Saudi strikes in Yemen kill three as Houthis tighten grip on Red Sea route
Saudi airstrikes killed three people, including two children, in Yemen's Taiz province, a Houthi health official said, as the rebels seized Red Sea islands and faced war crimes allegations.
Saudi warplanes struck Yemen's Taiz province on Tuesday, killing three people, including two children, and injuring two others, according to Anees al-Asbahi, a spokesperson for the Houthi-run Health Ministry. The claim, posted on X, could not be independently verified, and the official did not specify what the aircraft had targeted.
The reported strikes come amid a sharp escalation in the Yemen conflict. The Iran-backed Houthi movement has captured the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands in the southern Red Sea, following last week's seizure of the port of Mokha and another strategic island. Those gains strengthen the rebels' ability to control a key maritime corridor and add pressure on Saudi crude exports that now rely on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The Red Sea route has grown more critical since Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in the opening days of the war with the United States. Roughly a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas normally passes through Hormuz in peacetime, and the disruption has pushed global oil supplies and prices into a more precarious position, potentially handing Iran additional leverage.
Separately, Human Rights Watch said at least three Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden between July 20 and August 24 could amount to war crimes. Niku Jafarnia, a Yemen and Bahrain researcher at the group, said that regardless of the politics involved, "attacks on civilian crews carried out deliberately or recklessly are war crimes."
The Houthis have claimed strikes on at least nine vessels over a month, including two Saudi-flagged ships and vessels flagged to Tanzania and Dominica. The rebels describe the attacks on Saudi-linked shipping as retaliation for the Saudi-led coalition's blockade of Houthi-held areas, a measure tied to Yemen's decade-old civil war. Human Rights Watch called on the Houthis to "immediately and unconditionally end all unlawful attacks on civilian ships."
In a related diplomatic development, China's Foreign Ministry said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will visit the country on Wednesday and meet with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.