Saudi Arabia’s civil defence said on Saturday that a number of people, Saudis and Yemenis, were killed and seven others wounded in a projectile attack on Jazan, a southern region of the kingdom, bordering Yemen.
“A military projectile fell on a commercial store on the main street, resulting in two deaths,” it said in a statement, adding that seven others were wounded.
In Yemen, medics said three people were killed and six others were injured in the coalition air raids in Ajama, a town northwest of the rebel-held capital Sanaa.
“Three civilians including a child and a woman were killed, and six others were wounded,” medics told the AFP news agency.A retaliatory coalition airstrike on Yemen killed three people and wounded six others in Ajama, a town northwest of the Houthi-held capital Sanaa, Yemeni medics said.
Yemen has been wracked by civil war since 2014 pitting the internationally recognised government supported by the Saudi-led military coalition against the Houthis who control much of the north.
Tens of thousands of people have since been killed, in what the UN has described as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Saudi's civil defence said that two people, one Saudi and the other Yemeni, were killed and seven others wounded in the projectile attack on Jazan, a southern region of the kingdom bordering Yemen.
“A military projectile fell on a commercial store on the main street, resulting in two deaths,” it said in a statement, adding six Saudis and a Bangladeshi national were wounded.
The Saudi-led military coalition said shortly afterwards that it was “preparing for a large-scale military operation”.
It responded later with an airstrike in which “three civilians including a child and a woman were killed, and six others were wounded”, the Yemeni medics told AFP.
The coalition said it would hold a news conference later on Saturday to address the latest developments.
Yemen's Houthis regularly launch missiles and drones into neighbouring Saudi Arabia, targeting its airports and oil infrastructure.
But the latest was the first in more than three years that has resulted in fatalities in the kingdom, which recorded its first death from a Houthi missile attack when a missile struck Riyadh in 2018.
It also comes as fighting between the two sides intensifies, with the coalition ramping air strikes on Sanaa.
Humanitarian crisis
Saudi Arabia and its ally the United States have long accused Iran of supplying the Houthis with sophisticated weapons, a charge the Islamic republic denies.
The US Navy said this week that it seized 1,400 AK-47 rifles and ammunition from a fishing boat it claimed was smuggling weapons from Iran to the Houthis, who are from Yemen's Zaidi Shia minority.
“The stateless vessel was assessed to have originated in Iran and transited international waters along a route historically used to traffic weapons unlawfully to the Houthis in Yemen,” it said.
On Thursday — a day after the coalition targeted a Houthi military camp in Sanaa — the military alliance said it shot down a bomb-laden drone near Abha airport in the south of the kingdom, causing debris to fall nearby but leaving no casualties.
And earlier this week, it targeted Sanaa airport, whose operations have largely ceased because of a Saudi-led blockade since August 2016, with exemptions for aid flights.
The World Food Programme said it has been “forced” to cut aid to Yemen due to lack of funds and warned of a surge in hunger in the country.
“From January, eight million will receive a reduced food ration, while 5m at immediate risk of slipping into famine conditions will remain on a full ration,” the UN agency said in a statement, adding that it was “running out of funds”.
The UN estimates Yemen's war will have claimed 377,000 lives by the end of the year through both direct and indirect impacts.
More than 80 per cent of Yemen's population of about 30m requires humanitarian assistance in what the UN says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
There was international condemnation on Saturday of the “horrific” Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia that killed two people, including a Saudi citizen and a Yemeni national.
The US embassy in Riyadh said attacks by the militia were “perpetuating the conflict, prolonging the suffering of Yemen people, and endangering the Saudi people alongside more than 70,000 US citizens residing in Saudi Arabia.”
The Kingdom’s Civil Defense said that Friday’s projectile launched from Yemen landed in Samtah, a town in the southwestern Jazan region. It wounded seven people and destroyed shops and vehicles.
“We again call on the Houthis to end their reckless attacks on the people of Saudi Arabia and to engage under UN auspices to end this conflict and bring peace to the people of Yemen.”
The Arab Interior Ministers Council said the “cowardly” attack is considered a criminal act and constitutes a war crime, “whose perpetrators must be held accountable”
The council’s General Secretariat issued a statement from its headquarters in Tunis saying the attack adds to the other crimes committed by the Houthi militia, its flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, and its continuous threats to regional security and stability.
The Arab Parliament and Gulf Cooperation Council also condemned the “cowardly act” and the “targeting of innocent civilians by the Houthi terrorist militia.”
The Arab Parliament said the deliberate criminal act flagrantly violated all international laws, calling on the UN to take firm stances toward these acts and to hold the perpetrators accountable.
GCC secretary-general, Nayef Al-Hajraf, said the Houthis continued immoral practices of trying to target civilians and civilian objects, as well as populated neighborhoods, amounted to a war crime. and said the international community must assume its responsibilities toward the Houthis’ practices.
The UAE called for taking all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian objects from the threats of the militia and said the security of the emirates and of Saudi Arabia were indivisible, and that any threat or danger to the Kingdom was considered by the UAE as a threat to its security and stability.
Bahrain also called on the international community to condemn the heinous terrorist attacks committed deliberately and systematically by the Houthi militia, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
Both countries, as well as the GCC, affirmed their solidarity with the Kingdom in all measures it took to maintain its security, stability and territorial integrity.
Qatar said the attack was considered a dangerous act against civilians, in contravention of all international norms and laws, and reiterated it’s “firm stance rejecting violence and criminal and sabotage acts, regardless of the motives and reasons.”
Yemen’s Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani said the terrorist attacks threatened the lives of the 2 million Yemenis living in the Kingdom “who fled the brutality and terrorism of the Houthi militia, impoverishment and humiliation against citizens in areas under its control, in search of livelihood, security and tranquility, and militia’s missiles pursued them.”
He called on the international community to designate the militia as a terrorist organization and prosecute its leaders as war criminals.
Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan issued similar statements strongly condemning the attack and stressing their support for Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis have been launching near daily cross-border attacks using ballistic missiles and drones to target populated areas in the Kingdom’s southwestern region, most of which are intercepted and destroyed by Saudi air defenses.