Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Pro-government forces recently launched a major offensive against Houthi rebels in Yemen

At least 20 people in the rebel-held Yemeni port city of Hudaydah have been killed in air strikes blamed on the Saudi-led coalition.

The strikes hit a fish market and the entrance to a nearby hospital, eyewitnesses and medics said.

However a Saudi spokesman said the coalition had not flown over Hudaydah, blaming the attack on rebels instead.

Six weeks ago, the Saudi-led coalition launched a major offensive to drive Houthi rebels out of the city.

Aid agencies have previously warned that any disruption to vital supplies coming through the key Red Sea port could affect millions of Yemenis, who rely on them to survive.

The Red Cross tweeted that it was sending medical supplies to help treat those severely wounded in Thursday's attack.

Among those killed or injured in Thursday's strikes were local fishermen who were attending the market on the sea front.

Eyewitnesses described seeing debris and two damaged ambulances close to a local hospital.

"The number of people killed in the two attacks has reached 20," a doctor at Hudaydah's main al-Thawra hospital told AFP news agency, adding that at least 60 people had been admitted with injuries.

Other reports put the death toll higher.

For a little more than three years, Yemen has been locked in a seemingly intractable civil war that has killed nearly 10,000 people - two-thirds of them civilians - and pushed millions to the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations.

Fighting began in 2014 when the Houthi Shia Muslim rebel movement took advantage of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi's weakness and seized control of northern Saada province and neighbouring areas. The Houthis went on to take the capital Sanaa, forcing Mr Hadi into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The conflict escalated dramatically in March 2015, when Saudi Arabia and eight other mostly Sunni Arab states - backed by the US, UK, and France - began air strikes against the Houthis, with the declared aim of restoring Mr Hadi's government.

Speaking to the BBC last month, Mr Hadi said that military intervention by the Saudi-led coalition had gone on longer than expected, but said that the alternative option was far worse.</s>Sanaa, Aug 3 (IANS) At least 20 people were killed and 50 others injured on Thursday when a Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a popular fish market in Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, a medical official told Xinhua.

The market is just about five meters away from the main gate of the al-Thawra Hospital, the official said by telephone on condition of anonymity.

“At least 20 were confirmed killed in an initial toll and up to 50 others wounded in the airstrike,” said the official.

Many bodies and injured people were still trapped inside the market as the rescue teams could not reach the other side of the market because of the continuing air and sea bombardments, he added.

The attack was the latest in a series of airstrikes launched by the coalition against Houthi targets in Yemen.

Last week, a Saudi-led coalition airstrike killed at least five people of a family in the country’s northern province of Saada.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked in a civil war since the Houthi rebels overran much of Yemen militarily and seized all northern provinces in 2014, including the capital Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab military coalition to intervene in the Yemen war since 2015 to support the government of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

More than 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war, and about 3 million have been displaced.</s>At least 20 civilians were reportedly killed and dozens more hurt in Saudi air strikes. The Yemeni Red Cross said they were sending medical aid to the area after the vicinity of a local hospital was targeted.

According to the pro-Houthi Al Masirah broadcaster, more than 20 bodies of victims were transported to a military hospital. A spokesperson for the Houthi Healthcare Ministry said that the airstrike targeted ambulance cars at the entrance of the hospital.

On June 13, the Yemeni government forces, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, launched an offensive to seize the port of Al Hudaydah from the Shia Houthi rebels. The operation continues despite the UN warnings of a possible humanitarian catastrophe. The UN has estimated that 330,610 people fled the city from June 1 to July 24.

Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government headed by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi movement for several years. The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf nations has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request since March 2015.</s>(Reuters) - Twenty six people were killed and 35 others were wounded in Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the fishing port and fish market in the Yemeni city of Hodeidah, Yemeni medical sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia and Sunni Muslim allies have been fighting in Yemen for three years against the Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of north Yemen including the capital Sanaa and drove a Saudi-backed government into exile in 2014.

There was no immediate comment from the Saudi-led coalition.</s>HODEIDA, YEMEN—Warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition fired more than two dozen missiles into this rebel-held Yemeni port city Thursday, hitting the fish market, the entrance to the main hospital and a security compound in an attack that killed at least 30 people, medical workers said. The missile strikes, which were an escalation of the conflict, came after a week of tensions in which Saudi Arabia accused its Yemeni adversaries, the Houthi rebels who occupy Hodeida, of attacking a Saudi oil vessel in a Red Sea shipping lane.

