemen's capital Sanaa on Saturday, in one of the deadliest reported attacks since fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-aligned group resumed in July.The renewed fighting has shattered a 2022 UN-brokered truce that largely halted attacks between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis, who control Sanaa. Since then, the group has 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.In the latest escalation, the Houthis claimed responsibility for six military operations targeting Saudi oil infrastructure, an airport and troop positions. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the attacks were carried out using ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in retaliation for what the group described as deadly Saudi strikes on civilians in Taiz and Bani Hashish.The ministry said the strikes hit homes in the town of Bani Hushaysh, a Houthi stronghold east of Sanaa, and that most of those killed were women and children. A woman comforts her son as he lies on a stretcher inside an ambulance after he was injured in a strike in Bani Hushaish near Sanaa, Yemen. (Credit: Reuters) 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, who have been martyred," he told Reuters. "We received a number of wounded individuals in very critical condition, with injuries to the head, chest and legs, as well as fractures," al-Dailami added.The fighting, a spillover from the wider US-Iran conflict, has revived a complex 12-year war in Yemen that has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises globally and fragmented the Arab world's most impoverished country.The number of people displaced since the latest round of fighting began has climbed to more than 200,000, the International Organization for Migration said in October.- Ends(With Reuters inputs)