Saudi airstrikes kill 11 in Yemen's Bani Hashish, Houthi TV reports

Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported Saturday that Saudi airstrikes killed 11 people in the al-Shariyah area of Bani Hashish district in Yemen. The channel attributed the toll to a local health official and said women and children were among the dead. Al-Mayadeen separately reported initial deaths and injuries in Bani Hashish, without giving a number. Nobody has independently verified the toll yet.

Bani Hashish sits east of Sanaa, and the district name lands in a war that has been grinding on for years. The same day, Houthi-run Saba news agency said four airstrikes hit Maran district in the northern Saada governorate, blaming Saudi aircraft. Those strikes, according to Saba, targeted a bulldozer working on the Al-Buqa'a road, and the driver survived. No other casualties were reported there.

Saada borders Saudi Arabia and has stayed a conflict hotspot throughout the war. Neither set of reported strikes could be independently confirmed.

Saudi Arabia's side is talking too. The Saudi-led Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen said its air defenses intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile over the Riyadh area. Coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Maliki said in a post on X that forces brought down a missile launched by what he called the Houthi terrorist militia toward Riyadh. Earlier Houthi reports claimed more than 30 civilians were killed or wounded in airstrikes on the Al-Hadhara market in southwestern Taiz governorate.

The violence isn't only in the air. Houthi-run Saba news agency reported that more than 30 civilians were killed or wounded Friday when three airstrikes hit the Al-Hadhara livestock market in Taiz's Al-Wazi'iyah district, packed with shoppers and traders, and blamed Saudi warplanes. The agency cited a local source for the preliminary toll and gave no split between dead and wounded. Two days before that, it said seven people died when a Saudi aircraft hit a home in the same region.

Diplomacy is running alongside the strikes. Yemeni Foreign Minister Afrah al-Zouba pressed Germany and the European Union for more support to the internationally recognized government during talks in Berlin on Friday with Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Armin Laschet. Al-Zouba pushed for tighter maritime security cooperation to stop what he described as Iranian arms shipments to the Houthis, and condemned the group's siege of Taiz. Laschet, for his part, raised concerns about human rights abuses and threats to Red Sea shipping.