At the same time, aid agencies sharpened criticism of the Saudi coalition over civilian suffering in the city, which the coalition has been threatening to invade for months. Hours after the missile strikes, the United Nations special representative for Yemen briefed the U.N.’s Security Council in New York about a possible renewal of peace talks in the country, which the U.N. has declared the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Yemeni political factions and militias have been fighting for control of Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, since power-sharing talks collapsed in 2015 and the Houthis ousted the internationally backed government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Since then, fighting has devolved into proxy warfare, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates arming and fighting alongside a disparate group of Islamist, tribal and regional militias against the Houthis, who control Sana’a, the capital, as well as Hodeida and their ancestral territories along the Saudi border. The Saudis and their allies have accused Iran of aiding the Houthis. Iran has denounced the Saudi-led coalition for the loss of life and destruction in Yemen but denies it is arming the Houthis, despite evidence that the rebels are using Iranian weaponry such as missiles. In June, the Saudi and Emirati governments launched the battle for control of Hodeida in an effort to tip the balance of power against the Houthis. The Saudi-led coalition ignored a resounding diplomatic outcry over concern for the safety of the city’s 600,000 residents and the possibility that the fighting could disrupt supply lines for urgent humanitarian assistance to millions of others in Yemen. Aid arriving in the Red Sea port accounts for about 70 per cent of imports in Yemen, a country where two-thirds of the 29-million people rely on international aid. Less than a month later, the coalition halted the Hodeida ground assault as it faced the hard realities of urban warfare and little progress. Instead the Saudis and Emiratis said they would support U.N. efforts to find a political solution, as well as a possible formula for a wider cease-fire.

Martin Griffiths, the U.N. special envoy, offered a grim progress report to Security Council members. “Recently, and despite all our efforts, the pace of war has increased,” he said, with Hodeida becoming the “center of gravity” for the conflict. Since the assault on Hodeida started, more than 330,000 people, approximately half the city’s inhabitants, have fled, according to the U.N.

Griffiths said he planned to invite the warring sides to Geneva on Sept. 6 for a first round of consultations aimed at convening peace talks. The plan is to “discuss a framework of negotiations and specific plans for moving the process forward,” he said. Thursday afternoon, however, the Arab coalition’s aerial forces were pounding several neighborhoods of Hodeida, according to residents and aid workers. Shortly after 4 p.m., bombs hit the city’s crowded fish market, about 200 yards from Al Thawrah Public Hospital. Medics rushed to the scene trying to save lives, but then about 30 minutes later another strike rocked the street in front of the hospital, where the wounded had been transported from the market. By nightfall, medics reported that at least 30 people had been killed and that dozens were in critical condition. Sanitation workers tried to clean the targeted areas of blood and body parts. Missiles also struck security facilities controlled by the Houthis, which like the fish market is a few hundred yards from the hospital. The missile strikes on Thursday were the most intense in a series of Saudi-led aerial attacks over the past week. Earlier attacks hit targets near a reproductive health center and a public laboratory in Hodeida, and a water station and sanitation plant that supplies much of the water to the port city, according to U.N. relief agencies. “For weeks, we’ve been doing everything possible to help hundreds of thousands of people living in and near Hodeida,” Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said in a statement. “These airstrikes are putting innocent civilians at extreme risk.” Save the Children, which runs a diphtheria clinic at Al Thawrah Public Hospital, the largest government hospital in the city, criticized the targeting of heavily populated civilian areas. “We’re seriously concerned that the area is simply not safe for civilians and that people seeking help at the hospital may not be safe,” said Tamer Kirolos, the aid agency’s country director.</s>At least 55 people have been killed after warplanes of the Saudi-led military coalition hit a hospital and a fishing harbor in Yemen’s western province of Hudaydah.

Yemen’s Health Ministry said the Thursday brutal strikes also left at least 130 wounded, some in critical condition.

Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, citing its correspondent, reported that Saudi-led jets struck al-Thorah Hospital in the provincial capital Hudaydah and a fishing port in the province almost simultaneously.

According to the correspondent, the death toll was expected to rise due to the magnitude of the airstrikes, particularly on the hospital.

The report also said that the attacked hospital had launched an urgent appeal for Yemeni citizens to donate blood.

