Houthis say Saudi airstrikes killed 33 in a village near Sanaa, then hit the rescuers

Airstrikes hit homes in al-Shariya, a farming village in the Bani Hushaysh area east of Sanaa, on Saturday (local time), killing at least 33 people and wounding 39, the Houthi-run health ministry said. Health ministry spokesman Anees al-Asbahi said the dead were 12 men, eight women and 13 children.

The Houthis blamed Saudi aircraft. Saudi Arabia did not comment by early Sunday AWST; its Center for International Communication said it would look into questions about the strikes. The casualty figures come from Houthi authorities and could not be independently verified.

The first count, from the Houthi-run local authority in Sanaa province, was 22 dead and 30 wounded. It said six homes were hit. Al-Asbahi warned the toll could rise further as rescue work continued.

What happened to the rescuers?

The Houthi-run Saba news agency said aircraft struck paramedics twice after the first strikes. Abdul-Aziz al-Dailami, director of Sehatuna Hospital in Sanaa, said rescuers were repeatedly hit by new strikes and that some of the hospital’s own medical responders were among the dead. He described patients in critical condition with head, chest and leg injuries.

Many people were still trapped under rubble on Saturday night, including first responders, according to Houthi health officials.

How did Yemen get back to war?

For four years, a 2022 UN-brokered truce largely stopped the fighting between the Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthis. It broke down in July, after the Houthis let an Iranian plane land in Sanaa in defiance of Saudi control of Yemeni airspace.

Since then the war has widened fast. The Houthis declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia, attacked its ships, territory and oil facilities, and seized Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Houthi strikes on Riyadh’s airport in October killed people and closed it for two weeks. Saudi Arabia has answered with airstrikes in support of the Yemeni government and its allies.

The International Organization for Migration said in October that more than 200,000 people had been displaced since the fighting resumed, in a country already living through one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises after more than a decade of war.

Why does it matter beyond Yemen?

This is no longer a contained civil war. It is a front of the wider US-Iran conflict, and its targets are among the most sensitive in the global economy: Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities, a capital-city airport and Red Sea shipping lanes.

That matters for anyone who buys fuel. Australia imports almost all of its refined petrol and diesel, much of it from Asian refineries that run on Gulf crude, so attacks on Saudi energy infrastructure can feed through to the price at Australian bowsers.

What else happened on Saturday?

Hours before the strikes, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed a Houthi cruise missile heading for Riyadh. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group carried out attacks on Saudi Arabia in response to the strikes. The Houthi claims could not be verified.

A day earlier, an attack on a market in Taiz province killed about 30 people. The Houthis blamed Saudi airstrikes; Yemeni government forces said the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at the market.

Yemeni government forces also said on Saturday they had pushed back Houthi assaults in Marib province.

VNN will update this story as more is confirmed.