The strikes, conducted on Tuesday, hit five targets in Dhubab district and four in al-Masrakh district, according to the government. Fighting is ongoing in al-Shaqab, south of Taiz, the Taiz Military Axis Media Center reported.
The Yemeni Network for Rights and Freedom said the Houthis had shelled residential neighborhoods, damaging at least seven homes, and fired more than 180 projectiles across Taiz in the previous 24 hours. Among the dead was a five-year-old girl.
The strikes come amid a sharp escalation in Yemen’s long-running war. A UN-backed truce in 2022 had halted most fighting, but tensions have risen since July, when the Iran-aligned Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabian ports and shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb strait. In September, the Houthis launched a ground offensive on the port city of Mocha and seized Mayyun Island in the strait.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, warned that civilians across the Middle East are paying an unacceptable price from military operations. “In Yemen, the scale of death, displacement and damage to civilian infrastructure, including in Aden and Sanaa, is mounting at an alarming rate,” she said. The ICRC reported that at least 46 civilians have been killed and more than 130 injured in Yemen since August, many of them children.
The war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and forced the government to flee. A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.