On Wednesday, at least nine fishermen were killed after Saudi-led warplanes targeted their ship off the coast of Hudaydah.

Saudi Arabia and some 20 of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, launched a brutal war, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the popular Ansarullah movement.

The offensive initially consisted of a bombing campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces into Yemen.

The imposed war, however, has so far failed to achieve its goal, thanks to firm resistance mounted by Yemeni troops and Houthi fighters in defense of the city. The war was also launched despite warnings that it would compound the impoverished nation’s humanitarian crisis.

The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced in a statement on March 25 that the war had left 600,000 civilians dead and injured until then. The war and the accompanying blockade have also caused famine across Yemen.

The Saudi-led aggression has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories. The United Nations has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

Several Western countries, the United States and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.</s>At least 20 people in the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah have been killed in air raids carried out by a Saudi and UAE-led coalition battling Yemen's Houthi rebels, medical sources said.

The strikes on Thursday, which fell close to the city's main public hospital, al-Thawra, hit the strategic city's fishing port and fish market.

"The number of people killed in the two attacks has reached 20," a doctor in the Red Sea city told AFP news agency, with other medical sources putting the number of wounded admitted to hospital at 60.

Medical sources told the Reuters news agency that the death toll stood at 26, while the Houthi-affiliated SABA news agency put the number of fatalities at 30, adding that 50 others were wounded.

"Rescue workers told journalists how they saw body parts all over the fish market that was the target of the air strikes," said Al Jazeera's Mohammed Adow, reporting from Djibouti.

"The fish market is just 20 metres away from the al-Thawra hospital, which is one of the handful of medical facilities that are still operational in Hodeidah."

Adow added that authorities in Hodeidah said these air strikes "were largely unexpected because both the Houthi fighters and the Saudi-UAE coalition had announced that they were going to cease hostilities in and around the port of Hodeidah to give UN peace efforts a chance".

Meanwhile, the International Red Cross which supports the al-Thawra hospital sent surgical supplies that will be enough to treat up to 50 patients who are in critical condition.

"These air strikes come at a time when aid agencies are warning of renewed outbreaks of diseases. The country's water and sanitation have been largely destroyed by these air strikes," said Adow.

Yemeni government forces launched an offensive to retake the strategic port city earlier in June with the help of a coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

While the coalition has been able to retake Hodeidah's airport from the rebels, its port remains in the hands of the Iran-aligned movement.

Hodeidah has been under the control of the Houthis since 2014, along with other west coast ports and much of northern Yemen.

The city's seaport was responsible for delivering 70 percent of Yemen's imports - mostly humanitarian aid, food and fuel - before 2015. Yet, the Saudis say that the Houthis, who reportedly generate $30m to $40m a month in revenue from the port, are using it to smuggle in weapons from Iran.

The war in Yemen, the region's poorest country, started in 2014 after the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels seized control of the capital, Sanaa, and began pushing south towards the country's third-biggest city Aden.

Concerned by the rise of the Houthi rebels, Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab states launched a military offensive in 2015 in the form of a massive air campaign aimed at reinstalling the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Since then, more than 10,000 people have been killed and at least 40,000 wounded, mostly from Saudi-led air raids.

In retaliation, the Houthis have launched dozens of missiles at the kingdom. Saudi authorities say over the past three years 90 ballistic missiles were fired by the rebels.

Multiple rounds of United Nations-brokered peace talks have all failed to achieve any breakthrough.</s>An airstrike launched by the Saudi-led coalition has reportedly killed at least 26 people and injured dozens of civilians in the vicinity of a general hospital in Hodeidah, Yemen.Footage from the scene of the alleged bombing shown by Yemen's Almasirah television station, which is linked to the Houthi rebels, showed what appeared to be bodies of multiple people covered by blankets., local freelance journalist Ahmad Algohbary reported.Algohbary said. Reuters sites local medical sources as saying that 26 people were killed and 35 others injured on Thursday in coalition attacks on Hudaydah port and the fishing market.The Saudi-led coalition has denied the allegations that it was behind the deadly raid on the hospital, laying the blame on Houthi rebels. Coalition spokesmanYoussef al-Hadri, a spokesman for the Houthi-affiliated Health Ministry, called the alleged bombing a "war crime" speaking to the German press agency DPA.Hodeidah, a port city held by the Houthi rebels, is besieged by the Riyadh-led coalition trying to put ousted President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi back in power in Yemen. The intervention has lasted for over three years and caused what the UN calls world's largest humanitarian disaster witnessed today.</s>SANAA (AFP) – At least 20 people were killed on Thursday (Aug 2) in an air strike at the entrance to a hospital and the bombardment of a fish market in Yemen’s rebel-held port city Hodeidah, medics and witnesses said.

