More than 70 people have been killed in fierce fighting between Yemen’s Houthi group and government forces in southwestern Taiz province over the past 24 hours, military and medical sources said Friday, as the Houthis reported 94 Saudi air and missile strikes while Riyadh claimed interception of three Houthi ballistic missiles (Xinhua, 2026).
A Yemeni government military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than 20 government soldiers and nearly 10 allied local fighters had been killed and dozens of others wounded in fighting in Taiz over the past 24 hours. The official described fierce battles across several fronts, with opposing forces engaging in close-range combat for key positions in the province. The most intense confrontations were concentrated in rural areas stretching toward Yemen’s Red Sea coast, where government forces were seeking to halt Houthi advances and prevent the group from consolidating its recent gains near the Bab al-Mandab Strait (Xinhua, 2026).
A medical source affiliated with the Houthis, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that more than 40 Houthi fighters had been killed and dozens of others wounded over the past 24 hours. “Many of the deaths resulted from airstrikes on vehicles transporting reinforcements to active combat areas in rural Taiz,” the source said (Xinhua, 2026). The Middle East Eye reported that at least 55 anti-government fighters were killed, many by airstrikes, while government sources reported 26 military personnel killed (Middle East Eye, 2026).
The Human Cost
While the military death toll dominates the headlines, civilians are paying the heaviest price. At least two civilians, including a 14-day-old infant, were killed and seven others injured Friday in separate shelling incidents blamed on the Houthi group across Taiz province. The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedoms said a woman was killed when a shell fired by the Houthis struck a residential home in the Al-Turbah area. The rights group separately said a 14-day-old infant identified as Mohammed Muheeb Saeed Abdo Qassem was brought dead to Al-Thawra General Hospital after suffering shrapnel wounds to the head. A 2½-year-old child, Ahmed Aref Abdo Qassem, sustained shrapnel wounds to several parts of his body (Anadolu Agency, 2026).
Houthi artillery shelling also targeted residential areas in the Old Airport and Wadi al-Qadi neighborhoods in central Taiz city, injuring six civilians and damaging several homes (Anadolu Agency, 2026).
The Airstrike Exchange
In a statement posted on X, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said 94 Saudi air and missile strikes had hit areas across the provinces of Sanaa, Saada, Taiz, Hajjah, Amran and Ibb over the previous 24 hours. He claimed civilian sites were among the targets and that the attacks had caused casualties, without providing a detailed toll. He said the latest attacks brought the total number of air and missile strikes recorded by the group since the current escalation began to 1,350 (Xinhua, 2026).
Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition’s spokesperson Turki Al-Maliki said on X that three ballistic missiles launched by the Houthi group toward Khamis Mushait were intercepted and destroyed (QNA, 2026).
In the southern port city of Aden, government forces’ air defenses intercepted several Houthi drones as they approached vital facilities and public service sites in the city (Xinhua, 2026).
A Strategic Chokepoint
The fighting is part of a broader escalation around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the strategic waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and a major route for international shipping (Xinhua, 2026). Clashes have intensified in Taiz and neighboring Lahj since the Houthis captured the Red Sea port city of Mocha on September 10 and Mayyun Island, also known as Perim, on September 11, expanding their presence around the strait and pushing some of the heaviest ground fighting into nearby mountainous areas (Xinhua, 2026).
The escalation has also been accompanied by renewed Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia and what the group says are Saudi air and missile strikes on Houthi-held areas in Yemen, reviving cross-border hostilities that had largely subsided after a UN-brokered truce in 2022 (Xinhua, 2026).
The UN Raises the Alarm
UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said he was “alarmed by developments in Taiz governorate, where fighting has significantly intensified.” In a statement issued on October 1, he noted that “Ansar Allah’s military operations in the area pose grave risks to the civilian population,” adding that his office had received “deeply troubling reports of casualties, damage to infrastructure, and road closures affecting people’s ability to leave the area” (UN Special Envoy for Yemen, 2026).
Grundberg noted that Taiz is the third largest city of Yemen and is currently hosting the majority of newly displaced Yemenis following recent fighting in other areas. He repeated his call on Ansar Allah to halt its military offensive and said he remained in close contact with both the Yemeni government and the Houthis on steps to urgently contain the situation (UN Special Envoy for Yemen, 2026).
The Bigger Picture
Yemen’s conflict began in late 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government (Xinhua, 2026). More than a decade later, the war has killed hundreds of thousands and created what the UN has called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The latest escalation has been described as the broadest military confrontation between government forces and the Houthis since the group seized Mokha in September (Anadolu Agency, 2026). With both sides trading airstrike claims and civilian casualties mounting, the diplomatic space for de-escalation appears to be narrowing.
For the people of Taiz, the immediate reality is not geopolitics but survival. The UN envoy’s call to halt the offensive has not been heeded. The death toll continues to rise. And the war, now in its twelfth year, shows no sign of ending.
