Yemen airstrike death toll reaches 44, mostly women and children

Houthi-run health authorities said the death toll from Saturday's airstrikes near Sanaa has risen to 44, most of them women and children. The strikes hit the village of al-Shariya, east of the Yemeni capital, and left 40 people wounded, according to Anees al-Asbahi, spokesperson for the Houthi Health Ministry.

Among the dead were 21 children and 10 women, al-Asbahi said. Among the wounded were eight children and nine women. He said rescue teams were still combing the area for missing people, and warned the number of dead could grow. Al-Asbahi blamed Saudi Arabia for the attack, which he described as one of the deadliest in the latest round of violence.

The Saudi-led coalition said Monday that it had destroyed three Houthi facilities: a factory assembling components for ballistic missiles, a chemical plant producing solid rocket fuel, and an electronics workshop assembling missile systems. The coalition did not say where the sites were or offer further details.

In a separate development, Iran's foreign ministry on Monday pushed back on U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had called Iranian demands for ending the war "ridiculous." Tehran dismissed the characterization outright.