“The number of people killed in the two attacks has reached 20,” a doctor in the Red Sea city told AFP, with other medical sources putting the number of wounded admitted to hospital at 60.

Yemeni government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition have been conducting an offensive to capture Hodeidah from Iran-backed Houthi rebels, but announced last month they were pausing the assault to give UN mediation efforts a chance.

Strikes have picked up again around Hodeidah since the Saudis last week said that two oil tankers operated by one of the kingdom’s companies were attacked in the waters of the Red Sea.

Rebel-run media outlets accused the Saudi-led coalition of carrying out the two attacks on Thursday, but there was no immediate response from the alliance headed by Riyadh.

The air raid hit at the entrance to Hodeidah’s main Al-Thawra hospital, one of the busiest medical facilities in conflict-wracked Yemen.

The pro-Houthi Al-Masirah television channel put the death toll from that strike alone at “30 dead” and launched an appeal for blood donations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen said it was “sending surgical material enough to treat 50 severely wounded people to the (ICRC) supported Al-Thawra Hospital in Hodeidah after vicinity targeted”.

On June 13, Saudi Arabia and its allies in a pro-government coalition launched a major offensive to retake Hodeidah, through which 70 percent of Yemen’s food imports flow.

The fighting around Hodeida has raised UN fears of a new humanitarian catastrophe in a country already standing at the brink of famine and gripped by a deadly cholera epidemic.

The United Arab Emirates, part of a Saudi-led coalition backing the Yemeni government, said on July 1 that it had suspended an offensive to take the port city to allow time for UN peace efforts.

The Yemeni authorities and their backers are demanding that the Houthis withdraw from Hodeidah and that the government retakes control.

UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths has been pushing for a deal which envisions the rebels ceding control of Hodeidah port to a UN-supervised committee.

Saudi Arabia and its allies joined Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi’s fight against the Houthis in 2015.

Yemen’s war has killed nearly 10,000 people and triggered what the UN calls the world’s largest single humanitarian crisis, with more than eight million Yemenis at risk of starvation.</s>HODEIDAH, Yemen – The Saudi-led coalition spokesman accused Houthi militia of being behind an attack that killed and wounded dozens of civilians in Hodeidah in Yemen on Thursday, adding the coalition did not carry out any operations in the port city.

Earlier on Thursday, medical sources and aid agencies said an air strikes by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia on a fishing port and fish market in Hodeidah killed 26 people and wounded 50 others.

“The coalition follows a strict and transparent approach based on the rules of international law. We pursue any allegations and if there is any responsibility we will hold it transparently,” Colonel Turki al-Malki told Al Arabiya television.

“Coalition did not carry out any operations in Hodeidah today...Houthi militia are behind killing of civilians in Hodeidah on today,” he added.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Sunni Muslim allies have been fighting in Yemen with Western backing for more than three years against the Iran-aligned Houthis.

The Houthis control much of north Yemen including the capital Sanaa and drove its Saudi-backed government into exile in 2014.

The strikes come as the United Nations tries to secure a ceasefire agreement between the warring sides.

Yemen’s Houthi group said on Tuesday it was unilaterally halting attacks in the Red Sea for two weeks to support peace efforts, a few days after Saudi Arabia suspended oil exports through a strategic Red Sea channel following Houthi attacks on crude tankers on 25 July.

Hodeidah port is the main conduit for supplies to Yemen, where around 8.4 million people are believed by aid workers to be on the verge of starvation.

The Saudi-led alliance says capturing Hodeidah would cut off the main supply line of the Houthis and force the group to the negotiating table, but it has made no major gains since it launched the offensive on 12 June.

The Houthis have offered to hand over management of the port to the world body, according to the United Nations, but the coalition says the group must quit the western coast.
Alleged Saudi-led coalition airstrikes on a fish market and hospital entrance kill at least 20 people in Al Hudaydah, Yemen. A Saudi spokesman denies that its jets were in the area at the time, and blames rebels instead.